Major Lounge Access Change for OneWorld Elites?
 

I have held OneWorld Emerald Status (due to my ExecPlat AA status) for the past 6 consecutive years. A hallmark benefit of Emerald status is that when traveling internationally on a OneWorld flight you get to use the lounge of any OneWorld carrier, provided it is open and not overcrowded.

However, on Monday of this week, I was traveling from ORD-TXL on AirBerlin (which now departs out of Terminal 5 instead of 3), and despite both BA lounges being open and not overcrowded and despite my Emerald status clearly indicated on my AirBerlin boarding pass, I was denied entrance into both lounges. Upon nicely asking to further discuss the matter and explain how Emerald status works, I was escorted out of the BA lounge by a BA lounge by a staffer who was very rude to me and turned away from me mid-conversation. She told be that AirBerlin is an exception to the policy as AirBerlin has not worked out a contract with BA at Ohare, and that I had to use the AirFrance lounge which AirBerlin contracts out (which I went to reluctantly – not as nice as BA).

Now with an hour to kill in a mediocre lounge, I called AA to get clarity on the policy regarding emerald lounge access. The agent and I both read all the fine print together available online, and while there are exclusions such as if a lounge is overcrowded or operated by a third party, nowhere does it list AirBerlin operated flights as an exception to the benefit. Confused as I was, she placed me on hold to call her colleague at an Admirals Club, and after speaking to her, came back on the phone with me to tell me that the policy has changed and that now you only are guaranteed access to the lounge operated by your carrier.

So I presumed this may be a change to the entire program, until I landed in TXL and was allowed into the BA lounge with no problem despite the fact that I was neither arriving or connecting onto a BA flight.

So now I'm royally confused. Has anyone else had such an issue lately? I wonder if this problem is exclusive to oneworld elites traveling AirBerlin out of Ohare now that they've moved their departures to T5? Or any other OneWorld carriers out of T5? I always was able to use the flagship lounge traveling on Airberlin out of T3 and now not even being able to use the BA lounge when traveling internationally on a OneWorld carrier out of T5 is a big downgrade to the benefits of Emerald.

It's a very small lounge so I suspect they are playing the capacity card based on pax they expect to arrive. There are a few in the network that do this, but its certainly the exception rather than rule.

CX807 leaves at about the same times as the AB flight, and BA294 only a couple of hours later.

Have seemingly done it before with CX pax
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...unge-is-empty/
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...icago-airport/

BA has been known to kick out OW elites at their ORD lounges and is definitely not the norm throughout the OW system

Nothing has changed in terms of access.
https://www.oneworld.com/ffp/lounge-access

The BA ORD lounge has always done this.

I've had RJ and QR flights out of ORD. Have gone to use the BA lounge each time (much better then the AF lounge). For the RJ flight, the BA flight had just been called for boarding and they claimed the lounge was about to close, even though there was still over an hour left before the official closing time.
For the QR flight, they tried to send me to the AF lounge. I said the BA lounge was much better and pointed out the QR J boarding pass and QF Emerald status. When they noticed that the QR flight boarded before the bulk of the BA pax would arrive, they let me in.

I sometimes have to produce a physical card for some (nearly empty!) OW lounges when using another OW lounge than the one dedicated for my particular flight/airline but have never heard of this practice.

The breaching of OW rules @ ORD BA is one thing, but trust me both lounges are totally not worth the effort fighting your way in ;)

It is when the other option is the AF lounge.;)

The only policy change (as opposed to how specific lounges interpret it) that I'm aware of is that AA Flagship Lounges, after being remodeled (e.g., JFK) will allow in OneWorld Saphires, AA Platinums and Platinum Pros, and anyone flying in AA Flagship Business Class (AA's rebranded long-haul business class).

To add to the info anabolism provided, here's a link to details on Flagship Lounge including Access policies.

There is also Flagship First Dining which is available to passengers traveling in AA First on 3-class aircraft (or 4-class if/when E+ becomes a real AA product). Almost identical in concept to BA Concorde Dining at IAD, OWE does not give one access to FFD. There have been reports that those traveling in CX F ex-JFK have also been given invitations to FFD at JFK even though the rules don't specifically include them.

Flying RST-ORD-TXL as AB Gold/OW Sapphire. Can I just use the AA flagship club in T3 before switching to T5 for my AB flight?

Not by oneworld rules (Need First or Emerald for that).

However, AA have their own rules and the answer is yes:

https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/...hip-lounge.jsp (Select Qualifying First and Business Class.)

Has this changed recently? I was on LAX-JFK-CDG in J in November still as a OW Sapphire and was turned away to the Admirals Club.

Yes and no. AA is opening new Flagship Lounges and at the same time when they opened the first of the new Flagship lounges (at JFK) in mid-2017 they rebranded the old Flagship Lounges as "International First Class Lounge" until they are closed and replaced by the new and much larger Flagship Lounges. The new Flagship Lounges will also have Flagship First Dining which is only open to those flying First Class on international and TCON 3 class service.

When the new and much larger Flagship Lounges open, as the one at JFK did in mid-2017, the admittance policies also change as follows:

Starting in mid 2017, Flagship Lounge access will be extended to customers booked in Business and First Class on A321T, Trans-Atlantic, Trans-Pacific and deep South American flights, as well as EXP/EMD, PPRO & PLAT/SAP on qualifying flights in any class of service.

See the wiki in the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...novations.html thread for more info.

Sadly AA forgot to provision quality catering for FFD and the food is mostly inedible, about equal to BA J lounges and a far cry from Concorde dining. Also I can confirm that CX F does have access, rather mysteriously (I suppose CX pays for access). Sadly Concorde room access at JFK isn't available for CX F :)