Had a mixed experience this morning in J from BNE->SYD. I was travelling with SWMBO (both in casual clothes - me in a polo, jeans and sneakers; her in something similar). The other two J passengers on the flight were in business shirts and pants.
Pros:
- Lounge was great, I was particularly impressed with the pancake machine. The staff were very courteous, and very willing to help. In particular, the staff were very patient with my SO making her extra-complicated coffee order (don't ask)
- Priority boarding worked very well. We came to the gate in the middle of boarding, and managed to skip the entire queue. The PB queue was self-policed, and we jumped straight to the front.
- Priority baggage worked reasonably well. While we weren't the first bag, we were among the first 10.
Cons:
- When checking in, I went to the priority check-in counter. The agent checked my card (I'm still a PS with Velocity), typed a few things and said "Sorry, you're not allowed to check in here. You have to be at least Gold". Say what? I persisted, and said that I was allowed due to flying business. Perhaps it was the early hour, but we managed to get that sorted.
- On board, the other two passengers were offered (and given) newspapers. We were a little puzzled why we weren't asked. When we politely queried this a few minutes later, the crew seemed surprised, and said that they had run out of papers. We eventually received a copy of The Australian (no choice of paper was provided) with a torn front page. I wasn't fussed, but my other half said she felt a bit insulted at the snub (which I thought may have been inadvertant).
- Things weren't going too well for my SO, she's allergic to milk and macadamia nuts. We tried putting in allergy info into our booking earlier, but with the system meltdown caused by Sabre and the SEQ storms, we didn't have time to chase this with the call centre and decided that there would at least be one option suitable for her. Unfortunately, both J meals had dairy products, as did many of the economy menu options offered. We tried ordering the muesli bar, but that had macadamia nuts in it. In the end, she settled for eating the fruit from my J meal (the fritatta, which wasn't anything to write home about).