mtkeller

Following up in case anyone finds this thread later and has the same question:

Big thanks to ttuna3 for giving me the confidence to give it a try. For whatever reason, BR gave me a BP for TPE-HAN even though they won't for ORD-TPE. That coupled with the check-in confirmation printout was enough to get the front desk to manually enter me into the computer and get me access to the Polaris lounge. Figure I'll chill here until they close and then schlep over to T5 on the bus.

Roble

Curious … as I will be taking this flight in the future. What bus did you use? Was it fairly straight forward to find a bus to the international terminal? One more question … how was the BR flight in business?

slimjin

I was in a similar but slightly better situation recently; I had a BP for BR55, but it was printed by United (at CMH, where I was connecting from) and didn't specify that I was in J.

I went to the UA customer service desk at ORD right next to the Polaris lounge to see if they could print me an ORD-TPE BP that showed I was in J. This was going to be my first time in the Polaris lounge, so I was excited, and hence paranoid the lounge dragons would insist on seeing a J BP. UA customer service said they can't do anything since only BR can print that (and the guy was a total jerk about, thanks for nothing, but whatever), but thankfully (and perhaps of course) I was still let in to the Polaris lounge. Maybe it's not as nice as the others, but it's by far the nicest lounge I've been to at ORD, so I was pleased.

I stayed until like 30 min before closing, and then took the bus to T5, got turned away from the SK lounge (I'm *G but they don't let in *G after like 8 or 9pm unless you're flying OZ, since the last SK flight is already gone by then, and they're only staying open because OZ contracts with them). The AF lounge was a total hole, although when you walk in, the room on left was a bit quieter and cleaner then the main hall on the right, so I just hung out in there and got some work done on my laptop. The staff were friendly though.

If you leave by like 8pm you can take airside shuttle.. I forget where it's at, but the info is easy to find on the ORD website. Since I stayed later in the Polaris lounge I had to take the landside bus, but it's easy to find - just walk outside and ask people for the T5 shuttle, it was easy - and then security at T5 was not bad at all - prob 10 min total, and this was at the height of the shutdown in January. I also stopped at check-in to get a HK BP and get my *G number printed on the BPs, to give me more lounge options at TPE (I was continuing on to ICN).

BR J (Royal Laurel; RL) is very nice. There are plenty of threads on here detailing it, so you can probably poke around and get a general feel of it. I have two more flights on it thus summer (via YYZ) and I'm definitely looking forward to them.

mtkeller

I took the landside bus because (a) I didn't want to leave the Polaris lounge until they closed because the AF/KL lounge in T5 is an abomination (The rest room is outside the lounge. The only redeeming value of this lounge is that BR55 seems to get to depart from the gate that allows pax in the lounge to board directly from the lounge. I was appalled to see signage outside the lounge indicating that CX uses it as their first class lounge.) and (b) I didn't want to schlep all the way back to T3 (AA gates) where the airside bus goes from. It's really there to facilitate AA-BA connections. The landside bus is pretty easy to find by watching for signs and comes very frequently. I just missed one, and there was another one there within five minutes.

BR's Royal Laurel is excellent. I preordered the lamb for my main, and it was really excellent. Seat isn't quite as feature-rich as CX's version (I miss having the cubby for shoes under the armrest), but in terms of the core functionality, it's an excellent seat. The FAs provided great service. Like most international carriers, they don't hover in the cabin, but they come as soon as you ring the call bell and are happy to help you out. Do be aware that they serve the pre-arrival meal on BR55 between two hours and 2:30 before landing at TPE. This will be ungodly early, so unless you really want to eat that meal, you might tell the FAs to feed you if you're awake but to not wake you up if you're sleeping.

Oh, this has been mentioned ad nauseam on blogs and FT, but if you have a connection at TPE and are going out in business class, just go to the SQ lounge. BR's lounge is a zoo and the food is inferior to what's on offer over at the SQ lounge. I took a shower and hung out in The Infinity for a while and then went to the SQ lounge and was much happier.