The tidal force, curved spacetime, is what betrays the presence of a true gravitational field. When you agree that 6.6 years travel time to Vega isn't necessarily meaningless or invalid, you must also (to remain reasonable) agree that the EP applies to my lab, because the spacetime in my lab can in principle be arbitrarily flatter than the spacetime encountered during a trip from Earth to Vega. I made it a given that the tidal force in my lab is negligible.

My basis in the case of moving away from near an EH is that GR allows me to let the spacetime in my lab be as flat as I wish. If I des…