Qantas will be restricting access to its Melbourne domestic Qantas Club while it conducts extensive renovations to the space.
Qantas is upgrading both the Qantas Club and the adjacent Domestic Business Lounge in Melbourne, with work commencing in November and expected to last until late 2018.
The construction is set to be completed in stages to allow ongoing lounge access during the renovations. However, the key question that remained unanswered until now was how Qantas would deal with the reduced capacity in the lounges (which already get quite full in peak hours).
I had hoped that Qantas would set up a temporary space elsewhere to deal with the overflow, but unfortunately that won’t be happening. Instead, Qantas has confirmed it will deal with the capacity problem by restricting access to the Qantas Club (but not the business lounge) during busy periods.
Specifically, gold-level frequent flyers and Qantas Club members will be unable to bring in a guest to the Qantas Club from 5am to 9am and from 3pm to 7pm. This will apply on weekends as well as during the week.
I asked if children will be allowed in with members / gold frequent flyers and Qantas advised that it will accommodate children where possible.
Travellers with a single-entry lounge pass (such as those offered with credit cards) also won’t be permitted into the lounge during these times.
At all other times, the normal guest access policy applies, which means that entry by guests and single-entry pass holders will be “subject to lounge availability”.
If you’re a Melbourne-based, paid-up Qantas Club member and thinking of asking for compensation, you may not have much luck as guest access is not a guaranteed benefit of membership.