I recently had the opportunity to fly United Polaris business class from San Francisco to Tokyo aboard a Boeing 777-200 aircraft. I was flying with Maisie, the Culinary Concierge as part of the 3 Cards, 3 Continents Challenge. For each of us, this was our first experience with United Polaris business class. The flight clocked in at 11 hours and 5 minutes.
United Polaris Business Class Boeing 777-200 Bottom Line
Compared to other business class products I’ve flown, the flight was pretty average. It wasn’t close to the best, but it wasn’t bad either. The reverse herringbone seats were pretty standard but with one stand-out feature: they were soft enough to be comfortable for side-sleepers like me. On most business class flights, especially when no extra padding is offered for sleep time, I find it painful to lie on my side. That was not the case here and so I was able to get decent sleep. That’s huge. Food was mediocre and service was inconsistent (I had great service on my side of the aisle and Maisie had awful service).
Pros
- Direct aisle access was available in all seats (seats were arranged in a 1-2-1 configuration).
- Seats were more comfortable than most business class seats, especially when flat
- Readers have told me that extra padding is available upon request. I didn’t know about this at the time and didn’t ask for it.
- United provided two pillows and a blanket. One was a standard size pillow and the other was a small memory foam pillow. I really loved the memory foam one.
- We chose bulkhead seating and had tons of legroom (we had previously read that bulkhead seats offer more legroom).
- A divider between middle seats can be raised or lower depending upon whether you want to talk with or want privacy from the person next to you.
- In flight wifi was very fast while it was working
Cons
- There is no privacy door
- Service was inconsistent
- Food was mediocre
- No pajamas were provided for this 11 hour flight (my understanding is that pajamas are available on request for flights of 12 hours or more)
- In flight wifi cut out for a few hours in the middle of our flight