PV_Premier

similar arrangement at AMS where a BF boarding pass will get you access to the Sheraton gym showers. not the best experience, but that's life i guess.

CO DCA

I do think that there needs to be some process around this. It never worked quite seamlessly with CO (where the page seems to have come from). The majority of the time, even if you told the BF concierge when you departed, the facilities weren't available when you arrived, or nobody knew what they were. What dumbfounded me was that several times when I arrived, the concierge greeting the plane had no idea that they existed.

kirkwoodj

This. They would ask if you needed facilities upon arrival. I used these at FCO and CDG without issue, although was pmCO. Will need at CDG in a couple weeks, planning to ask at GFL in ORD, figure that's my best chance for someone to know what's going on.

Whizkid

Arrived at FRA and asked the UA Rep, specifically for this. She said, walk up to the lufthansa lounges and see if they'd let you in. No further help.

exbayern

No need to ask anyone; just walk over to the Sheraton and sign in at the Front Desk. The people meeting the flight will give you directions if you are not familiar with CDG.

I doubt that the ORD staff will be familiar with the layout at CDG.

And there is no help required at FRA; just go the Welcome Lounge (assuming that one is permitted entry based on status and or class of service)

SS255

I would expect the reception for eligible customers at a dedicated welcome lounge to be far superior to the reception at a hotel which is contracted to be the "arrivals facility." There are just too many opportunities for communication failures with the latter, and it is far too easy to give eligible passengers the brush -- especially when the hotel is at maximum capacity.

The smart thing to do would be for the non-dedicated arrivals facilities to issue their own entry passes, which could be handed out to eligible passengers as they are boarding.

exbayern

At both CDG and MUC, they are not dedicated hotel sleeping rooms, and thus occupancy does not play a role.

This thread (and the companion one re the CDG showers which FTers repeatedly claimed does not exist) make me chuckle. The moaning and whinging seems out of place for what is a relatively easy use of a shower. Reverse the trip, and it is often far more difficult when landing in the US to use a shower on arrival.

mgcsinc

So, it's been a week, anyone have some new reports? Maybe about BRU?

love_to_travel

May I ask how you got to the FCO Hilton? Did you walk?

I land at around 8am and have a private tour scheduled at 12pm. I'd like to take a shower before the tour so as not to offend the guide and after flying all the way from HNL I'm pretty sure I'll need one.

SS255

Yes.

kirkwoodj

Yes walked last time

hockey7711

It's an easy walk to the Hilton at FCO, keep in mind the check-in process there is incredibly slow is the early morning.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Brussels Air lounge at T72 has showers. Haven't accessed other lounges, so can't comment. Arrival on UA requires bus transfer to t gates, which was fine for me because I had been connecting to T departures on flights to Cameroon.

mgcsinc

I'm talkin BRU as the final destination. Theoretically, one can get a day room at the Sheraton.

mgcsinc

[Mods: kindly ask you not to merge with prior post, which is from weeks ago.]

Flew BF to Brussels (BRU) over the weekend, and almost managed to succeed in arranging a shower at the airport Sheraton.

I was flying LAX-IAD-BRU, and figured that trying to talk to someone at LAX was a lost cause, so I didn't try. At IAD, didn't get to the gate until the middle of boarding, and there was no Global Services rep to be found, so I approached the gate agent. "We have never had arrival services in Brussels." I explained that they do have an arrangement with the Sheraton there, that it was a CO thing that got imported, and that he could check GG SHOWER or the UA website, or call Global Services. Agent taps away for five minutes, looks constipated, and then says - more to himself than to me - "but we've never had arrivals in Brussels." He then calls GS, and after about twenty seconds asks me for some more info and says it's all set. At some point in there, I heard the line "no, he's just a 1K, but he's in BusinessFirst." :P I board the flight.

On arrival in Brussels, (around 7:15am) the GA meeting the plane makes this announcement: "Welcome to Brussels. Your bags will be on carousel 5. Would Mr. Mgcsinc please meet the Global Services representative on the jetbridge." Yay! The GS rep tells me that there is a reservation in my name at the Sheraton, and offers to escort me through immigration and customs and to the Sheraton. I decline the escort and thank her.

Fast forward twenty minutes, I get to the Sheraton and, after some confusion about what is going on ("Do you have a voucher from United?"), I'm informed that the hotel is fully booked and no rooms will be available for at least an hour and a half. Sigh. So close and yet so far. Due to time constraints, I just go ahead into Brussels, and miraculously my hotel room is already ready, so it all worked out fine in the end.

I don't really know whether to blame this on United at all - it's not like I gave them a whole lot of prior notice, and I don't expect them to work out an arrangement with the Sheraton that would prevent the hotel from selling rooms. And for a lot of folk's purposes, the shower around 9:00am would have been a lot better than nothing. Overall, my takeaway was that this benefit is (now) a real thing that might sometimes actually work out.