Background:
I visited the United Polaris Lounge at LAX before my flight to Tokyo. The United Polaris Lounges are a premium lounge for international business class passengers flying on United or other Star Alliance partner airlines. Polaris Lounges can be found at Chicago (ORD), Houston (IAH), Los Angeles (LAX), New York/Newark (EWR), San Francisco (SFO) and Washington Dulles (IAD). I had never visited a Polaris Lounge before, so I was quite excited to try one for the first time.
Access + Hours:
To access the United Polaris Lounge at LAX you have to be flying United Polaris business class or business/first on a Star Alliance carrier departing to Asia, Australia, Europe or some South American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru).
The lounge is located after security in Terminal 7, between Gates 73 and 75A. The main concourse level is 3, and you can take an elevator or stairs to the fourth floor where the lounge is located. The lounge hours are from 5:30am to 11:30pm.
Entrance from Terminal
A plus for me on flying UA metal to Tokyo (minus the onboard catering obviously), was that I was just a few gates away from the lounge. If you’re flying another Star Alliance carrier they are probably departing from the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT) and that would be about a 20 minute walk to the lounge depending how fast you walk as you would have to go from TBIT to Terminal 4 to Terminal 5 to Terminal 6, then Terminal 7. Thankfully it’s all connected post security.
The Lounge:
After you pass the check-in desk, you immediately see the bar area.
Front Desk Lobby Area
Bar Area
The decor of the lounge looks luxurious and on par with the Polaris onboard look, the color palate contains the nice shades of blue and grey.
Towards the left is the main seating area, where there is a plethora of seating choices. These range from single person couches to groups of two to four person dining tables. When I visited at 8am on Friday this area was quite empty, but by the time I left at 9:30am it was more than half full. The lounge is quite small, so I’m not entirely sure how crowded it would feel if there were a lot of flights leaving at the same time.
Seating Area
If you’re visiting alone, if you go to the left side corner they have nice single private individual pods with doors, as well as plush individuals seats with nice tables and charging so you can work productively.
Cool Seat!
Now, towards the right of the bar is a dedicated customer service area in case you need help with any of your travels.
Help Desks
Dining:
Further down is the buffet area of the lounge. Since I was visiting at 8am it was breakfast time.
Start of Buffet Area
Past the buffet is the Dining Room, which prepares a full a la carte restaurant style meal.
Dining Room
The dining room of the lounge is relatively small, with just enough space for 16 guests to sit down and enjoy a meal from the à la carte menu. There is extra seating along the rotunda that looks over the airport terminal where you can also order a la carte dining. Throughout my visit, the dining room and surrounding areas were never at or near full capacity.
Since I was there for breakfast, we could only order off the breakfast portion of the menu. I opted for the egg white omelet, and it was pretty tasty. Desserts were also available during breakfast, so I tried a Flourless chocolate torte and enjoyed it! My mom also tried the Cranberry Clafoutis and she liked it. But, both of the desserts had too much whipped cream so they had to be scraped off.
I kinda liked having the easy access to the buffet, so you could have the sit down menu and grab some extra bites (like fruit or bacon) and bring it back to your table as well. There were a good amount of hot selections like bacon, turkey sausage, hash brown potatoes, impossible plant sausage, egg whites and scrambled eggs.
Overall- the food was quite good for a business class lounge and I was quite impressed.
Restrooms + Shower Rooms:
The restrooms were quite nice, and they were individual all gender rooms with a sink and toilet in each one. What was helpful was that lights illuminated the hallway to let you know which ones were available/occupied by shining a green/red light.
Just behind the restrooms are the shower rooms! There’s an attendant you check in with, and then you can use one of the six shower stalls. They come equipped with Sunday Riley shampoo and soap, as well as Saks Fifth Avenue towels and slippers.
There are also 2 semi-private nap rooms available in the lounge if you want to catch some shut eye.
The Verdict:
Overall, the United Polaris Lounge at LAX is a boutique premium lounge with a solid food offering and nice place to relax before a long-haul business class flight. It was a great experience, and it is definitely one of my favorite business class lounges. I think it has a leg up over the American Flagship Lounge, but it is harder to access a United Polaris Lounge as the Flagship Lounge also allows premium transcontinental flights like LAX-JFK, which I fly a lot.
Have you been to the United Polaris Lounge LAX? What were your thoughts? Comment below!
Cheers,
Ty
Have any questions? Comment below or email me at takeofftotravel@gmail.com. I’ve also started working with a travel agency, Fora Travel, and can assist in booking hotel stays or planning trips. You can also view all my other posts here! Thanks for stopping by!
Nice review. I visited before Polaris flight to Sydney. Ate good supper knowing on flight food is grim. Didn’t need shower but looked nice. I’ll check out Houston next year
Thanks for reading! Definitely good to eat here given the food options in flight.