I’m waiting in Alaska Airlines’ ‘Boardroom’, their club lounge, for my short flight to Vancouver which boards in about 40 minutes. Qantas Club members don’t have reciprocal rights with this lounge, but they do sell a US$30 day pass (and it took them a while to let me know about it after I’d exhausted all other possibilities!). As I was leaving within 2 hours, the girl kindly let me have a day pass for half price. But it included the usual stuff — free wireless, basic breakfast food and drink, etc. Oh, and they appear to have Aeron chairs (or similar) at all the workstations.
My flight to Vancouver is only 50 minutes or so, then I have a 5 hour wait for the flight to Hong Kong. Fortunately, Qantas has reciprocal rights with Cathay re: the lounges, so the wait shouldn’t be too arduous. The flight to Hong Kong is about 12-13 hours, I think. Whatever. I don’t arrive in HK until around 8pm Friday night (it’s Thursday morning now), and pretty much miss most of April 3 — it’s like it never existed for me (but then I got two March 25ths, so I guess I can’t complain 😉 )
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 
Oh Rhonda, they lied to you.
Qantas does have reciprocal rights, as I use the Alaska ‘Boardroom’ all the time. They’ll tell you otherwise of course, but they’re definitely a partner. I even get to board early on all the flights with their First Class and MVP members based on my Qantas Membership.
Admittedly though, the lounge facilities aren’t great, and the one at LAX has no shower facilities, which after a flight from Melbourne I’d kill for. But it sure beats the public lounges and having to pay for Internet.
Back to Alaska… The staff never actually know they’re in a reciprocal arrangement, but I do know the LAX boardroom has a great big folder under the desk (bible) that they refer to every time I’m there…
Next time hopefully you’ll encounter knowledgable staff.
Thanks for the info, Craig! I ended up getting into The Boardroom at both San Francisco and Seattle, though I did have to pay for a half day pass in Seattle. The $15 was worth it for the free internet, basic breakfast, etc. for the 2+ hours I was waiting. I’d have paid at least that much to spend time out in the general area, especially if I wanted internet access.
I did like flying Alaska! They were fun.