European Adventure Trip Report Part 1: Lounge Ridiculousness at LAX

(This is Part 1 in a multipart trip report. For the background on this trip, check here.)

We arrived at the Tom Bradley International Terminal, checked in at the Mexicana Elite desk, and headed quickly through security. (The first-class security line was poorly enforced, but that certainly isn't anything I haven't seen before.)

Our plan was to head to the joint oneworld® lounge to spend the hour or so before boarding. We took the lounge elevator to the fifth floor and walked up to the check-in desk. I presented my AA Executive Platinum card with its oneworld® Emerald status and asked to be admitted to the club. The counter agent asked for our boarding passes, which I produced.

"You're on Mexicana. You can't use this lounge. This lounge is for Qantas, British, Cathay Pacific, and JAL only."

"But I'm a oneworld® Emerald traveling on an international itinerary."

"Yeah, but Mexicana doesn't use this lounge after 6 pm. You can use the lounge downstairs."

"What does Mexicana have to do with it? I'm a oneworld® Emerald traveling on an international itinerary. I also have a boarding pass for a flight on Iberia, which is also a oneworld® member."

We went around and around for a while. (In the interim, my wife got embarrassed and we went down to the crappy non-oneworld® lounge downstairs. I called the EXP desk, who told me I should have been allowed into the oneworld® lounge, so I got pissed and went back for more.)

After speaking to a club manager and the Mexicana station manager, here's what I learned:

The LAX club is an exception to the oneworld® rules because it's owned and operated by a third party, not by any oneworld® partner airlines. As a result, every oneworld® airline decides on whether or not to use it. Even though I am an American AAdvantage EXP, my Mexicana boarding pass was the document that mattered, and it was up to Mexicana to pay for me to use the lounge. After 6 pm, it costs Mexicana too much to have their passengers use the oneworld® lounge, so they'll only spring for the cheapo lounge downstairs.

Basically, Mexicana, a oneworld® member, was choosing to not honor my oneworld® status. (Or, perhaps, they were choosing not to grant me my oneworld® benefits.) I expressed this frustration to the counter agent I'd been dealing with (she was wearing a Qantas nametag, but who knows who she actually works for) and she said to me, "You're absolutely right. I'll get you into the lounge." This was after twenty minutes of her holding the party line and refusing me admittance, going so far as to get the Mexicana station chief (a dour and altogether impolite man named Alejandro) on the line for me. I'd like to think that she admired my persistence and agreed with the profound correctness of my position. In reality, she was probably just fed up with me (or she was as shocked as I was at how rude Alejandro had been to me).

After fighting for all that time to get in, the lounge wasn't particularly nice. It had much better food and refreshments than the generic lounge downstairs, but it was small, crowded, and poorly staffed.

(And that was the nice oneworld® lounge. The crappy generic lounge downstairs was an absolute embarrassment to the airlines who use it. The food was a bunch of shrink-wrapped sandwiches in a refrigerator case that looked like 7-11, the self-serve bar was a collection of empty wine and liquor bottles, and the furniture was ratty.)

After all this, I have two overall reactions to this situation:

1. It's kind of ridiculous that oneworld® has such a crappy lounge at such a major international gateway. LAX may not be the international hubs that are JFK or LHR, but it does have dozens of daily international departures and arrivals on oneworld® airlines. The fact that these airlines have opted for a oneworld®-branded third-party-owned-and-operated lounge is silly. If you need to really on third-party lounges (and the "access may not apply" rule) in an obscure international location, fine. But this is Los Angeles, not Timbuktu. Furthermore, aside from the food and drink, the lounge was considerably crappier than AA's T4 Admirals Club, which mostly serves domestic travelers. The oneworld® carriers should be embarrassed to present this product to their premium passengers.

2. If Mexicana wants to treat its own elite customers like crap, it has that right. But as a member of an alliance, it has a responsibility to offer standardized elite benefits to elite members of partner airlines. The rest of the oneworld® airlines seem to get this. I can't imagine AA refusing a Mexicana oneworld® Emerald member admittance to an Admirals Club. But that's basically what happened here. Mexicana didn't want to pay for me to use the oneworld® club, so it didn't. (And don't get me started by the way the Mexicana station chief spoke to me. I would never pull a DYKWIA in a situation like that, but no airline employee should speak to any passenger that way, especially a passenger holding a premium-class boarding pass and top-tier status on a partner airline.)