Lounge at ORD
 

Will Airnz flyers be able to access the new " United Polaris Lounge " from ORD to AKL when the flights start ?

Yes as mentioned you'll get access flying in BP as per Polaris access rules. This applies at SFO at present.

It's interesting to see Air NZ have opted for the SAS lounge at ORD rather than a UA club. It certainly looks like a vastly superior lounge to the UA club there!

Air NZ leaves from T5 which does not have a UA club. T5 is not connected to the other terminals airside. It would be a hassle for anyone to access Polaris and then having to come out of security, take a train to T5 and clear TSA again, let alone doing so for the UA club.

yea but really what lounge isn't vastly superior to a UA club.....

what I'd really like for ORD is access to showers when not flying J. usually I'm in Y or PE because J is too pricey for my work, so I don't have access to the Polaris lounge. It looks like the other *A lounges at ORD don't have showers, though, like at SFO. :**(

There is a blatant and frustrating lounge quality gap materialising now that Polaris lounges are opening. When in BP, all is fine, as Polaris is available when lounges are present. For Elites who do most/some of their flying in PE or Y, it is obvious that bar LAX, Air NZ will just lapse to United Clubs/next best for non-Polaris lounge provision. Clear signals were given a couple of years ago that SFO might be getting a new Air NZ lounge for example, which never materialised with the arrival of Polaris.

In the long term, non-constant J flying Elites will suffer in the US re: decent lounge access.

As mentioned above no United lounges in terminal 5 at Ord. So Polaris is off the table there. Security lines at terminal 5 in my experience can be long.

I'm not aware of there ever being plans for a Koru lounge in SFO - there was however a plan for a *A lounge much like LAX. Unfortunately the days of *A lounges seem to be over with everybody going back to their own lounges.

There has been some speculation that the TBIT midfield concourse probably won't have a *A lounge but that at least two *A carriers will probably have their own lounges there.

I still find it interesting that other than EP1 that no NZ pax can get access to the *A first lounge - you'd at least thing they could let Elite's flying BP have access.

Yea given the amount of back-and-forth and lack of other options, I ended up getting an Amex a few days ago that gets me into the Centurion lounges at SFO and IAH so I have shower access and decent food.

I agree completely. It shows how little regard they have for their own premium passengers.

I also think the Polaris lounges have raised the bar leaving NZ way behind in the lounge area. If you pay NZ's high prices for BP you should be getting better than the AKL lounge which is often an overcrowded zoo/pub.

/child daycare at present with school holidays. :)

My understanding is that, for J class passengers flying on NZ metal, access to the Polaris lounges (SFO, LAX, ORD) is limited to departing passengers only. Arriving or layover passengers are not admitted (unless connecting to a qualified departing flight, not including domestic UA services in any class). This is true, apparently, even for NZ flights ticketed on UA's 016 stock with a UA code-share flight number.

There's a fairly lengthy thread on Polaris lounge access questions here.

that sucks... even J passengers on AKL-ORD long hauls won't be able to use it during connections to domestic US

Well, as others have observed above, being in Terminal 5 at ORD means that it isn't really very convenient for use with domestic connections (except with a long layover), but the SFO Polaris lounge is another matter . . .

CORRECTION: Never mind [[url=http://url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Litella]Emily Litella]. I see that my understanding of the ORD Polaris lounge's location is incorrect.