The totally off-topic thread

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I've asked the VA lounge for a bottle of water to take on board and never been declined.

There's a big difference between taking a bottle of water (or even a bottle of water, a sandwich and a chocolate) and twenty beers (or, in another case, two whole bottles of Champagne). Especially since, as you stated, you asked and was granted permission.

Well if it is a hotel lounge, there are always signs saying food and drinks may not be removed. So it is against hotel policy/procedures/T&Cs.

Even then, what is the hotel going to do? Charge your room account? I guess they could blacklist you, i.e. you won't be allowed to stay at that property or that company ever again. Whether or not that represents a loss to the customer is another thing, but as you can see that banning a customer merely gets rid of the problem without actually solving it, i.e. legal recourse or restitution against the customer, or making it known or an example that the practice is not acceptable. Again, this is a case of mostly trust and not really a legal obligation.

Well, yes it is 'legally wrong' and called theft. T&C of lounge entry etc is that all food and beverages are for consumption in the lounge only.

But there are many who think stealing from a lounge is simply their 'right'. They are 'legally' wrong, although few lounge staff would challenge them. Filling a bag with excess alcoholic beverages is not at all acceptable. Many cases this would be caught at security and items confiscated, especially in DXB or boarding international flights where there are 100 ml limits on liquids.

That depends on what is defined as "theft". If you take something that you have not paid a service to take or consume when it is clear that such an obligation to purchase exists, that is clearly theft. For example, if you walked into a cafe and ate a cake without paying for it (whether before, during or after consuming it), that is clearly theft. Whether or not the cafe has enough evidence and time to bring an action against someone for stealing a cake as such, and whether a magistrate would see fit to administer a suitable punishment for the thief, are two wholly other things. Let's not forget we live in a country where judges and so on have no idea about the ramifications and limitations of wrongdoings on an aircraft (and so dole out next to no punishment whatsoever), plus you can kill someone without pleading insanity and still only get 5-8 years.

What rights are granted to a passenger when they are allowed access into a lounge? Yes, they have T&C "responsibilities", but that said the T&Cs represent a contract and like most contracts in life, terms of a contract can be voided expressly if they are inherently illegal or grossly unreasonable. And as you've pointed out, whether or not a company and/or its staff are willing to take the time to gather evidence and bring an action against a customer is another thing.

Let's assume someone tries to walk out of the lounge with said alcohol. Assume that there is no LAG point before the gate, and ignore any rules about how much alcohol you can take on board. The lounge staff stop them and say they cannot take that out of the lounge. What right do they have to do this? What if the passenger challenges them on the legal grounds they have to (a) stop them (remember that in many jurisdictions, impeding someone for a length of time can be construed as deprivation of liberty) and (b) prevent them from taking what they have thought is their right to take (i.e. helping themselves to refreshments provided by the lounge)? Such a passenger may decide to just keep on walking on because you can't hold someone back by grabbing them (that could be construed as assault). That is besides the fact that such staff likely have to leave their posts to deal with those unreasonable ruffians, which means they are temporarily not able to do their other jobs and could put the rest of the operation or their responsibilities at risk.

As one comment on a blog post about those blokes nicking 20 beers said, if an airline raises such an incident (a mere rare person nicks a mere 20 beers) as a major concern, they reckon that the airline has much larger problems at hand than the economic loss due to stolen beer.

In the end, every unreasonable person realises all of these things which nominally grants them a free hand to be unreasonable, and they just don't care about you or anyone else. That is part and parcel of someone who lacks integrity and honour. We need people with these qualities to have a pleasant society that doesn't need rules and laws to the umpteenth degree. But from what I have seen over the last ten or so years, people are just getting more and more... "creative" as to what they can get away with in more stupendous "<expletive> you" attitudes.
 
... revenge against the airlines since the latter are so good at screwing us over all the time with unfair conditions, one-sided contracts and crying poor despite mega profits and cost cutting....

Can you please state which airlines are making "mega profits" ???
 
Can you please state which airlines are making "mega profits" ???

Well, to concentrate on the demographic of people / forumers / bloggers who think it is only fair to take whatever revenge on the big bad airlines because of what they do to passengers rhetoric, for a start all of the three major USA-based airlines (of course, all in common alliance believing that the ME3 are destroying them utterly) have all made a profit (rather large ones at that) in the previous financial year.

Even IAG, while not bumping as much as the others across the pond, is forecasting a sound year-on-year improvement and profit for FY 2017.

Granted, fuel prices may be propping them up rather than actual business or commercial acumen, but so there.
 
Is quite common with the BA lounges over here, mainly drinks as the food isn't really takeaway. Joys of BOB.... and no, I haven't done it. Can't be bothered.
 
Im guilty of taking a couple of bottles of water or coke or a small carton of choc milk from the Hilton lounge and consuming it in our room later that night but thats the worse of it.

I saw someone bring in about 8 people to the Nashvile HH lounge earlier this year, I know this because they were at the door waiting for someone to show up with the door key to let them in and he then showed them around and made out it was his private larder and they were to enjoy. Forgot about this but it was ice hockey game night so we didnt stay long.
 
Freaked out a bit yesterday when dummy bookings for a B&B for April/Scotland were booked out! Wasnt going to make bookings this soon but for some, it seems I need to.
 
Once again, as I said in another thread, this is a case of it's not legally wrong but morally and/or ethically wrong, so you can't do a thing.
It's only ethically and morally wrong if the person doing it thinks it's ethically or morally wrong.

I took 2 Crown Lagers with me on Sunday night and had them in SIN yesterday morning. Big deal.
 
It's only ethically and morally wrong if the person doing it thinks it's ethically or morally wrong.

I took 2 Crown Lagers with me on Sunday night and had them in SIN yesterday morning. Big deal.

That's like saying its ok to rob a bank if I dont think Im doing anything wrong! :shock:
 
There is a real difference between ethically/morally wrong and legally wrong. The former is dictated by one's values and the latter by the law and tested in court.
 
I think you need to be lead by the intent of the benefit.

Lounges intend for you to sit there, relax, have a drink. Its not their intent to provide alcohol for you to drink off site or provide off site alcohol for your buddies. Im guessing that their alcohol license would forbid the off site drinking all together.

Also, its the one person screws it up for everyone theory. Im guessing to stop this, drinks will be provided over the counter but first the drink will be opened by the server.
 
Freaked out a bit yesterday when dummy bookings for a B&B for April/Scotland were booked out! Wasnt going to make bookings this soon but for some, it seems I need to.

Better safe than sorry but it could just be lots of people using booking engines like Booking.com to place dummy bookings for planning etc. Worth contracting the B&B directly sometimes.
 
Better safe than sorry but it could just be lots of people using booking engines like Booking.com to place dummy bookings for planning etc. Worth contracting the B&B directly sometimes.

I did and its a wedding so I moved Eilean Donon Castle & Isle of Skye B&B overnights around and dates are good now.

You can drive from one to the other in about 2hrs but we want to stop and stay for a couple of nights to explore both areas. We've never been Contiki/see Europe from the bus window type of people so slow and steady is OK for us. I get a daily nana nap this way :)
 
That's like saying its ok to rob a bank if I dont think Im doing anything wrong! :shock:

According to the robber, they may think it is OK to rob the bank because they think they aren't doing anything wrong. Whatever they are thinking to come to that conclusion is irrelevant, though suffice to say it is likely in contravention of what we believe is good and decent.

If they are caught and try to argue that they thought they were doing nothing wrong, society is imparting at least two things on that person - one is why they believe what they did is in fact wrong, which may represent the view of the bank or its representatives why it is wrong; the other is why what they have done is wrong according to the law. When we comply with the law, in principle we are accepting that the law dictates what is correct conduct and breaking it is wrong.

Again, if a robber were to front court, they may, for whatever reason, not be convinced that they did anything wrong in any sense. It is not their will prima facie that will determine their fate (e.g. prison), otherwise our legal system obviously would not work (our system provides grounds for detaining, penalising and imprisoning people that would in other situations be immoral or illegal).

Unfortunately (or fortunately), not everything in life can go back to a court under the premise of a legal edict, so for other disputes in life, it relies a lot on trusting people and their morals/ethics/honour/integrity.
 
That's like saying its ok to rob a bank if I dont think Im doing anything wrong! :shock:
Sorry but that's not even close to being the same.

What people are saying in this thread is it's ok to have 17 glasses of champagne while you're in the lounge but wrong to take anything out. You can judge. It's ok in my book and that's all that matters.

For what it's worth I also took about 7 shaving kits and 4 dental kits with me. Oh and I also have to confess that I didn't drink those miniature bottles of Johnny Walker and Jack Daniels I ordered during the flight. They will end up as gifts.
 
If you were booking a B&B and the room had only double beds and you prefer king or 2 x twins, would you book 2 rooms and tell your spouse, "thats your room" or suck it up for one night? Bearing in mind we've never slept in a double, ever, and we're both large size.
 
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If you were booking a B&B and the room had only double beds and you prefer king or 2 x twins, would you book 2 rooms and tell your spouse, "thats your room" or suck it up for one night? Bearing in mind we've never slept in a double, ever, and we're both large size.

The Horns of a Dilemma indeed! Yes, probably. :)
 
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