United Airlines Polaris Business Class Review
On my recent trip to Japan, I experienced something new for the very first time, and it was so fun and exciting: I flew in business class on United Airlines! (I used credit card points to purchase these flights, so if you want to know how I did that, let me know and I’ll write something up for it as well!)
This post is going to be all about my personal experience flying in the Polaris business class on United Airlines for the first time. Let me know if you’ve done this before and what your experience was like!
Checking In & Polaris Business Lounge
The check-in process was really smooth and easy. Since we were at the airport pretty early, we had to wait for the check-in counters to open before we dropped off our bags.
There’s a separate check-in lane for business class guests, but since we were so early, the line was no different from any other flight class. Your check-in bags are tagged with a priority label, so maybe that means your bags are treated better?
Polaris Business Lounge
Our first stop when we got past security was the Polaris Business lounge!
On the first floor of the lounge are a lot of seating areas. There’s plenty of chairs and individual little stalls with charging ports and all that throughout the lounge. There’s a restroom and a drinks area where you can get some soft drinks and water, but that’s mostly it for the first floor.
An escalator or elevator then take you up to the second floor where there’s even more seating as well as dining options. The lounge has a bar where you can order drinks, and further into the lounge is where there is a buffet style dining area.
Since we were there in the morning, the buffet area had breakfast options like pancakes, fruits, yogurt, etc. They also had some other options like sandwiches and other snack foods along with soft drinks and coffee and tea. Items were pretty limited here, but not too bad.
At the very back of the lounge is a small restaurant known as The Dining Room. I wasn’t aware of this before going to the lounge, and it was initially closed when we arrived. But then I started seeing people queuing at the entrance and realized it’s an actual restaurant! We decided to queue up as well, and since we were early we were seated right away.
The Dining Room serves a whole separate menu of food items, and you can order as much as you’d like. Again, since it was breakfast, the menu was actually quite limited, so if timing works out for you, coming at lunch or dinner would expand your options significantly.
We didn’t want to order too much and get too full before our flight, so we just ordered one item each as well as some iced coffee.
We got the Bay Crab Cake and the Smoked Salmon Open Faced Bagel. The dish sizes are pretty small, but that’s actually a good thing since you can order more than one item and can try more foods!
I enjoyed both of the dishes. Personally, they both were quite filling because of the bread, so I didn’t end up ordering anymore, but I’m glad we got to try out The Dining Room!
The Flight
Boarding
Boarding our flight was a breeze! We were in the first boarding group (that’s never happened to me before!), so that was cool!
It was definitely nice to get in early so that I could get situated in my seat. I was of course letting my newbness show in all its glory by taking pictures and videos of every thing and getting all excited to explore my seat.
The Seats
Seating Arrangement
Screenshot of the United Airlines airplane Polaris business class seatmap. From the United website.
The business class seats on this flight had a bit of an interesting configuration. The window seats were a single seat only, and since I was flying with my partner we wanted to sit next to each other, so we opted for the seats in the center. The center aisle seats are set up as two seats next to each other, but their formation is either two seats in parallel, or two seats facing diagonally from the center (in like a V shape).
We chose the diagonal seats because I was told that gives you a bit more room than the straight-ahead seats. Because of the diagonal formation, the shared wall you have with your neighbor seat is very small (and it has a door that slides up and down as you like).
In the future, I think I’d actually prefer the side-by-side seats because my partner and I like to talk to each other and share food and all that during the flight, but because the window was so small and we were facing away from each other during the flight, it just made that a little more difficult. But it really depends on what you like! If you prefer to have your own space, the diagonal seats are very nice for that!
Seat Features
In the business class seat, you basically have a whole little pod to yourself. The seat itself is quite large and there’s so much legroom, my feet can’t even reach the footwell in front of me (I’m 4’9”). The seat reclines all the way down to a lay-flat bed and they also provide a mattress topper and pillow for sleeping in addition to a blanket and small cushion. I have to say, I never thought I’d be able to sleep on a plane laying down!
The footwell also has house slippers so you don’t have to wear your shoes during the flight and a small compartment to store your shoes so they don’t get in the way.
There’s a giant TV screen right in front of you where you can watch movies and all that, and it has a tray that pulls out from under the screen for meals and snacks.
The pod also has a little side table where you can put things, and a small compartment that contains headphones and a small water bottle. I used the cabinet to store my cables and anything I wanted handy during the flight, but didn’t necessarily want rolling around during takeoff or landing.
Amenity Kit
The amenity kit that we received on this flight was from Therabody. It was a Therabody branded fanny pack with items inside like a small pen, tissues, a towelette, some moisturizing, lip balm, socks, and an eye mask.
Not going to lie, I was really hoping we’d get the Away amenity kit with the little hard case luggage container, but I asked the attendant and those have been long gone.
Meals
For our 12-hour flight from SFO to HND, we had two meals, a hot snack, and a variety of self-serve snacks throughout the flight. Honestly, I was so full throughout the flight, I didn’t even get to try all the snacks!
First Meal
This was our takeoff meal which we had shortly after we were in the air. As is typical with most USA -> Japan flights, there’s usually a single designated Japanese meal from the available options.
I went with the seared Asian short rib, and Aldrin went with the roasted chicken Japanese meal.
We started off with a drink service where I got some cold brew (not always available on flights!) and water, and some nuts. My meal started with a little shrimp salad and some bread before I was served the main dish.
The short rib had pretty good flavor, but I felt like it had more a meatloaf texture? The meat was very soft, but just didn’t have a real meaty texture to it. The sweet potato cakes and vegetables were pretty good as well, but both were also on the mushy side. I would have liked some part of the dish to have a bit of a different texture.
I didn’t eat too much of the roasted chicken, but from what I tried, the chicken was nice and flavorful. Personally, I think I would have preferred the roasted chicken dish to the short rib.
For dessert, I got the ice cream sundae. They had lots of topping options but I stuck with some peanuts, chocolate drizzle, and peppermint bark (because December!). The sundae was a lot bigger than I was expecting and because my main dish was so filling, I found it a challenge to finish the sundae!
Aldrin also ordered the chocolate cheesecake, so I had some of that as well. I think I liked the chocolate cheesecake just a tad more. It was like a dense chocolate cake and was really good, but it was also a much smaller portion and was easier to finish.
Hot Snack
During the flight, they served us a hot snack which was either a grilled cheese sandwich or a beef melt sandwich with a tomato bisque soup. This was a super comforting, homey dish. I got the grilled cheese sandwich it was just the right amount of tasty for me and the cheese was still piping hot.
The tomato soup was rich and had a nice savory but slightly tart taste to it. You can’t go wrong with a grilled cheese and tomato soup combo!
Self-Serve Snacks
Throughout the flight, they had a station near the flight attendants’ area full of snacks that you could grab as you pleased. They had bags of chips, fruits like bananas and oranges, cheese and fruit plates, and even cup noodles!
Second Meal
Before landing, we were served our last meal for the flight, which served as our breakfast meal. For this meal we had two options: egg white bites or teriyaki glazed yellowtail. This time I opted for the Japanese meal and Aldrin got the egg bites.
The yellowtail was like a classic Japanese breakfast meal. I had the yellowtail alongside some vegetables, a bowl of rice, some pickled vegetables, and a soup. The yellowtail had a nice flavor to it and was nice and flaky, and the rice was cooked well. The soup was simple and not too seasoned, but still had a good flavor to it.
The egg bites meal was also kind of like a classic American breakfast with sausage, potatoes, and eggs. It was solid and hearty, and overall tasted great!
Service
The service was honestly what made the flight. Yes, all the amenities and space was incredible, and I’m still so thankful I got to experience. But the flight attendants on this flight were so kind and really joyful to be around. They made the whole experience even more special!
The main flight attendant that I interacted with was one of the sweetest people I think I’ve ever interacted with on a flight!
Overall Impressions
I would absolutely do this again! (But duh, who wouldn’t say that??)
I definitely saw this as a somewhat rare treat for myself. There’s no way I would have been willing to do this without using credit card points because paying for this out of pocket would have been far too much for me (I think it was about $7K per seat??).
While it was a great experience, it’s not something I feel like I need for every single flight in the future. I’m still perfectly satisfied in economy if it makes the most sense for me financially, but I am absolutely saving my points for more of these experiences again in the future.
So if you have a travel credit card that is just racking up points and you don’t know how to use them, take this as your sign to learn how to use those points to get the best deal on business class or first class tickets!!
