Can someone clarify a question for me (have been unable to find this via searching).

I will be flying on a oneworld flight in International First Class. If I don't like that airline's lounge, can I use another oneworld lounge in the same terminal? Star have this policy but not sure about oneworld (their website wasn't of help either). I don't have status on oneworld .. so don't know if that will make a difference ...

Thanks in advance for your assistance

Its a bit of a grey area, but yes, you should have no problems access another OW member's First lounge.

The official policy is that you cannot; F access is only to the lounge of that airline. Unofficially many lounges allow access, but it varies by airline and airport. If you specify which airport and airline we might be able to speculate on how likely it would be. In general BA is the hardest and CX is the easiest. I am fairly sure that the hosting lounge does not get reimbursed for an F admission (while they do get paid for a Oneworld status admission), so they really are doing this as a favour and to be gracious.

Star and OW differ in lots of policies; this is one of them, and baggage allowance is another. Gets confusing sometimes.

Probably not. The airlines don't in practice generally allow passengers on partner airlines use their lounges -- even if you have top-tier OneWorld status (Emerald).

I've tried a number of times and have and been denied access by BA, EI, and CX at a variety of airports.

However, if the lounge is empty and the attendant is friendly, you may be able to talk your way in.

This is just wrong - as a OneWorld Emerald you have access to any OneWorld airline lounge (F or J) when flying on a OneWorld airline from that airport that day. I have never had any difficulty at all with this (except once with FinnAir in Helsinki, where they took some persuading). The only exception is for AA EXPs flying on "domestic" North American flights.

I notice though that your profile says AA Plat, which is OneWorld Sapphire, not Emerald. In this case you would be refused access to F lounges, but you would have access to J lounges (with the same exception for North American flights).

I am going to agree with christep on this one. With status there is no problem at all with getting into any OW lounge when flying any OW member airline. Where things are a little grey is when one has no status.

The only exception to this is when there are capacity issues and this is even clearly stated on the oneworld website. There are permanent capacity issues at airports like CDG so if you flying BA into LHR, with anything except BA membership, you won't get into the lounge. Fortunately these exceptions are few and far between.

CX and QF are pretty open and as long as you wave a F or J International boarding pass even without having any status, they will let you in. Unfortunately there is nothing on the oneworld site stating the full lounge access policy.

From the AY web pages:
I've had access to the IB Biz lounge a few years ago when flying AY in C without any OW status. The attendant wrote my name on a list, so I think she was going to invoice AY for it.

Good to see that someone has finally found a common policy document. Shame this cannot be found on the OneWorld website as it has answered a lot of questions that have been posed recently in this forum as well as the BA and QF forums on lounge access. Seems that as per usual the BA lounge dragons are the most restrictive and often the ones to bar access against common policy.

The requirement to show a valid ticket would seem to rule out access to most lounges; you would have to have a paper ticket, or an e-ticket that includes a sector on the airline whose lounge you are trying to access (otherwise the computers at the lounge won't see the ticket). If AY really wanted you to have lounge access, then the boarding pass would be all that is required. Adding the ticket requirement effectively removes the benefit; an interesting way to do business.

My interpretation of "and/or" is that you can have both but either one (eg. the boarding pass) should do.

International QF lounges only, or same journey international BP at domestic lounge. Domestic BP at domestic QF lounge does not give access, unless you also have Qantas Club membership or OW Sapphire or Emerald status.

That's why I added the caveat 'International' in my post.

I do wish Qantas would allow domestic Business class passengers with access to the lounge. That certainly is one policy that could do with a little enhancing (in the positive way of course).

You do not need an International BP per se. As long as the domestic sector is part of an international itinerary, then access is permitted. It doesn't have to be the same day as the international flight

Dave

Thanks for the clarification. Without the international BP you would need the ticket to verify eligibility.

Nice theory, hasn't worked in practice for me. You guys must really be good at talking your way in to lounges. (I just dropped from EXP to Plat on AA this month.)

Which lounges have folks been able to get access to on status alone?