Trip Report - United - MEL-SYD-SFO-EWR-LAX-SYD-MEL

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bjaust

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After a long run of QF only, I'm taking UA to NYC for the first time in over fifteen months. I used to fly UA quite a bit when based in NYC, so I'm familiar with the planes and lounges, which might be part of the reason I'm not looking forward to the next 20 odd hours of flying + two stopovers. Business class with four seats across the middle?

Things didn't start well. The inbound flight (UA 840) is delayed for an hour and a half before I leave for the airport. In my head, I always thought that this isn't such a bad thing as you get a little bit more time at home. Unfortunately, the email notification from UA says "Please be at the gate for boarding prior to the original scheduled departure time of 12:55 p.m., as the departure time could be revised again." So I'm in the taxi to the airport at 10:20 on Saturday morning as originally planned. Of course, when I arrive at the airport, there's no chance of the plane being on time but I guess this gives me more time in the lounge. I tried to get the checkin staff to rebook my connection SFO - EWR but they said the central reservations staff will do it once the plane leaves SYD. Sigh. I guess I have to hope it all works out - I have a heavy schedule of meetings on Sunday afternoon and then throughout the week, and starting with a post-midnight arrival into NY will not be welcome.

I've secured window seats in the upper deck of the 747-400 flights MEL-SYD (13A) and SYD - SFO (15K). In my experience, the upper deck of a 747 feels a little more private than emerald city in an A380.

I'll admit to being spoiled by the QF F lounge and so the UA lounge isn't much to look forward to. UA lounges are pretty minimal in my experience and so I didn't have high expectations. The hot food is honey soy chicken drumsticks and a couple of party pies. Luckily, Crown lager tastes the same no matter where you drink it:D The lounge is pretty crowded - I heard that the previous day's plane was cancelled.

At 12.50 the lounge angels announce that the inbound plane is still sitting on the tarmac in Sydney, so the SFO - EWR connection is looking increasingly unlikely.

I'd love to take a photo but there's so many people in here it wouldn't be polite. I need a few more Crownies before I could do that.

More updates to come!!
 
I'm going to keep following this one :)

UA across the Pacific? Going to be a bit like watching an accident in slow motion.
 
Great start. Will be interesting to see how you find UA v QF.
 
Travelled LAX-SYD-MEL with them early October in J (upper deck) and was actually more pleased with their hard product than those coughpy QF Skybed MK1 on the outbound SYD-NRT sector.
 
Apologies for the delay in updating this trip report - my week in NYC turned out to be busier than anticipated.

I'll try to post some pics later, but I'm sure there's plenty on the internet. I found the business class seat to be marginally more comfortable than a QF skybed. I'm 6' tall and the QF seats have that awkward lack of support at the feet end that makes it uncomfortable to sleep for long periods. The united seat, on the other hand, has a footwell so the weight of your feet isn't on the bed. On the downside, half the business class seats face backwards, so if that bothers you then seat selection can be a bit tough. Another challenge with the bed configuration is that the footwell is quite narrow and I found myself shifting around a bit trying to get comfortable. The entertainment system worked flawlessly and I managed to get through a couple of movies.

The upper deck on the 747 was just as quiet as I remembered it. Talking with the flight attendant at the end of the flight, he remarked that United probably should have kept buying these rather than the 787 (with all the corresponding implementation problems).

Upon arrival in SFO, I headed to the connections desk to sort out my onward flight (I'd missed the connection well and truly). No premium line at the connections desk so it was slow going waiting for the crowds to move through. The united back office systems had automatically rebooked me on a later flight, but, as the agent was printing out my boarding pass, I noticed that I was assigned seat 29C. I've never seen a business class seat in row 29 on a united plane so I queried it. I was told that, yes, it was an economy seat, but there was no biz seat available. A transcontinental flight in econ with United - the fear of it still troubles me now! I pointed out that that wasn't what I'd booked or paid for, and i could hang around SFO if needed. Amazingly, a biz seat opened up right then and so I was in my planned 1F.

Domestic united flights are pretty unpleasant. The biz seat is probably worse than a QF Y+ seat - there is no foot support, tiny in flight screens and the chaos on boarding is very unpleasant. The lack of space for bags (even in biz) means early boarding is a must. The food was adequate - the highlight being the icecream/topping/nuts served for dessert.

On the plus side, I arrived in EWR about an hour earlier than the scheduled flight time thanks to a strong tailwind. Then a car service to the Westin Grand Central and in bed by midnight.
 
I thought United were changing to a 777?
Look forward to reading more of this report, I did it in economy many years ago. I still have nightmares!
 
How did you find the J service? I did an Award F TPAC earlier this year and like you found the hard product pretty good (better than QF J, not as good as QF F).

But the service in the cabin was pretty bad. I have been told that UA FAs, with increasing seniority, get their choice of routes / cabins. The 2 in the F cabin both ways were shall we say, "VERY experienced" and clearly they didn't really give a fig about 'service' .

That TR here
 
Oz74 - I think they bought a bunch of dreamliners for their long haul but they may have pulled back? Not sure

RooFlyer - I found the cabin service on the international flight to be on a par with QF. I was offered all the wine for tasting ("Shall I take back the other unfinished glasses, sir" "No thanks, they are fine right here") but i recall that kind of service on other UA flights when I lived in NYC. It seemed on one flight that the bathroom was never going to have even the most cursory clean which gets a little off putting after a while. On one flight I recall the FA served drinks then sat down and didn't move for the rest of the flight...


I have spent six weeks at the Westin Grand Central over 2013. It’s close to the office and, for a Manhattan hotel, is not too bad (and is certainly better than the Hilton a block down 42nd). The check-in is maddeningly slow (you know I’m coming, the room is ready, you have the credit card on file, so why does it take 20 minutes and endless typing to code a key). The other odd thing about SPGis that I never seem to get any sort of loyalty status. When I’ve asked before there’s always some explanation about booking codes, room classes yada yada yada (I usually stop listening to their explanations right about now – for all I know there’s a good answer in there somewhere). Also, the housekeeping staff at this place must have a cycle where they completely do the room – but not all on the same day. Some days I’d come back to find no towels, then the next day I’d have towels but no soap. But its still my preferred hotel in Manhattan so it's not all bad.

It was a heavy week of meetings. I arrived late Saturday night and had a little walk around midtown before the cycle of preparing for meetings, the pre-meeting meetings, the pre-meeting meeting emails, the private pre-meeting planning of who’s going to say what, the meetings themselves, then the post-meeting debrief with the team, then the private post-meeting debrief debrief, the work required to make it to the next day’s meetings, and, finally, the co-ordination of diaries for the next series of meetings.

As the week was ending I heard that there was a snow storm due on Saturday, when I was due to take my afternoon flight to LA (UA 1526). This time, the scheduled connection time was only 50 minutes. This is too short – and I shouldn’t have booked it this way – but with a snow storm major delays were likely and even the shortest delay would kill any chance of making the flight from LA (UA 839) and risking getting home late. Guessing that my family would not appreciate that so close to Christmas, a $400 change fee later, I secured1F on UA 1223 which left EWR at 9am on Saturday morning. It means a 10 hour layover in LA, but I’m sure I’ll find something to do in LA for 10 hours…

Check in in EWR for United is an odd experience. If it was for QF I would be done in a few minutes due to using Platinum status to access the First class checkin and therefore no queue or only a short queue. There would be helpful staff and a priority security line and then straight into the lounge. In summary, I would have walked through the airport, stopping occasionally to do the formalities. It’s not really fair to compare Platinum on QF to my ignoble Premier Silver status on UA, but the difference was astounding. UA make heavy use of electronic check in machines (supplemented by staff) but the queuing is unlike QF, even for QF economy passengers. The UA “Premier Security” line was appallingly slow but that’s the TSA influence showing.

UA’s lounge in EWR is basically the same as SFO. Breakfast is the one meal where there is any sort of choice and quantity of food available to eat. They had bagels, doughnuts, cereal, yoghurt and fruit – every other time of day I’ve been there it’s minimal snacks. They also have this odd arrangement of having certain drinks that are free but others you have to pay for. I have a photo of the menu somewhere and will try to post it.

UA 1223 was an OK flight as United flights go. The usual boarding chaos with global services card holders, followed by groups called by numbers. QF could learn something from this as the complete lack of a priority lane when they recheck passports (e.g. for QF93) is surely easily fixed. I was very glad to have changed the flight as it was snowing heavily at 9am and I’m sure the delays will get worse as the day goes on. We had a short delay to de-ice the plan in the “ball park” area of the airport. Breakfast was a choice of three mains – I had the French toast but couldn’t stomach the sickeningly sweet yoghurt/jelly that came with it. The coffee was hot and bracing and that was the best part of the meal. On the upside, the entertainment system had satellite TV with several movie channels and normal live TV programming. On the way into EWR at the start of my week in NYC, I was watching a Rutgers college football game while we flew over the top of the stadium which was under the flight path!

The seat next to me was empty until the last moment when a young chap got on with the biggest carry on suitcase I’ve even seen. It was not much smaller than my full size suitcase. Hilarity ensued as he spent about 20 minutes trying to get it into any overhead locker – including moving everyone’s stuff around (cue dirty looks from other passengers as their carefully packed bags get crushed in the process :evil:). I was expecting that this would be the point where the flight attendant would check the bag, but instead they both spent another few minutes moving more stuff around. I’m just astonished – why bother trying to get the plane away on time if the airline is going to encourage this sort of behavior? Eventually, they accepted that no amount of pushing was going to work and the bag was checked.

A word of caution – in the biz class product of most airlines the headphones at least pretend to be something special and usually of the noise-cancelling kind. I’m not an audio guy but United have cough headphones – just cough. On the domestic sectors it was like a bad version of economy headphones on QF and the international leg was just a good version of QF economy headphones :(

The lounge in LAX was depressingly consistent with the other lounges. No showers (why do you do this United when so many travellers are coming across the continent or the Pacific???) and the odd experience of being asked to pay for things that with other airlines will be free.

From here it's Sydney, the Air NZ lounge, and then Melbourne and home. I can't wait :D
 
Great report mate!

The wife and I are off to New York for Christmas next year, looking at united J.

Have a nice Christmas with the family.
 
And will UA throw the budget out the door, let their hair down & shake it all around, gone all out, no expense spared, sheer l-o-o-o-x-ury, and put IFE in each seat in whY?, in the 777s?
 
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RooFlyer said:
And will UA throw the budget out the door, let their hair down & shake it all around, gone all out, no expense spared, sheer l-o-o-o-x-ury, and put IFE in each seat in whY?, in the 777s?
Click to expand...

lol, the 777s have always had IFE in every seat
 
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