Is the United Airlines Premium Plus offering worth it? I flew this from San Francisco to Auckland, a 13 hour long-haul, red-eye flight. My overall thoughts are United has got it wrong, very wrong.
Check In
Premium Plus passengers receive Premier Access, and a discounted
entrance fee is available for United Club. Checking in via the app is also seamless,
and Premier Access is prominently displayed on the purple Google Pay boarding
pass — a nice touch.
I had a prior nearly missed domestic connection, so wasn’t able to
experience the full check-in process, but prior connections can access one of
the United lounges at the international terminal.
Boarding
Premium Plus passengers board with Zone 2. This is the same
as Premier / Star Alliance Silver, and ahead of the wider Economy passengers,
but behind Star Alliance Gold and Polaris. I joined the boarding process after
boarding had just closed due to a very tight connection, and was very
disappointed onboard with carry on baggage — economy passengers were coming
back up the aisle to store their bags in the premium section, and UA crew were
not prioritizing my own carry on to be stored above my seat despite knowing I’d
make the flight from ground crew. Their unhelpful advice was for me to find
space in the Polaris cabin or re-organise the overhead bins. After re-adjusting
other people’s luggage and getting evil eyes from the other passengers, I
managed to *just* find some space. Not a very premium start to boarding.
There is no welcome drink or hot towel in Premium Plus, this wasn’t
unexpected, but would have been nice, given it’s offered by their partner Air
New Zealand on the same route, and standard practice across most carriers in
their premium cabins.
My center console also had the last person’s packaged food still inside
it! I almost mistook it for a premium snack, not a good start for
cleanliness.
Seat
I had seat 22A on the 777–300, the last window seat. The Premium Plus
seat is fantastic. It has 38" of pitch, 18.5" of width, and 6"
of recline. You can comfortably be seated and cross your legs without touching
the seat in-front of you. The material of the seat is also cushioned and
comfortable, and there is ample room between your seat an the window, providing
a spacious feeling.
I slept well over the 13hr flight, and the seat material, recline, and
leg rest definitely helps. It is one of the more comfortable premium economy
seats I’ve felt. This alone for me justifies the cost of the Premium Plus
package, and makes up for the many shortcomings.
There are some major drawbacks with the seat that frequent travelers
will be annoyed about.
1.
Custom headphone jacks: United uses a
weird headphone jack, not the 3.5mm standard or the usual 2 prong found on most
airlines, but a narrow 2-prong fixture that can only be used with their noise
cancelling headphones, which are subpar to anything you’ll bring onboard. My
neighbor and I were so confused that we asked a flight attendant, who told us
we had to use their headsets. I find this unacceptable in today’s day and age
where everyone has a Bose QC or Sony XMs.
2.
Bottomless seat pocket: The seat pocket is
not stitched at the bottom, so any loose item you place in it will slide to the
bottom and be shot straight under the seat in front of you. I had to unbuckle
and crawl under to retrieve my watch and glasses — not a very elegant moment!
3.
Immovable footrest: The footrest moved all
of 2 inches. Totally useless. Nobody could figure out how to bring it down. I
honestly have no idea why United did this.
4.
2–4–2 layout: 1/4 of the cabin gets middle
seats, and though this is standard across every other Premium cabin I’ve flown
in, it’s still not an enjoyable experience to pay a significant premium to sit
in a middle seat.
Amenities and IFE
As soon as you sit down, you will marvel at the 13.3 inch HD display,
which is very responsive, and beautiful to use. Everything was bright, crisp
and overall awesome. Lighting, cabin crew calls, volume, and brightness can all
be controlled from the screen, and it was a pleasure to use.
You also receive Saks Fifth Avenue pillows and blankets — they’re
definitely nicer than what you get in economy, though they’re pretty standard
in terms of what other airlines offer in premium cabins. They did contribute to
a great night’s sleep, which is what matters.
I was on a special Star Wars branded flight, and received a Star Wars
branded amenity Kit, with a faux-leather envelope containing earplugs, dental
kit, lip balm, socks, and hand cream.
Premium Plus passengers use the economy lavatories, and there is one
just behind the PP cabin. Standard fare here — nothing to write home about, and
the lavatories were generally quite clean.
Although there is WiFi onboard, Premium Plus passengers do not receive
complimentary access.
Food and Beverage
Terrible. Quite possibly the worst premium service I’ve received in all
my years of travel. United isn’t renowned for its cuisine or service, but this
was like United wanted the slogan #FlyTheHungrySkies. Even low cost carrier
AirAsia did a better job in their Premium cabin short-haul than United on this
flight. Being a long-haul red-eye, dinner and breakfast were to be served on
this flight. Let’s begin…
The good news is you're given proper silverware. The bad news is the menu card has no bearing on what you're about to experience.
Firstly, forget the almonds, they must be ghost almonds, because they
never appeared. While you’re at it, forget the ravioli too. The chef must have
taken the day off, because the only choice you got was
the chicken. That’s right, the cabin crew waltzed down the aisle passing
out complete trays with the chicken dish, no questions asked. Don’t want the
chicken? Tough luck my friend. You can find solace that every other item on the
tray, the salad, bread, cookie, are all part of the economy tray too. And in
case you though they saved the best for last, the desert is rock hard lemon
sorbet, exactly the same as economy (because I flew in that cabin on the exact
route 2 weeks prior).
The worst part dinner was the drinks options — I’m not sure what was going on here, but the flight attendant didn’t know their wine options, and when asked for the Shiraz, they suddenly had none available, and poured the Syrah instead — into a plastic cup despite glassware sitting on my tray. When I looked at the glassware hesitantly, she did one better and poured another round into the glass. I appreciate the generosity, but she didn’t appreciate it when I said I didn’t want more than one serving of wine. This might sound like a premium world problem, and it definitely is, but the little things do matter for service in a premium cabin.
Though snacks were mentioned, I was fast asleep on the very comfortable
seat and probably missed the service, though there were United standard
pretzels available in the economy galley. Most other airlines will stow the
snacks in your seat if you’re asleep, but not here, you snooze, you lose!
In the morning an hour before arrival into Auckland, breakfast was
served. Everyone gets cornflakes, strawberry yogurt, long-life milk, biscotti,
croissant and a fruit platter. But now, for the main, you get the choice of
omelette, Pancakes or fruit platter. Think you got lucky? Well, my friend,
here’s how your 3 options pan out:
1. Omelette: What I ordered, apparently they
“ran out” of the big ones, and had to give me the small version (being last row
of PP), not a big deal and I wouldn’t have known if they hadn’t told me, bit
why have two different sizes in the first place?
2. Pancakes: As passengers asked for this,
the crew would politely inform them that this was an economy offering, and the
answer varied from not an option to “we’ll bring one from the back”. Why in the
world would you announce this as an option if it wasn’t really an option?
3. Fruit platter: The poor man next to me
ordered this, and boy was he confused when the flight attendant just passed him
a tray! Yes. That’s right, ordering the fruit platter means you just get the
tray with all the contents of options 1 and 2, minus the actual fruit or any
such main meal.
Breakfast Omelette
The other breakfast
dishes
Both dishes were mediocre, nothing to write home about, but sufficient
for economy class.
Clearing of trays also took a very long time — the crew must have had
to serve economy, because it was 50 minutes before they returned for
collection.
Finally — they provided a lot of small water bottles throughout the
flight, 6 to be exact. I’m no environmentalist, but this was ridiculous and
wasteful, and it would have been better to refill plastic cups, or better,
offer a re-usable water bottle. The worst part however was they never collected
these, and the center console didn’t fit them, so you had empty plastic bottles
strewn across the cabin floor by the end of the flight, not a good look for the
cabin or the environment.
Overall Impressions
What I experienced fell well short of what I deem a
“premium” experience, and especially falls short of what their Star Alliance
peers offer.
The one thing they have going for them is the seat — it’s a great
sleeping experience considering it’s not lie flat, and every issue I’ve
mentioned here is a service one that’s addressable.
Would I fly Premium Plus again? Yes - because United Economy is far worse. Does it deserve the “Premium” designation? Far from it.