I don’t fly United often, but I happened to fly United yesterday from Newark to Detroit and I had a chance to try the United Club. It’s been years since I’ve been in a regular United Club (vs. a more premium Polaris Lounge) and I was very pleasantly surprised. The lounge was bright and nicely decorated and they offered a full buffet where I enjoyed a tasty lunch.
The LoungeReview app showed me that United Clubs were available both near gate 123 and 74. Since my flight was departing closer to gate 74, I turned right at the sign shown above.
My United Business Card (which also happens to have an elevated welcome bonus right now) gives me two lounge passes per year, so I finally got to use one of them. When I scanned my boarding pass, the system automatically found my passes and let me in. As an aside, I think that the combo of the $99 per year United Business card and the no-annual-fee United Gateway card is a great combination for occasional United flyers. In addition to standard airline card perks like free checked bags; and in addition to the two lounge passes per year; the United Business Card gives you 5,000 miles each year if you also have a consumer card. The Gateway card fits that requirement.
More photos follow…
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I really have enjoyed the buffet at the C74 lounge as well
I have status and lounge access with both Delta and United. IMO, I find United to be superior in terms the lounge game. This is due to the quality of the UA lounges themselves, but also definitely due to the quality of the partner lounges as well. I fly to Asia and Oceania a lot; Singapore Air and Air New Zealand both are great. There’s also a few highlights domestically. At IAD for example, there are good Star Alliance lounges in the A/B terminal where there are no UA lounges.
Every time we’ve tried to use the free United Club passes in the last two years they haven’t been accepting them. Fortunately, we’ve always had other lounge options.