For all the bad press about US inequality (and our health insurance system is a disaster) and for all our right-wing politics (the two-party system allows the authoritarian/psychotic 30% that every country has to gain a major foothold; EU loonies and racists are split between left and right but ours have been successfully corralled to right and "the base" of a major party) I will actually go on record to say that, at heart, Americans aren't very elitist or classist.
In other countries where the rich are held to be simply better people, and act with impunity, the rules are very different. See, the Midwestern neurosurgeon in the US is, in technical terms, not a fucking prick, so he doesn't mind sharing the lounge with a guy who bought a day pass. On the other hand, some lieutenant for a third-world despot, or some unionbusting murderer in a Chinese factory, is going to be pissed if he finds out that someone from economy class was let in to the lounge. So overseas, in countries where the rich are just a lot worse, a lot of lounges have no-day-pass policies.
You can bribe your way in, but that's icky. I have no problem with cheating a large corporation, but foreign airlines are pretty awful to lounge agents who are caught taking bribes.
For all the bad press about US inequality (and our health insurance system is a disaster) and for all our right-wing politics (the two-party system allows the authoritarian/psychotic 30% that every country has to gain a major foothold; EU loonies and racists are split between left and right but ours have been successfully corralled to right and "the base" of a major party) I will actually go on record to say that, at heart, Americans aren't very elitist or classist.
In other countries where the rich are held to be simply better people, and act with impunity, the rules are very different. See, the Midwestern neurosurgeon in the US is, in technical terms, not a fucking prick, so he doesn't mind sharing the lounge with a guy who bought a day pass. On the other hand, some lieutenant for a third-world despot, or some unionbusting murderer in a Chinese factory, is going to be pissed if he finds out that someone from economy class was let in to the lounge. So overseas, in countries where the rich are just a lot worse, a lot of lounges have no-day-pass policies.
You can bribe your way in, but that's icky. I have no problem with cheating a large corporation, but foreign airlines are pretty awful to lounge agents who are caught taking bribes.