So what happened, I hear you all ask? No? I'll tell you anyway. I arrived about 12.30p for my 7.20p flight. As I expected, the United check in desk was open as they must have a bunch of flights leaving to the US all day. I asked to see if I could get airside well before the 3 hour limit.
Short story is I was in the airside lounge within 15 minutes.
Long story is that I beelined for the gold tie guy cause I'm UA GS and he briskly pulled the desk manager in to work over the shoulder of a desk attendant to push everything through. Now I wasn't checking in baggage which was helpful. I asked if I was checking baggage would they still let me check in this early and they said it would be more difficult cause they would have to get approval from the baggage crew. I was going to ask if they were doing this for me cause I was GS but didn't want to get overheard and end up on a DYKWIA thread.
I was in the lounge in <15 mins partly cause ABTC for immigration and partly cause business class has its own security line. I was given access to the Air China lounge near gate 71. Even with a Polaris ticket and GS, I was not invited to the first class lounge side, just the *A gold side. Agree with the comments that downstairs is cooler than upstairs in this heat. Food assortment pretty good with quality closer to a PL than a UC, WiFi download speed of just under 5Mbps, and a decent bar downstairs. So now its time for some JD and catchup on the UFC from last weekend cause I was flying to SIN at the time.