MrAndy1369

I'm sad to see Int'l F go, although I've never flown it before. The end of an era, indeed. I remember how pmUA, at least, tried to differentiate F from C. Since the merger of UACO, the differentiation of F gradually reduced until the Polaris introduction, in which both products were pretty much the same.

During the pmUA days, Int'l F had large plates, additional course selections, multi-course service, and a different menu. Kind of sad to see all that being reduced to one simple difference now: the wine selection. At least AA (so far) treats its international F as an elevated product.

findark

In J, slippers are on the secret menu unless to/from Asia in which case they are provisioned at the seat.

harry5198

StuckinITH

Yes, that's why we have 16 pairs of slippers at home from our Asia trips. Useful for when we have overnight guests.

The one thing that is also provisioned at each seat in Polaris First to Asia is the mattress pad. It's in the little closet that each seat has. I don't know if they do the same thing for Europe. But, that's one of the things that I always ask with the gel pillow when I fly in J (to Asia and Europe)

glbltvlr

Noticed that while you can't buy a seat in first directly, or buy a paid upgrade, UA is offering to waitlist for 20K miles and $550 per person ORD-LHR. Given that the service level is the same, I'm not sure the seat alone is worth it.

mh3265a

Flew NRT-IAD (UA 804) on 31 May and it seems several upgraded C-F using some instrument but 4 non-revs got seats at the very end before take off. Crazy they don't op-up 1K or GS then put the non-revs in business. I noticed there were several people waiting for upgrades to business class from economy that didn't clear either.

Artpen100

They are still offering me a business to first upgrade on FRA-IAD for only $2504. Looking pretty full except in PE. Be interesting to see what happens.

DetroitFlyer

They would op-up business class customers to first class if business is oversold. If it isn't oversold, why should a passenger essentially get a CPU on an international flight?
I can't think of a single airline that would do that. Even LH or EY.

StuckinITH

That's rather expensive. I did take one time a TOD on ORD-PVG for $2189 from an upgraded business (just did not like the business seat I had in the 2-4-2 configuration 772). But this makes me unhappy with myself that, when I purchased my next ORD-PVG-ORD trip, the P fare Business was $3600 and the First Class fare only $5100. $750 each way, that's a good deal. I should have taken it or at least for my wife as that's the amount of PQM that she needed to get to 1K this year.

As posted previously, there will be non-revs in those Polaris First seats. On our flight ORD to MUC last month, at least 4 were non-revs. At border control in MUC, we heard a young man telling the agent at the next desk that he was only there for a few hours. The whole story he told was: his mother is a flight attendant on United, because of the bad weather in the East Coast he could not get to his destination in the US so he took a detour to MUC in First Class, he was flying back to the US two hours later, he was hoping that it would also be in First Class, he was going to buy candies for his mother for a delayed mother's day. The only thing we thought is that it was good that he was prepared and had his passport with him.

mh3265a

I know that but I'm just making a broader statement, as others have in this forum, about how they are treating the last remaining days of the GlobalFirst product. They could do little things to improve customer satisfaction on these long hauls.

porciuscato

I've heard a few stories like that. Flight Attendants and their buddies who go for a one day RT to Europe in GF, just to get the drinks, etc. In the meantime, if one of us wants to upgrade a paid business fare, it's thousands of dollars.

It's just one more way that United really sticks it in our face that "Employees are always first; Customers are always last." What a sick corporate culture.

mozilla

Checked my email this morning and noticed UA sent me 2 Waitlist notifications in the middle of the night. Got 2 segments confirmed in United Polaris first (ON) with miles and co-pay for a TATL business trip end of June/beginning of July. These segments were never offered for sale in Polaris first class (it was F0 A0 every time I checked), but the upgrade offer was available from the moment I booked the trip.

This will probably be the last time that I will experience the Global First legacy. I loved it and I'll miss it.

tuolumne

You are asking for freebies that no airline would ever give. And why should they? Unlimited CPUs from C to international 3-cabin F? Talk about a blogger/FlyerTalk pipe-dream ! These seats can still be yours as long as you apply $/instrument.

Logistically, from an NRSA/NRPS angle, well, there are exhaustively complex already established processes for waitlist F/C/Y travel. They aren’t going to throw a wrench into their systems (literally) with some bizarre intl. CPU strategy just so you can sit there for free...give it up and pay it up if you want to sit in United First (which is a product I thought FlyerTalk pounded on for decades as being nothing short of redundant - Curious how many seemingly can’t wait to sit there now!).

UA_Flyer

StuckinITH

If you have a choice of seat, 2K is very good. I was once in 2A and there was too much light coming from the area near the cockpit and toilet.

I missed my last opportunity to fly in First Class on ORD-PVG-ORD flights next month. When I purchased my Polaris Business ticket 3 months ago, the fare for Polaris First was just $1500 more than the P fare. I checked about a month ago and the only way to upgrade was to waitlist miles + copay which is way more than the $750 one way. With a P fare, cannot use a GPU.