Regardless of what you do, if you're going to buy a membership NorthWelta re branded the clubs overnight (at leas on the website, I have no idea what's happening in the terminals) to the Delta Sky Club. Dunno if that changes anything.

Yes. I had a :rolleyes: moment and neglected to paste in that photo to make it "picture-in-picture" :rolleyes:

Que black helicopter, stage right. :rolleyes:

How long is the money in their account to do anything with it? Hours? Days? I honestly don't know, but I think it's irrelevant to the point that there are legitimate ways to access the product without tricks and loopholes.

As long as it's only branding and there's no policy change for access or temporary memberships, it's all good.

Change always has critics.

I would hope that WBC catering improves - that was the worst part of my MSP-AMS flight.

When either starts serving BNA, life would get better?

Life, no. Fares, maybe.

I think you might be worrying yourself a bit too much with this AMS arrivals lounge issue. First, it is highly unlikely that the Hilton will not have a room available for you after you arrive in AMS. I can count on less than one hand the number of times I have arrived at a hotel in Europe after a redeye flight and my hotel has not had a room ready. Second, it will not take long to get from AMS to the hotel, so you won't have to go that long without a shower. I usually skip an arrivals shower as long as I don't have a long trip into the city or am not connecting to another flight, unless the arrivals lounge is something special, a la VS, AF, or the old CO BF arrivals lounge at LGW (which wasn't even that special, but the trip from LGW into London was a bit long when factoring in time from Victoria to a hotel). Finally, I don't think a morning shower is worth the cost of a temporary lounge membership. I certainly wouldn't buy one when I could just go immediately to the hotel from the airport and grab a shower. I also wouldn't even waste my time with buying a refundable ticket for the same reason - I would rather just leave the airport immediately and get to the hotel. Trust me, the showers at the KL Crown Lounge are not that exciting.

Southwest serving CLE has made a huge difference, as has Airtran serving CAK. CO was forced to match fares to key destinations - gone are the days of $1100 trips to NYC for meetings or similar priced trips to WDC or the West Coast.

Then again, gone too is my solid rational for mileage runs to Europe after meetings in NYC. It is hard to find a manager who will not approve the trip when it saves the company $500+! I think I managed 4 or 5 trips thanks to this money saving effort...

+1

Life isn't entirely bad in the BNA area. Did I mention no state income tax? My overall state tax savings (including income, sales, property, etc.) moving from MD to TN literally covers my mortgage, and I make more here.

Fares are really quite good out of BNA to the cities WN serves. Of course, that only covers domestic itineraries but we're still a lot cheaper than the "kinder, slightly-less-abusive" CVG.

I'm still able to use the hotel corollary for mattress runs - did so last week to build up Hyatt stays (and G1/G2 bonus and Platinum Extras as a result). Saved $80 a night and $20 in parking by switching hotels ...

Point taken. The 30-day lounge thing still has relevance for me and I will likely still do it, if only to get myself buzzed before departure so as to ensure good sleepy time so I can function on arrival, and to have the access so I can be with the group on departure. I have a little more than 48 hours by myself, and I'd like to be on as normal a schedule as possible.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

You have some secret for 350% returns on cash that is held for 6 hours?? I'd love to hear that one.

Sorry, but claiming that to airline could profit is way to big a stretch IMO.

No state income tax and CCW? Wow, now you've got my attention. How's the primary/secondary education? In my limited experience the states that don't overtax their residents have no money to put into education. Yes, I'm looking at you, Delaware.