sentom

i am completely supporting this trend! the LH business lounges are perfectly adequate for *G, especially if you compare them with other airlines offerings in *G lounges. SK, LX, UA, US, AC, NH, they all offer not more (sometimes even less) in their *G lounges. TG and SQ are sometimes better, but do also restrict their top lounges to their own F flyers or top status holders.

C lounges for *G and *A C flyers
SEN lounges for SENs and *A F flyers
HON lounges for HONs and LH/LX F flyers

i'd rather have that sooner than later...

NewbieRunner

I entirely agree with you which pax should be able to use which LH lounge, but the NH *G lounge at NRT has free wifi available to anybody and a better selection of food than LH business lounges. RCC at NRT also has free wifi. Both have plenty of seating - at least when I was there.

sentom

you are of course right, there is certainly good ones around. but unlike many of our frequent traveling friends, i dont think that a lounge is great just because its big (SFO RCC and SIN SKL come to mind), it of course helps if there are seats available , but pay for drinks in the one and absolutely no daylight in the other? the free wifi is an issue though.

DownUnderFlyer

Your opinion is based on lots of *A flying. What you see in FRA etc is the following: Overcrowded SEN lounges because of too many SENs and *G. So your solution is the easy way out (and most probably what LH will do). Just kick people out of the SEN lounges.

I agree with you that something needs to be done, but rather than reducing demand (=reducing eligible people) I favour a different approach.

Most of my flying is on oneworld and this gives you a different solution: Build FCL big enough to accommodate all *G.

CX, BA and QF show that this is possible. Sure, you need to triple the current lounge space and convert them into something far nicer than a SEN lounge, but it is possible. You can build lounges with cabanas, shower rooms, restaurants, quite rooms, spa, library etc big enough to accommodate all top tier frequent flyers of your alliance.

If each airline is now going back to cut the alliance benefits then the alliance becomes worthless and LH as the main *A airline shouldn't go down that route.

Improve the service and increase supply rather than decrease demand artificially. And if you want to decrease demand, then there is another way: Make Star Gold harder to get. The top status of an alliance should get you access to the top facilities of that alliance.

sentom

while this is a nice thought, where is the space in FRA for instance to do build lounges with three times the space?

DownUnderFlyer

You can always build higher. QF basically put an extra floor ontop of SYD airport to accommodate the F lounge.
But FRA is tight and all of this is not going to happen so I will continue to sit in SEN lounges of mediocre quality.

hch

Well, in case you haven't read the previous posts in the threads that's kindof exactly what's happening here. Fraport/LH is rebuilding most of FRA T1 (except for the existing A gates and the B non-schengen gates) to have a new level ontop of the existing terminal which is almost exclusively lounges, with the added benefit of also directly boarding from that level, be that through the upper jet-bridge to an A380 or via an escalator to the normal jet-bridge.

Land-of-Miles

BA do not allow access to their "real" F lounge to OW F PAX and OW Emeralds. The Concorde Room at LHR T4 is open only to BA and QF F class ticket holders and to those who hold the rough equivalent of HON status with BA.

Following the move to LHR T5 only BA F PAX and uber status holders will have access to the Concorde Room, this is very like LH's FCT/FCL concept.

Admittedly other OW carriers do not follow the same pattern but none of the other OW carriers have 3 different lounge tiers AFAIK.

DownUnderFlyer

I am not opposed to airlines having some special facilities for their top customers (like the Concord Room or the LH FCT). BTW, also QF Chairmans Lounge have access to the Concord Room irrespective of class of travel. And QF also has a special lounge only for Chairmans Club.

But the BA F lounge is a proper F lounge. Even more so in T5. Full sit down dining, lots of workstations, free Wifi, Champagne Bar etc. This compares to the LH F lounges but is accessible for OW Emeralds.

But I guess LH is only building bigger SEN lounges which don't even compare to a Qantas Club in Brisbane of Hobart.

Hennessy

Thanks for your answer. I don't think there is a FCL, will therefore head for the FCT.

Always Flyin

You are flat out wrong.

Any passenger departing from BKK on a Star Alliance flight in F is permitted access to the TG F lounge. Same thing with SQ at SIN.

The ONLY Star carrier violating this Star Alliance rule is LH. PERIOD.

If LH wants to play its own game with lounge access, it should leave Star and joing One World where that kind of crap goes on. Until then, LH should follow the rules it agreed to when joining the Star Alliance.

sentom

TG? F lounge you can use, but not the spa for instance, so TOP product, only for TG F flyers.

SQ, its completley new to me that ALL *A F pax can use the SKL. as far as i know its only SQ and LH pax who use it. but i might be wrong, it doesnt matter too much since i personally think the SKL in SIN is quiet crappy anyway. definitely no comparison to LHs offer...


LOL! since you are SQPPS5, i didnt expect anything other answer!

Kiwi Flyer

A spa is not a lounge. Apples and oranges comparison.

That has always been the case that SQ F lounge is available to all *A F, ever since SQ joined *A.

Perhaps you are getting confused with the SIN C lounge not being a *G lounge but instead there is special *G lounge (SATS in T2 and KF Gold in T3)?

sentom

yes, i was under the impression that the same goes for the F section, but i didnt know since i was always on either on LH F or SQ F

DownUnderFlyer

I actually agree with you that it is against the spirit of an alliance to restrict the top product to their own customers. And it is strange that a person departing on LH F from BKK can use the (very nice) F lounge and a person departing on TG F from FRA can only use the (not very nice) SEN lounges.

BTW, things on the oneworld side are actually better, not worse than Star Alliance. You always have access to the best available lounges as a oneworld Emerald. The only exception I know of is the Concord Room at LHR T4/T5.