Should I Fly UA Polaris Or LH Business
 

Well, I'm planning my trips for this year and I've already booked my domestic trips and now working on my international trips. Pretty much the prices is the same for both the UA option and LH option for my city pair. I'm torn between which J product to choose between the two airlines. I'm booking everything via UA so mileage and EQM isn't an issue either. The Polaris would most likely be on a non refurbished plane and the LH flight would be on their A380.

Imo if you are debating between older UA product vs LH I prefer LH. Though it does come down to the configuration. Depending on how far out you are booking some of the UA planes will be updated to the new hard product and from what I hear it is the superior choice

If the UA seats are the old seats, I prefer LH for food and service.

If destinations and routing work, my first choice is OS.

IMHO, the s/CO business seats are still better than LH. If it is s/UA 777, then go with LH.

I'd also try and see if you can squeeze in Austrian (at either LAX if you're on the west coast, otherwise ORD/EWR/IAD/MIA/YYZ).

As of right now, OS seems to be pricier or the one in the same price ballpark as the UA and LH involves 12+ hour layover in ORD. But yes, I would love to try OS someday. There is also an option with Air Canada but after my experience with them in December, they are on the bottom of the list of airlines I want to fly on again.

UA 77W > LH 380
UA 763 w/ Polaris > LH 380
UA 788/9 = LH 380 (UA seat better, LH service better)
UA sCO 772 = LH 380 (same)
LH380 > any other UA business class

This is very much personal opinion, I value the cleanliness of the LH aircraft and professionalism of the LH crews higher than others may.

Polaris seats are better than LH J. The seat is what matters in business, and LH's J seats are awful.

If you're talking old J seats on UA, it's a toss up.

LH J is very mediocre. The only time I would ever willingly choose it over UA J is if the UA aircraft was the 2-4-2 config. Even then, I always thought that LH food in both J and F was worse then UA. I now only fly LH when I know I’ll be in F. Not worth the gamble of their so-so J product.
I would stick with UA.

Since paid fares on UA/LH metal should (in theory) be congruent depending on availability of individual flights, I'm most concerned about schedule and routing. If one is more convenient than the other, that's my pick.

Head-to-head, all things being equal, I would take UA over LH UNLESS it's a sUA 772 and I can't get a window/aisle seat. After about ~8 years of being lucky, I finally got stuck in a D/G seat recently on a sUA 777 and it just wasn't good.

UA Polaris (77W/76A) beats any LH biz product, IMO.

If burning miles, I don't think LH is worth the premium over UA unless schedule/routing are significantly better.

I'll take the contrarian view. I'll take LH over UA (I have not flown the new Polaris seat, so can't comment on that). Crew and food are better, the aircraft are cleaner, the seat is fine to sleep in. The one reservation (of course) is the middle seat in the 2-3-3 configuration.

If you can catch a 748 on LH then the upper deck option would sway it for me any day.

Huh??? :confused:

OP is in orange county - in which case timing/routing would be my deciding factor (and always is for this exact dilemma). If you're going to drive to a larger airport (LAX or SAN), then I would go for LH because you can take the non-stop to FRA/MUC which are timed better for sleeping (and longer as well) and avoids the extra connection to do the same for UA (E.g., LAX/SNA-SFO-FRA-XXX). If you're going to fly out of SNA, then I'd go off of times because either you'll have to connect in SFO/ORD (or others) anyway so you have much more options.

The only way I would agree with that post is regarding ex-DE catering, but then I always view it more as a cultural difference than good vs bad (I've had some J meals ex-FRA/MUC that were not to my liking, but seemed to be more german suited).