unitedwildcat

Do you arrive in SFO after midnight? Not sure if that actually makes a difference, but it might

Edit: just re-read your question, and it seems like the answer would be no, since you are asking about access on arrival in SFO

ironmanjt

yeah around 8pm. Time for a nightcap if I want it before heading to a hotel for sleep. Would be a nice to have in IAH but I also suspect answer will be no. I’ll report back!

meijiem

Please do report back for both (1) and (2) assuming before next month, as I expect to fly the same schedule. Thanks in advance.

aweinfeld

Trip booked Denver to Paris and Zürich back to Denver in August. 1st/business the whole way. Our return flight from Zürich to Denver goes through Chicago. That leg of the flight is operated by Swiss air and is classified as business class. Question is will we be able to access Polaris lounge in Chicago on our layover? Outbound through IAD united Polaris, so there should be no issue on outbound.

unitedwildcat

no Polaris lounge access on the return in ORD unfortunately

aweinfeld

thank you!!

uanj

Let us know, I am curious if they have changed this or not.

Towards the end of the pandemic mess as domestic travel ramped up before UA's schedule did, I often had no choice but to fly the night before and then depart from SFO or EWR. Either no possibility to same day connect or, in the case of SFO, no seats on the one possible routing. I would never get the green beep on departure the day before. Pre-pandemic IAD would have allowed me in but they started consistently saying no. EWR, surprisingly, would wonder why no green beep but let me in anyway. Never even thought to try on arrival in SFO or EWR the night before.

In the last year have not had to do this, so please report back!

Taoyuan

Day 1: LAX-IAD (Y), red-eye
Day 2: IAD-CPT (J)

Will this be eligible for access in LAX? Seems vague.

leftysauce

if all United, yes. LAX agents were knowledgeable last time and even proactively directed me from United Club to Polaris.

if you get denied initially, ask them to look at the small footnotes in the access rules page in Wingtips for "exceptions". The internal exception states that if pax can be issued/hold a BP for an eligible downline segment, admit them (manual override needed)

but again, most agents aren't familiar and are stubborn to their "knowledge" on these fine prints so you need to find a patient and humble agent that is willing to dig into the rules for you

Kacee

The rule is a "Same Day Boarding Pass." Results have been inconsistent in your scenario.

ironmanjt

Adding a datapoint to this from last week:

Day 1: DCA-SFO (D class)
Day 2: SFO-SIN (D class)

Upon arrival in SFO around 21:30 the scanner rejected access, and the agent didn't know what to do (even though I scanned the SFO-SIN BP and not the DCA-SFO). "Fortunately" the SFO-SIN that night had been canceled and she thought maybe it was a rebooking so just waved me in in the end.

Steve M

That's interesting. I get the sense that whatever is evaluating scanned boarding passes is highly accurate these days. That can work against a passenger that has an exception: the more accurate the automation is, the more likely the agent is to assume that a passenger with a negative scan has no legitimate access. This is especially true when they probably have to deny 100 pax a day from the Polaris lounge, with a not-insubstantial portion knowing that they don't have access and trying to talk their way in.

ironmanjt

I'd say more like hundreds....almost every visit I see some combo of:

1) "but I'm flying first class to Denver!"
2) "but Canada IS international!"
3) people legit confused because they arrived in LH/NH/etc first
4) "but I have the United credit card!"

The true murky ones like the ones posted here seem to be a bit less common.

leftysauce

yea it's been mostly accurate these days - i had no issues accessing UC the night before my afternoon Polaris flight two weeks ago. However, the scanner sometimes still doesn't pick up the eligibility correctly for some reservations for whatever reasons. This manual override is mostly needed when one has separate reservations for domestic and Polaris flights.

I got denied from ORD UC/C and PL and went to UC/B. The agent was adamant first but nice enough to actually brought up Wingtips to look. After reading the rules page for 5 minutes looking for every fine print she could see, she finally found it. She then called every lounge to tell other agents about this rule lol so hopefully no one should have to go through this at ORD anymore

One time I joked about using priority pass for entry and the agent almost started yelling so i quickly said jk lol

fumje

Doesn't Canada *G or front cabin still get access?