I was booked on the 3:50PM flight to Johannesburg, though showed up way early, at around 12:50PM. I had some work to catch up on prior to my long journey home, so always like leaving a bit of extra time before my flight. Cape Town Airport's check-in hall is quite large, and it took me…
Continue reading: Review: South African Airways Lounge Cape Town Airport
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It would be really interesting for you (if you can) to write an article about the kinds of 'refunds/benefits/compensation' you have received from different airlines due to over-bookings from different airlines (e.g. in this case from SA)! Helps readers like myself get an idea what is reasonable.
Just an idea 😉
While the SA Lounge in Cape Town is indeed very nice, the lounge attendants (well, one in particular) have no clue about access policies. I've had two negative incidents there, both with the same lady ironically but with different issues.
The first was when she insisted on seeing my *G card in order to grant access to a guest. She said that even though the system showed I was *G, she had to swipe the card to allow a guest. After 30 minutes of argument and waiting for her supervisor, we were finally granted entry.
The second time she insisted that *G on purely domestic itineraries booked in "G" class were not allowed lounge access. After I reminded her of the previous issue we had about lounge access and how she turned out to be wrong, she offered to allow me access as a "one time exception". I said that wasn't good enough and insisted that the supervisor was called. Same supervisor who recognised me from my previous issue months earlier and chided her for once again making up rules. Lots of apologies and a comment to the agent that "we'll talk about this later with xyz" (presumably their boss).
I've also had more issues with access to the SAA Johannesburg lounges than I can remember - to the point where actually getting access without an argument is more comment worthy than the alternative. Excuses range from "Ethiopian Airlines flights are not Star Alliance flights unless the boarding pass is printed on cardboard with the *A logo" (which the kiosk boarding passes don't print obviously) to "I know your flight is 2 hours delayed but it is past the boarding time printed on your boarding pass so I can't let you enter" to "flights to Malawi on Mondays are not eligible for lounge access, but the flights on Wednesday and Saturday are ok". Yeah, I couldn't make these up if I tried.
Lucky
It's Africa ! Frankly to get good wifi is the exception, not the norm. My parents still use a 56k dialup because nothing else is available in the Eastern Cape where they live.
I have priority pass lounge access and can take guests in for free. I take random people into the lounges. Random as in if I have only talked to them for a few minutes and they seem down to earth and nice.
Do you "give back" to the community at no additional cost to you?
Great website.
Question: I have United Airlines club lounge passes as a freebie for using the United Chase credit card. Will the South African airlines lounge in Cape Town accept these alliance passes? To make it even more difficult, i am flying on Ethiopian Airlines. Good luck, huh!?!?