Bartinbrook

Today I'm flying LHR - MAN on a cheapo ticket ie no lounge access. However I do have a Qantas Club card, which has always got me into BA lounges without fail, so presumed that would be okay for T5 North Galleries lounge....wrong!

I got to the lounge and handed over my boarding pass and QC card as usual. The male dragon pressed some buttons then asked me to wait a sec. A phone call later a supervisor appeared. Then a suit. They seemed to know that the card usually permitted access to BA lounges but apparently the computer said no!

After much hoo-ha they agreed to let me in just this time

Apparently, according to the dragons, the following reasons are why my QC card is no longer valid:

This is T5,
We no longer handle Qantas,
It would be ok international but not domestic.

So can anyone please clarify what the rules are re T5? As far as I know there's no change ie my card should still be valid for entry.

Has anyone else had similar trouble?

Nylon

[QUOTE=Bartinbrook;9670891]So can anyone please clarify what the rules are re T5? As far as I know there's no change ie my card should still be valid for entry. [QUOTE]

Agreed, you should be allowed into the lounge as long as you are flying BA. I personally have found the lounge agents to be pretty useless at T5- they seem to think that all the lounge rules have changed just because they moved to a new terminal.

I went to T5 late March and we presented ourselves at the Galleries desk (1 silver, 1 gold, 2 no status) for access (we were all flying ET to GVA).

The lounge agent firstly denied 2 of us access- '' sorry you can only come in if you have gold or silver card''

I then argued (very politley) that the two card holders could bring in guests.
''err well yes the gold member can take a guest into the First lounge but not the galleries''

Que much debate and telephone call before we were all admitted.

It seemed that one of the the agents was brand new and had had sweet FA in terms of training about the admissions policies which makes your story very credible. The other agent- who appeared to be supervising the newbie seemed to think that all the rules had changed as a result of the move.

I have to say that I find it pretty astonishing that BA can put an untrained agent at the front of their lounge to deal with high revenue premium passangers- it is almost as if the management want to p..ss off their passangers.

Fraser

I'd say it sounds like another lounge dragon cockup. It seems a few have occurred since it opened (like an F passenger being denied CCR access).
http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/7010/qfffsyf4.jpg

I now carry a copy of the Lounge Access policy around with me. Sometimes outstation personnel aren't too good with the rules.

Schultzois

The Qantas Club page still suggests you should have access:
http://www.qantas.com.au/info/flying...b/loungeAccess

BahrainLad

The staff seem to have little clue about the rules. Even on day 1, a Gold was almost denied access (and his guest) when the dragon wondered "he's a Gold card holder in Club to Newcastle"* to her colleague...

(*Apologies if this is not verbatim...my memories of that day are a bit hazy...)

Smirnoff

Nope. That was the exact words (to her colleague):

"He's a Gold Card holder, travelling in Club to Newcastle. Is he allowed in the First Lounge?"

I am your witness.

And even since 27/3 I have experinced both nice welcoming friendly staff at the F Lounge reception, and grumpy nasty unhelpful staff, in almost equal proportions.

Internaut

So maybe my Qantas Club card was not such a good investment after all....

thadocta

Nah, once it is all sorted, it should be fine.

I would be getting on to QF and let them know about the problems you expereinced. Let them sort it out - qantas_club AT qantas DOT com DOT au is the email address.

Dave

xxxxx

[QUOTE=Nylon;9670943][QUOTE=Bartinbrook;9670891]So can anyone please clarify what the rules are re T5? As far as I know there's no change ie my card should still be valid for entry. The problems with lounge accessat T5 are due to 2 reasons:

1. All customer service staff are now completely multi-functional whereas this never used to be the case. This means that someone who's worked for BA for 10 years may be struggling with lounge policy due to the lackof traing on it. In truth, the new people are probably more au fait with the rules.

2. We now have T4 staff dealing with domestic flights (hence the "Club to NCL" comment) and T1 dealing with Concorde Room access with almost zero training.

The trainingsituation is obviously unacceptable but as training was limited to a very small amount of time, lounge access policy was probably at the bottom of the to do list.

Nylon

[QUOTE=xxxxx;9672125][QUOTE=Nylon;9670943]
I am sorry to keep harping on and BA bashing (I do try not to and I am not antiBA all the time!) but if what you say is true (and I am sure it is) then I am quite amazed at how pathetic the BA management are. To put people 'on the shopfloor' without this level of training beggars belief. How anyone who works in a customer oriented environmemt can possibly think that training people like this is acceptable is beyond me.

It now dawns on me just how easy it was for BA management to mess up the opening of T5- they MUST be incompetent. It is also extreemly unfair on those on the front line- going out to face the customer whith no idea of what is going on must be a very disheartening experience and my sympathies are with those staff.

Internaut

[QUOTE=Nylon;9672227][QUOTE=xxxxx;9672125]If BA's contract with Qantas Club has not changed with the move to T5 then it is sad to see badly/untrained BA employees simply making up the rules as they go along.

Fraser

I don't know how lounge wardens work, whether they rotate between doing some weeks on check-in/customer service etc...however, the BA access rules for all lounges can be explained in about five sentences, or just in case you forget you can swipe the boarding pass, or even check the lounge access policy!

I don't think there is any excuse for not knowing the fundamentals of lounge access at T5, if anything it is made easier because only BA fly from there!

sunrisegirl

All Customer Service staff receive training about the BA Executive Club in their initial training course, and this includes access to lounge policies. However, previously lounge staff were specific to the lounges and now they're not and, like many things, you often forget what you were initially trained or it becomes vague (eg. I'm hopeless on Powerpoint yet had full training on it, but never used it in my old job )

Some of us take a keen interest in the rules of access and of the Executive Club in general, and some staff are EC members themselves (including some who are silver and gold). So even though we may not all have an abundance of lounge experience many of us do know the rules very well.

As somebody else said, those who've just completed CSA training are generally more likely to remember the rules as they've been made familiar with them more recently. Others will continue to support their colleagues and offer help and guidance to remind them of these rules so that everyone is up to speed at the earliest opportunity. I do agree, however, that this should not have to be so.

You can rest assured that should I be assigned a lounge task I'm familiar with who can gain entry and to which part, and I promise to keep my fire breathing to a minimum

Schultzois

I'm pretty sure I agree with this - although there may be enough exceptions if you root around hard enough to bring it up to ten. Still, if I were in their shoes, I'd want to make sure I had familiarized myself with all the possible rules and exceptions that might come into play - bearing in mind the number of passengers who might be connecting to or from another oneworld or non-oneworld partner - before I sat down there for the first time, and if I didn't feel I had, I'd bring that to someone's attention.


Here I'm afraid I can't agree, as the OP's BP in this case said no and it should have been yes. Probably because someone on the IT side forgot about Qantas Club card holders and the fact that it falls outside standard oneworld provisions. Whatever the reason, the IT system also failed to give the correct answer, and at least the person attending the desk was sensible enough to call in someone for help and basically say "just a minute while we sort this out" rather than say "go away, you're not welcome here."

nbevan

Great that some staff get to see things from a passenger perspective, but I am curious how staff get to qualify for Silver and Gold: how much leisure flying do they have to do at what sort of fares?