How would they know anyway?

As others have stated, this is not a lounge experience, rather a lounge check-in experience.

You are disappointed they didn't bend the rules. But, IMHO the ME3 never bend any rules, ever. The front-line people you interact with typically not empowered to.

Yeah right.
I'll try to find Coop and spend a few hours in the lounge, then, once on board, invite him in my suite.
We'll see if his mother will be cheerful.
I'd rather bet police will greet me at arrival.
TV ads are so full of lies.

Surely not ....?

And there was me thinking they were 100% truthful & accurate.

I'll be watching with a whole new perspective from now on ....... :cool:

I'm surprised that she expected special treatment. 1 guest is 1 guest. I expect to see similar threads in the Amex section now that there is a guest limit to the Centurion lounge.

The rules were applied properly. End.

The whole sleepy kids/its unfair/ routine is irrelevant nonsense & a situation that you/your wife created. Pony up the cash for Business flights or the $ for the appropriate lounge access and stop whining. Simple.

where is moral low ground?

To be expected from someone from Hove and is more prosaic. Not a bad effort though :-)

No hard feelings at all! :-)

The point I was trying to make is that for a mother GC holder traveling with kids, it has now become impossible to use the lounge that she is entitled to, without forking out the money. Unlike adult guests, one can hardly 'ditch' one of the kids and use the lounge oneself.....

Thanks for the deep insight there ...

Agree. it should have been titled 'Lounge check-in experience'.

The frontline people at EK use their discretion for common sense decisions many times in my experience, quite unlike the robots one finds frequently in the US. Allowing a 3-year old child in with her mother and not demand the $50 charge, could have been one such decision. Sadly, it did not happen on this occasion. Doing it was an opportunity to create a loyal fan of the airline (which she is, albeit, a bit soured now).

^
The minor CS failing is all it is. Glad you recognise it as such.

In general, I agree. The point here though is the difference between a mother traveling with her little kids Vs a normal case of adult guesting. In the case of the mother, even if she is entitled to use the lounge, she cannot use this entitlement unless her kids are let in as well. Not the case with adult guests. So my point is that she has no option but to pay for lounge access she is normally entitled to anyway. This applies to a very small number of very specific cases of mother traveling with very young children and she has lounge access and they do not.

I just think it would be good customer service for an airline that is working to build a reputation as a family-friendly airline to recognise this.

I for one second the OP.
There should be leeway for sole adults travelling with small children, at the discretion of the lounge dragon, full stop.

I live in Asia and have many stories of strange rules you only discover AFTER the facts: I booked 12 ballet lessons for my 6 year youg, they printed 12 dates on a membership card, I mentioned she would not attend two dates because we would be on holiday, no problem sir, until after the last lesson where they tell you you lost two session being absent, 30 minutes of discussion will get you nowhere. I should have refused the membership card to begin with.
That's how you learn to live here.

The part I bolded is very strange. In my quite vast experience it is the US agents that are the most flexible of any in the world and the ME3 that are the least flexible. :confused: