Prospero

Might be useful if a BAEC Blue member who has a future First or CW redemption booking (or CE for that matter) could check what MMB has to say about domestic lounge access and post what they find here.

Tupelo

A quick point of clarification, as I'm still unclear on one part of this: Is it the consensus of everyone that the OP's brother should have been granted lounge access prior to boarding the first GLA domestic leg (since he was connecting to a TATL in F)? The example given in the link is of an arriving F PAX connecting to a domestic flight in Y, or some other economy booking class.

I have an FCO-LHR-LAX coming up with the FCO-LHR segment booked in Y, while the TATL (tight connection) is in J, and MMB does not suggest that lounge access is available in FCO. Though I'm silver now (was blue when I booked the trip), the rest of the family is not, but should be holding BPs for the onward J connection when we show up at FCO.

Thanks!

G-BOAC

It is the consensus of me and in that I am unanimous!

The oneworld example/rule quotes what you say...the sad irony being BA's own 'Connecting Passenger' rules (see the Ultimate Guide) are actually more generous, permitting exactly the use case described by the OP (and your FCO example).

HIDDY

My booking certainly shows I have access to the Galleries at LHR.

EZE-LHR CW LHR-MAN Domestic X.

Aerotec

Did the OPs Brother show his onward F boarding pass? If he just handed over his BP it would show he was Blue and they would make an automatic assumption he was not permitted entry.

When a BP gets scanned at the lounge entrance does the system flag up onward connections or does the customer have to offer that information?

rdmsmith

Yes - on both occasions but to no avail. The lounge staff effectively said the connections were irrelevant and it was all down to the booking class of the domestic sector.

HIDDY

All on the one booking I take it?

GLA

Just to confuse matters further...

I (Blue) am travelling with wife and 2 children, GLA-LHR-JFK-LHR-GLA, on an MFU from W to J, later in the summer. If I log in to ba.com and click on MMB then the itinerary/"At the airport" section makes no mention of lounges. However, if I open the confirmation email for my booking and click on the short link to MMB lounges are mentioned for all 4 sectors!

This seriously needs sorted out!

magpie37

This is exactly the same for me. I am doing NCL-LHR-JFK then back (all on one booking) and until GLA pointed this out i could not find anything about lounge access.

Due to the cost of the MFU this will probably be my first and last Business Class flight so i would very disappointed if i was not able to gain access to the lounges.

Think i will contact BA and find out what BA say about it.

rdmsmith

Well it was actually 2 online bookings, the first being GLA-LHR-MEX in F and the second MEX-LHR-GLA in J. (It would've been one PNR if the online booking engine had allowed me to specify mixed classes.)

Either way, the same-day connections were on the same booking, so I'm assuming this wouldn't have caused the lounge refusals?

HIDDY

No it wouldn't and should have got entry to the appropriate lounges.

I just wondered if you had for some reason booked the GLA-LHR separately which may have caused the problem.
As Prospero posted above it should tell you on MMB what your Lounge choices are for each flight on your itinerary but obviously not everyone takes note of that.

It really is just down to very poor Lounge staff training and terrible inconcistancies in allowing access.

Teece

The MiL had more success on her recent MAN-LHR-SFO trip. She was on an MFU booking, and the domestic leg had ticketed into H, yet had no problems getting into the lounge at MAN.

HIDDY

My last flight through MAN we were given access after a wee wait as the agent we dealt with was being given 'on the job' training by another who thankfully was fully clued up about the rules. ^

Seems to me that some staff are just not given enough time to learn the rules or they are not being properly assessed after their training.

710 77345

Lounge access is hardly rocket science - surely anyone can be trained in 30 minutes? This state of affairs is terrible.

BA1A

At the MAN lounge entrance that was probably Janet giving the training. A wonderful lady who works for the company BA outsourced all the ground handling to (company name escapes me at present - anyone?). She is always pleasant, incredibly helpful, efficient and knows all the BA rules. I have even seen her help people with onward connections by printing boarding passes they have not been able to obtain at the desks in the main terminal. If only all lounge staff were more like her.