Lounge Access w/o card

This morning the LH lounge at STR insisted on seeing my card after scanning my boarding pass. I'm nt sure why, as *G was clearly visible on the boarding pass.

I received a card about a month ago but it too still had my PMUA MP number, with an expiration date of 12/2013 (I had extended my membership by an extra year). I suspect that the 'dragon' just wanted to be scary because a dragon must, but I do not think that as long as UA has not started to mail out new cards, they will bar members from entering, simply because they too have a way of checking the validity of a membership...they can just scan your BP, which is often the only thing that I present (I am assuming that the database has the UA and CO numbers as aliases).

Well, did you show the card? Even if you had it, you should have said that you did not have it, and asked the agent if s/he did not trust that the boarding pass and the scanner that showed you as *G were legit...That is one way you begin taming the over-zealous LH lounge agents.

I did shw her my card as I had my new 1K card and we also had about 10 minutes of lounge time before we had to leave for the flight. We wanted to have time to eat something. I suspect the issue was that they scanned my daughter's BP first. We were on the same PNR. I'm not sure if that made any difference.

I received a new UC card in January with my 11-digit pmUA MP number.

Interesting that in the following thread, apparently not having a valid card meant being denied entrance:
http://milepoint.com/forums/threads...its-begin-march-3rd.26542/page-5#post-1292176

dealing with UNITED and calling the 1 K desk is a big mess. As of today, March 20, I still waiting for my 1 K Million Miler credentials.
LH in HAM and in TXL refused lounge entrance, since my old 2011 1K card expired on March 2 and my "Lifetime" Continental Presidents Club was not replaced the a new "Lifetime" United Club card. The LH rep said Continental no longer exist, therefore your Continental Presidents Club card is invalid.

Many of my friends, SILVER and GOLD received their new cards ..... 1 K loyal customer seemed to be the last one on the NEW UNITED priority list. Any suggestions what I can do ???

It was mostly speculative, with folks fearing that if they did not get their new UA MP cards by 03/03 (when the extension stickers expired), they would be denied access to *A lounges. As I have argued ad nauseam in various threads, a FF card is NOT necessary for *Gs to gain access to *A lounges. There are simple questions to ask that would quickly put the over-zealous, would-be access deniers on the defensive. Ask them whether they think the info (FF*G) on the BP is wrong and if so how they know it is wrong, i.e., what is their source? Or just simply say: "If you do not trust the info on my BP that shows me to be *G, would you like to call the agent who issued it?" Or, simply: "Doesn't your BP scanner show me to be *G? Isn't this info more reliable than a card, which could even be a forgery?" Fortunately, I have never been denied access when all I had was the BP. It is the authoritative document that even supports the fact that you are in transit on a *A flight -- a condition for using *A lounges...

You did not mention your BP. What did it say?

Lufthansa (and other partners) will refuse you if you don't have a card. You might meet an agent that feels sorry for you, but don't count on it.

This gets it backwards. There is no reason for an agent to "feel sorry" for anyone whose authoritative document, the BP, shows to be *G. One got that designation because one spent real money and earned it according to LH /*A's own rules.

I was recently in FRA and ran this little experiment that I reported about earlier in this very thread:

I have several ways to access all kinds of airport lounges so I have nothing at stake in this. I just feel that it is misleading to keep insisting that FF membership cards are required to access *A lounges when one can simply prove to any over-zealous agent that as a *G (as supported by the BP) one is entitled to enter the lounge. The only other sensible requirement would be for you to show proof of identity, which showing a passport would accomplish.

Perhaps because the BP is not the authoritative document as far as *G status is concerned. You have a failure in your logic. You state that BPs are good enough (plus ID) to access all *G lounges. To disprove that statement, I just need to find an occurrence where the BP was not enough. I state that membership card (that shows *G) + a boarding pass for a *A flight (that does not necessarily show *G status) is always enough to access a *G lounge. To disprove that statement, you need to find an occurrence where membership card + BP was not enough for entrance. Showing that it is possible with a statistically insignificant sample size to enter with just a BP and ID does not actually disprove my statement nor does it prove your statement.

No one has claimed that a BP+FF card that shows *G will not get you into a A* lounge because they will, so it proves nada. The question is, must you have the FF card to get in? My answer, yet again, is "no". Just because you are willing to relinquish your rights to an ignorant or, most likely, over-zealous agent does not prove my claim or logic wrong. There are facts: I just did the "experiment" above simply to confirm what I already knew, but I have never been refused access to a *A lounge because I did not have an FF card. As a rule, I always try to access a *A lounge with my BP (+ passport) because they will ask for it (the BP), since it is the authoritative document that (a) shows that you are in transit on a *A flight and (b) you are *G, which are the minimum and sufficient conditions for accessing *A lounges.

If in the future, if you get denied *A lounge access because you do not have your FF card when your BP says that you UA*G, I hope you will stand and fight... for everyone's sake...