On Thanksgiving Day, I went to Iceland. The 7:30 p.m. flight from JFK Airport, Terminal 7, was on Icelandair. There’s a relatively new Alaska lounge at Terminal 7 and it’s part of Priority Pass, so I was looking forward to checking it out (and having some food prior to my overnight flight).
I was warned by other travelers that this lounge frequently limits entry to Priority Pass members based on “space constraints” so I was not surprised to see such a sign when I arrived at the lounge. I was also advised that sometimes space opens, so I should just wait around a bit, which is what I did.
It was around 4 p.m. The representative at the desk informed us that the lounge, which would be closing early at 5 p.m. for Thanksgiving, was presently over-capacity. He said that, if people leave, he’d let us in.
But no one left. No one. Not a soul.
Finally, at about 4:30 p.m, he decided to let us in. I expected to see throngs of people throughout the lounge (reminiscent of my experience with, for example, the American Express Centurion Lounge in Miami). But, there was no one. There was literally no one in the lounge, except for a few employees who were sneering at us for being there. There was no food. There were no beverages.
It was a ghost lounge.
A few employees saw us and said, in a less than pleasant manner, Who let you in? We’re closing early.
I don’t know what time they cleared out the lounge, but it was certainly long before 5 p.m., or even 4 p.m. Maybe they didn’t let any guests in all day, I have no idea.
I have no objection to a business closing or closing early for a holiday, but to entirely shut down a lounge hours before the early closing time – based upon phantom claims of overcapacity – is dishonest and wrong.
Anyway, we were told they were locking up at 4:40 p.m. One employee, Kristy, took pity on us and sent us on our way with a little take away bag containing a few cookies and snacks.
Has this ever happened to you?
A New York frequent flyer who elegantly combines her passions for worldwide travel, running a gazillion marathons all over the globe and staying fit ... without sacrificing her fancy for good wine and food.
Sounds like a similar attitude like when FA say “we’re here primarily for your safety” as an excuse instead of saying “screw you, we are the boss and you do what we say or you are interfering with the crew”. If FA’s were primarily there for safety, they would be wearing air force type jumpsuits and low heeled shoes.
I’m not sure I see the parallel, but thank you so much for your comment.
Did you contact AS about this? Because that’s ridiculous. For that whole hour (maybe more) it sounds like AS paid the employees to literally do nothing.
I had a sort of similar experience at the Centurion lounge in Sea, a couple days before TG. Centurion staff said they were over capacity and took our name on a waiting list. We returned a half hour later and got in. I headed straight to the bar which had no lineup. I chatted with the bartender, offering a “it must be crazy here today, hopefully your shift isn’t too long”, to which she replied that is was dead today and they weren’t letting in enough people. Sure enough, looking around it was easy to find a seat and capacity was less than any normal business day without capacity constraints. The SEA centurion I guess is crowded in the best of time, but seems like the capacity controls were excessive or premature.
I am Alaska MVP Gold 75. Alaska lounges are literally the WORST in the country. Sometimes, the staff is nice, but the amenities are “Beyond” (Alaska’s tagline) embarrassing. I pay for the Alaska lounge, but only so I can access AA lounges (it’s cheaper). In Seattle, Portland, and LA I always skip the AS lounge-they’re awful.
I have been to the JFK lounge. The space is attractive, but the amenities and service really look just like the pictures here, even when they are open! There are few staff (none of them trained on the AS computer system so they can’t even answer basic schedule questions), there is almost no food (white bread rolls were the main attraction, alongside an iceberg lettuce salad bar designed for ONE person).
It’s embarrasing. Alaska’s approach is to be REALLY nice, but deliver a sub par product on nearly every level.
To say you can’t come in due to capacity issues when the staff just want to leave early is really inappropriate, We fly AS a lot, and we almost always have good experiences when flying out of PDX. That is, with check-in, boarding, getting something changed at the gate, and the actual flying part. The lounges are a totally different story.
AS lounges have never been very good, but to me it is just part of the bigger problem of the airlines and credit card companies promising perks even though they can’t handle the interest/capacity the perks generate. Not all that different from trying to find award space….
From the pics I saw on twitter, looks like at least you really enjoyed Iceland, even if the trip got off to an odd start.