Category Archives: Uncategorized

Between me, my wife, and my business, we’ve applied for dozens of credit cards over the past few years, and it isn’t until recently that I’ve started getting denied. It’s starting to make me rethink my strategy a little bit, since it does seem like the gravy train I’ve been on is coming to an end. There have been plenty of sky-is-falling prognostications around the major hurdles put up in the past few years (Amex once-per-lifetime, Chase 5/24, Citi once-per-family, etc.), but I’ve never found those to be catastrophic in practice. Sure it would be nice to churn Amex cards every 12 months like in the past, but it’s still possible to build up a seven-figure stash of points even in the current environment. What’s most concerning to me isn’t the restrictions banks are putting on earning bonuses, but rather the restrictions on actually getting approved for cards in the first place. My first rejection came from Bank of America, who declined me for an Alaska Visa because I had too many recent inquiries and not enough business with the bank. And, this past week, Captial One denied my application for a Venture card, despite the fact that I was responding to a targeted offer with its own RSVP code and everything. The Capital One denial was instant as well — they knew right away that they wanted no part of me.

A couple days later I was able to download a letter explaining why I was rejected, and they gave me three reasons: too many recent inquiries, not enough cards with a revolving balance, and not high enough income. The income one is weird (not that my salary is anything to brag about), since Capital One markets all kind of subprime credit cards, and no bank has ever refused me on these grounds before. The other two I understand, although it’s not great to know that the exact strategies of credit card churning (opening cards and not carrying a balance) are now showing up as reasons to deny new applications.

Now I’m at a crossroads, since I’ve mined all the low-hanging bonus fruit as well as a bunch of fruit higher up in the tree. My new Morgan Stanley Amex will be my last big Membership Rewards bonus until Amex either introduces a new card or sends me a targeted offer without the once-per-lifetime language. Chase’s doors are closed to me, since even applying for cards not under 5/24 could risk an audit of my account and a shutdown due to too many recent inquiries. My 2-3x per year Alaska bonus is gone thanks to BofA, and I’m ineligible for Citi bonuses until May of ’19 on the Prestige/Premier and April of ’20 for American Airlines.

I could keep scraping the barrel for more bonuses here and there — I’m eligible for the Amex Delta Platinum (personal) and the Delta Gold (business), although I told myself no more Delta bonuses until I spend the SkyMiles I already have. I want to get Barclay’s JetBlue card at some point, since it’s always nice to have enough points on hand for a Mint flight (assuming Barclay will approve me for a third card). And I think I’ll be able to get a lot of value out of the new Amex Marriott/SPG Luxury card coming out in August — it will have a high fee, but with a $300 hotel credit and what I’m guessing will be a 75-100k Marriott bonus, it will at least make sense for a year. There’s also a few hundred thousand Hilton points to be had across various cards I’m still eligible for. Whether I should go for these bonuses is another story.

I’ve never contemplated sitting on my hands and waiting to get back under 5/24 until now. Or at least sitting on my hands for 6-8 months and then trying again for cards like the Alaska Visa. I’m torn, since the bonuses I mentioned above certainly present a good opportunity, as well as almost a year’s worth of minimum spending if I chased down every one of those opportunities. However, all of those cards offer bonuses that are at the margins of my overall travel strategy, so it may make sense to try to pull back and look at the longer-term picture, especially since I have enough points to meet my travel goals for the next couple years.

This year started off with a lot of promise, what with new Hilton cards in January and rumors of new SPG/Marriott cards as well as rumors of Barclay introducing a new premium card with transferrable points. While the Amex SPG news is undoubtedly good, Chase’s changes to Marriott and IHG’s cards are mostly irrelevant given my reluctance to poke Chase in any way, and the Barclay card was a transcendently lame dud. The landscape isn’t being upended by any game-changing cards right now, and whenever a new card does come out, it’s not even certain that it will be available to churners in the first place.

Anyone else out there getting discouraged by denials? I know denials are part of the game, but it has seemed particularly frustrating lately, since of my four applications so far this year, two haven’t been approved. Oh well. My tentative plan right now is to wait at least until August when the new SPG cards come out, and which point I’ll probably apply. I’m not sure about the others, though.

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

Between me, my wife, and my business, we’ve applied for dozens of credit cards over the past few years, and it isn’t until recently that I’ve started getting denied. It’s starting to make me rethink my strategy a little bit, since it does seem like the gravy train I’ve been on is coming to an end. There have been plenty of sky-is-falling prognostications around the major hurdles put up in the past few years (Amex once-per-lifetime, Chase 5/24, Citi once-per-family, etc.), but I’ve never found those to be catastrophic in practice. Sure it would be nice to churn Amex cards every 12 months like in the past, but it’s still possible to build up a seven-figure stash of points even in the current environment.

What’s most concerning to me isn’t the restrictions banks are putting on earning bonuses, but rather the restrictions on actually getting approved for cards in the first place. My first rejection came from Bank of America, who declined me for an Alaska Visa because I had too many recent inquiries and not enough business with the bank. And, this past week, Captial One denied my application for a Venture card, despite the fact that I was responding to a targeted offer with its own RSVP code and everything. The Capital One denial was instant as well — they knew right away that they wanted no part of me.

A couple days later I was able to download a letter explaining why I was rejected, and they gave me three reasons: too many recent inquiries, not enough cards with a revolving balance, and not high enough income. The income one is weird (not that my salary is anything to brag about), since Capital One markets all kind of subprime credit cards, and no bank has ever refused me on these grounds before. The other two I understand, although it’s not great to know that the exact strategies of credit card churning (opening cards and not carrying a balance) are now showing up as reasons to deny new applications.

Now I’m at a crossroads, since I’ve mined all the low-hanging bonus fruit as well as a bunch of fruit higher up in the tree. My new Morgan Stanley Amex will be my last big Membership Rewards bonus until Amex either introduces a new card or sends me a targeted offer without the once-per-lifetime language. Chase’s doors are closed to me, since even applying for cards not under 5/24 could risk an audit of my account and a shutdown due to too many recent inquiries. My 2-3x per year Alaska bonus is gone thanks to BofA, and I’m ineligible for Citi bonuses until May of ’19 on the Prestige/Premier and April of ’20 for American Airlines.

I could keep scraping the barrel for more bonuses here and there — I’m eligible for the Amex Delta Platinum (personal) and the Delta Gold (business), although I told myself no more Delta bonuses until I spend the SkyMiles I already have. I want to get Barclay’s JetBlue card at some point, since it’s always nice to have enough points on hand for a Mint flight (assuming Barclay will approve me for a third card). And I think I’ll be able to get a lot of value out of the new Amex Marriott/SPG Luxury card coming out in August — it will have a high fee, but with a $300 hotel credit and what I’m guessing will be a 75-100k Marriott bonus, it will at least make sense for a year. There’s also a few hundred thousand Hilton points to be had across various cards I’m still eligible for. Whether I should go for these bonuses is another story.

I’ve never contemplated sitting on my hands and waiting to get back under 5/24 until now. Or at least sitting on my hands for 6-8 months and then trying again for cards like the Alaska Visa. I’m torn, since the bonuses I mentioned above certainly present a good opportunity, as well as almost a year’s worth of minimum spending if I chased down every one of those opportunities. However, all of those cards offer bonuses that are at the margins of my overall travel strategy, so it may make sense to try to pull back and look at the longer-term picture, especially since I have enough points to meet my travel goals for the next couple years.

This year started off with a lot of promise, what with new Hilton cards in January and rumors of new SPG/Marriott cards as well as rumors of Barclay introducing a new premium card with transferrable points. While the Amex SPG news is undoubtedly good, Chase’s changes to Marriott and IHG’s cards are mostly irrelevant given my reluctance to poke Chase in any way, and the Barclay card was a transcendently lame dud. The landscape isn’t being upended by any game-changing cards right now, and whenever a new card does come out, it’s not even certain that it will be available to churners in the first place.

Anyone else out there getting discouraged by denials? I know denials are part of the game, but it has seemed particularly frustrating lately, since of my four applications so far this year, two haven’t been approved. Oh well. My tentative plan right now is to wait at least until August when the new SPG cards come out, and which point I’ll probably apply. I’m not sure about the others, though.

I’ve got this friend, let’s call him Joey Jojo Jr. Shabadoo. Joey had a trip to Europe scheduled for him and his girlfriend, but then he broke his leg and had to cancel the entire trip. Joey also eschews the points and miles game, as he considers it an obscene waste of time, which means he paid for the trip with actual money. To make matters less straightforward, the flight was marketed by Delta, operated by Air France, and sold by Expedia.

Now that he canceled the trip, Joey has an email from Expedia letting him know that he has two credits (one for him and one for his girlfriend) that can be used toward future travel, although the credits are non-transferrable and can only be used to book travel in the same name as the original ticket.

Joey came to me with some questions, since I present myself like some sort of travel guru, although in this case I have no idea. I avoid using online travel agencies, since I find it easier to deal with airlines and hotels directly, so I don’t really know what happens when you unwind a ticket purchased through Expedia. That’s why I’m posing the question to my legions of readers, in hopes that you all can be like little Rory Calhouns and help me answer Joey’s multi-part question.

First: does Joey have to use Expedia to re-book the ticket, or is the credit with Delta (meaning he would be able to call Delta and rebook directly)?

Second: Although the credit is in Joey’s name, can he use it to book a future Delta ticket in his name and then pay a change fee to change the name to someone else?

I know you usually come here for answers rather than questions, although this is an area where I know almost nothing, and it adds an interesting wrinkle to the whole flight booking process. I’m hoping there are a few Expedia experts out there who can offer some insight. Anyone who responds will get a complimentary six-month subscription to Windbag Premium.

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

I’ve got this friend, let’s call him Joey Jojo Jr. Shabadoo. Joey had a trip to Europe scheduled for him and his girlfriend, but then he broke his leg and had to cancel the entire trip. Joey also eschews the points and miles game, as he considers it an obscene waste of time, which means he paid for the trip with actual money. To make matters less straightforward, the flight was marketed by Delta, operated by Air France, and sold by Expedia.

Now that he canceled the trip, Joey has an email from Expedia letting him know that he has two credits (one for him and one for his girlfriend) that can be used toward future travel, although the credits are non-transferrable and can only be used to book travel in the same name as the original ticket.

Joey came to me with some questions, since I present myself like some sort of travel guru, although in this case I have no idea. I avoid using online travel agencies, since I find it easier to deal with airlines and hotels directly, so I don’t really know what happens when you unwind a ticket purchased through Expedia. That’s why I’m posing the question to my legions of readers, in hopes that you all can be like little Rory Calhouns and help me answer Joey’s multi-part question.

First: does Joey have to use Expedia to re-book the ticket, or is the credit with Delta (meaning he would be able to call Delta and rebook directly)?

Second: Although the credit is in Joey’s name, can he use it to book a future Delta ticket in his name and then pay a change fee to change the name to someone else?

I know you usually come here for answers rather than questions, although this is an area where I know almost nothing, and it adds an interesting wrinkle to the whole flight booking process. I’m hoping there are a few Expedia experts out there who can offer some insight. Anyone who responds will get a complimentary six-month subscription to Windbag Premium.

I know new posts have slowed to a crawl lately, mostly due to my hobby business taking up a big chunk of my time while I finish up a project. I’ll get back into it soon (probably), although I do have something to neat to write about tonight. Specifically, I was messing around with some award searches on United, and I managed to get United’s booking engine to show me awards between Copenhagen and the Faroe Islands. I’ve written about the Faroes a coupletimes, and since it’s a place I plan to return to as often as possible, I’m very excited about this development. When I planned my first trip there, the only flights were on Faroese flag carrier Atlantic Airways, although shortly after that trip, Star Alliance member airline SAS began flying between CPH and FAE as well. I hypothesized that this route would enable Star Alliance awards all the way to the Faroes, which unfortunately turned out to be incorrect. Despite SAS flying the route, Star Alliance award booking engines still choked whenever FAE was entered as the destination. (I assume that SAS’s own EuroBonus program would have worked just fine, but without a meaningful stockpile of EuroBonus points and no easy way to earn them, it didn’t really matter to me.)

I don’t know how long this was the case, although it definitely was when I booked my most recent trip to the Faroes. It’s not a huge deal, since flights on both SAS and Atlantic Airways are pretty cheap. Plus, Atlantic has better reliability and more schedule options, so there’s a marginal benefit there over SAS in the first place. Still, for two people, an award routing that includes the CPH-FAE leg would save a couple hundred bucks and would also combine the legs on a single itinerary, which has its own advantages. And if you’re flying business, the domestic leg would be in SAS Plus… not that that’s worth much, since they don’t even block the middle seat. (However, if my recent SAS flight is representative of total demand for the route, it shouldn’t be hard to get an empty middle seat, since there were 60 SAS Plus seats and five passengers or so.) But it certainly isn’t worse than economy, so if it doesn’t cost you any extra, stop whining.

So what about the “sort of” in the title? Well, we’ll start with United’s calendar for CPH-FAE, which shows a shitload of availability.

Yay, right? Unfortunately, for one reason or another, United can’t tack this leg onto a long-haul award. Here’s what you get if you try to search SFO-FAE:

You can put the itinerary together as a multi-city award, but United then makes you pay for the second leg separately. It’s possible that a customer service rep would be able to manually book it as a one-way, but it’s almost midnight right now, and I don’t feel like talking to anyone on the phone. Plus, Aeroplan doesn’t have the same issues:

For anyone who’s curious, business class redemptions are possible too, at the usual price of 55,000 points. I don’t love the 55 minute layover even though CPH is a nice airport to transit, but I guess the worst case would be getting reaccommodated on the next day’s flight. It would be annoying to deal with, but there are worse places to get stuck for a night than Copenhagen. The only hitch is that SAS doesn’t fly CPH-FAE on Tuesday or Wednesday, so if you miss your connection on Monday, you may be stuck for a few days. Personally I would avoid a Sunday/Monday itinerary for that reason, although SAS is so stingy with business class awards that I probably wouldn’t have the luxury of making that choice.

I don’t know how many people care about this, but with the steadily increasing tourism levels in the Faroes, I’m sure some will find it useful. I’m definitely excited to take advantage of it on our next trip.

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

I know new posts have slowed to a crawl lately, mostly due to my hobby business taking up a big chunk of my time while I finish up a project. I’ll get back into it soon (probably), although I do have something to neat to write about tonight. Specifically, I was messing around with some award searches on United, and I managed to get United’s booking engine to show me awards between Copenhagen and the Faroe Islands.

I’ve written about the Faroes a couple times, and since it’s a place I plan to return to as often as possible, I’m very excited about this development. When I planned my first trip there, the only flights were on Faroese flag carrier Atlantic Airways, although shortly after that trip, Star Alliance member airline SAS began flying between CPH and FAE as well. I hypothesized that this route would enable Star Alliance awards all the way to the Faroes, which unfortunately turned out to be incorrect. Despite SAS flying the route, Star Alliance award booking engines still choked whenever FAE was entered as the destination. (I assume that SAS’s own EuroBonus program would have worked just fine, but without a meaningful stockpile of EuroBonus points and no easy way to earn them, it didn’t really matter to me.)

I don’t know how long this was the case, although it definitely was when I booked my most recent trip to the Faroes. It’s not a huge deal, since flights on both SAS and Atlantic Airways are pretty cheap. Plus, Atlantic has better reliability and more schedule options, so there’s a marginal benefit there over SAS in the first place. Still, for two people, an award routing that includes the CPH-FAE leg would save a couple hundred bucks and would also combine the legs on a single itinerary, which has its own advantages. And if you’re flying business, the domestic leg would be in SAS Plus… not that that’s worth much, since they don’t even block the middle seat. (However, if my recent SAS flight is representative of total demand for the route, it shouldn’t be hard to get an empty middle seat, since there were 60 SAS Plus seats and five passengers or so.) But it certainly isn’t worse than economy, so if it doesn’t cost you any extra, stop whining.

So what about the “sort of” in the title? Well, we’ll start with United’s calendar for CPH-FAE, which shows a shitload of availability.

Yay, right? Unfortunately, for one reason or another, United can’t tack this leg onto a long-haul award. Here’s what you get if you try to search SFO-FAE:

You can put the itinerary together as a multi-city award, but United then makes you pay for the second leg separately. It’s possible that a customer service rep would be able to manually book it as a one-way, but it’s almost midnight right now, and I don’t feel like talking to anyone on the phone. Plus, Aeroplan doesn’t have the same issues:

For anyone who’s curious, business class redemptions are possible too, at the usual price of 55,000 points. I don’t love the 55 minute layover even though CPH is a nice airport to transit, but I guess the worst case would be getting reaccommodated on the next day’s flight. It would be annoying to deal with, but there are worse places to get stuck for a night than Copenhagen. The only hitch is that SAS doesn’t fly CPH-FAE on Tuesday or Wednesday, so if you miss your connection on Monday, you may be stuck for a few days. Personally I would avoid a Sunday/Monday itinerary for that reason, although SAS is so stingy with business class awards that I probably wouldn’t have the luxury of making that choice.

I don’t know how many people care about this, but with the steadily increasing tourism levels in the Faroes, I’m sure some will find it useful. I’m definitely excited to take advantage of it on our next trip.

I’m not much of a sports fan, although I do follow certain sports/teams now and then. One of the things I can’t get enough of is fans arguing on message boards about why one team is superior to another team as if the other side is just one good argument away from giving up. Even if one team absolutely kills the other team in a game, it was all because of the refs/umps, or so-and-so was injured, or some other dumb sports-ism. But I get it, sports are fun to watch, and having a rooting interest in a team is a fun bit of escapism (unless you’re one of those people who lets a sports team subsume your identity and actually get depressed when your team loses). The reason I bring this up isn’t to castigate anyone for enjoying sports or defending their team (lord knows I can’t hold my tongue when some dipshit starts talking about how great Notre Dame is at anything)… no, my point is that the same rooting interest pops up in the points and miles game all the time, and it’s always super dumb.

I find myself falling prey to this sometimes as well, and I always chastise myself whenever it happens. Here’s a good example. A little while back, Ben Schlappig posted a photo of British Airways 787-9 first class on Instagram, and of course there were like 1500 comments each saying “Wow, looks like business class.” A bunch of comments even pointed out how the BA seat was identical to the B/E Aerospace Super Diamond seat, which isn’t even remotely true. I hate-read a good smattering of these people all parroting a phrase that has become conventional wisdom through sheer force of repetition, and I immediately felt like I should defend BA against all the haterz. I reviewed this same product very favorably recently, and I started to feel a quixotic urge to make these idiots realize that they were wrong and BA actually has a good product.

First, WTF is wrong with me that I give a fuck what a bunch of commenters on Instagram think? I hate how petty I am sometimes, but a deep-dive into my self-loathing isn’t really a focus of this blog, so I’ll move on. Thankfully I didn’t debase myself by leaving a comment on Instagram (although I did comment on One Mile at a Time’s blog post about it, so I’m not completely innocent here).

My bigger point is that I should want people to continue parroting the line that there’s nothing redeeming about BA first class, because that means there will be more award seats for me. United Polaris is another good example. It’s not the best seat in the sky, but it’s very comfortable, and I get annoyed when people who reflexively hate everything about United talk about how much it sucks. But those are just people who I don’t need to compete with the next time I’m looking for almost non-existent saver space on Polaris flights.

Head over to FlyerTalk, and you can find some amazing, impassioned arguments over things like whether Chase Ultimate Rewards is better than Amex Membership Rewards, as if it matters whether one is better than the other. Unlike in sports, where only a total scumbag would root for Notre Dame and USC, it’s perfectly acceptable to like both Chase and Amex. The conventional wisdom is that Chase is better, which is fine, since that means Membership Rewards will have to compete harder for customers, which should benefit me. I also think the people who talk about how they’ll switch all their spending over to American Express in protest if Chase ends Ultimate Rewards points pooling are being incredibly foolish, but this hobby literally couldn’t exist without the foolish behavior of others.

I’m also fairly contrarian by nature, so I tend to work myself into a lather of opposing opinions anytime a big group of people seem to agree on something. (To bring it back to sports, this is why I can’t fucking stand the San Francisco Giants despite living in San Francisco area.) When it comes to points and miles, though, I should want to be on the opposite side of the conventional wisdom as much as humanly possible… Within reason of course, since I’m not about to melt down my Amex Platinum so I can start crowing about how great PNC Bank Flexpoint Miles are (or whatever PNC calls its shitty reward currency).

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

I’m not much of a sports fan, although I do follow certain sports/teams now and then. One of the things I can’t get enough of is fans arguing on message boards about why one team is superior to another team as if the other side is just one good argument away from giving up. Even if one team absolutely kills the other team in a game, it was all because of the refs/umps, or so-and-so was injured, or some other dumb sports-ism.

But I get it, sports are fun to watch, and having a rooting interest in a team is a fun bit of escapism (unless you’re one of those people who lets a sports team subsume your identity and actually get depressed when your team loses). The reason I bring this up isn’t to castigate anyone for enjoying sports or defending their team (lord knows I can’t hold my tongue when some dipshit starts talking about how great Notre Dame is at anything)… no, my point is that the same rooting interest pops up in the points and miles game all the time, and it’s always super dumb.

I find myself falling prey to this sometimes as well, and I always chastise myself whenever it happens. Here’s a good example. A little while back, Ben Schlappig posted a photo of British Airways 787-9 first class on Instagram, and of course there were like 1500 comments each saying “Wow, looks like business class.” A bunch of comments even pointed out how the BA seat was identical to the B/E Aerospace Super Diamond seat, which isn’t even remotely true. I hate-read a good smattering of these people all parroting a phrase that has become conventional wisdom through sheer force of repetition, and I immediately felt like I should defend BA against all the haterz. I reviewed this same product very favorably recently, and I started to feel a quixotic urge to make these idiots realize that they were wrong and BA actually has a good product.

First, WTF is wrong with me that I give a fuck what a bunch of commenters on Instagram think? I hate how petty I am sometimes, but a deep-dive into my self-loathing isn’t really a focus of this blog, so I’ll move on. Thankfully I didn’t debase myself by leaving a comment on Instagram (although I did comment on One Mile at a Time’s blog post about it, so I’m not completely innocent here).

My bigger point is that I should want people to continue parroting the line that there’s nothing redeeming about BA first class, because that means there will be more award seats for me. United Polaris is another good example. It’s not the best seat in the sky, but it’s very comfortable, and I get annoyed when people who reflexively hate everything about United talk about how much it sucks. But those are just people who I don’t need to compete with the next time I’m looking for almost non-existent saver space on Polaris flights.

Head over to FlyerTalk, and you can find some amazing, impassioned arguments over things like whether Chase Ultimate Rewards is better than Amex Membership Rewards, as if it matters whether one is better than the other. Unlike in sports, where only a total scumbag would root for Notre Dame and USC, it’s perfectly acceptable to like both Chase and Amex. The conventional wisdom is that Chase is better, which is fine, since that means Membership Rewards will have to compete harder for customers, which should benefit me. I also think the people who talk about how they’ll switch all their spending over to American Express in protest if Chase ends Ultimate Rewards points pooling are being incredibly foolish, but this hobby literally couldn’t exist without the foolish behavior of others.

I’m also fairly contrarian by nature, so I tend to work myself into a lather of opposing opinions anytime a big group of people seem to agree on something. (To bring it back to sports, this is why I can’t fucking stand the San Francisco Giants despite living in San Francisco area.) When it comes to points and miles, though, I should want to be on the opposite side of the conventional wisdom as much as humanly possible… Within reason of course, since I’m not about to melt down my Amex Platinum so I can start crowing about how great PNC Bank Flexpoint Miles are (or whatever PNC calls its shitty reward currency).

Ugh, here’s this fucking thing again:

I was fortunate enough to spend a couple hours in United’s brand new SFO Polaris lounge today during their soft open, and it was really great. I should point out that I paid for this privilege (with 2500 miles) and wasn’t compensated in any way by United. I’m actually pretty surprised it was so cheap — when I read a tweet about United offering access in two-hour slots, I figured it would be ungodly expensive, or that it would have sold out in minutes. I had just woken up when I found out about the offer, and I bought my ticket immediately. That ended up being a good call, since most of the slots were taken by the time I was ready to leave for work.

In the coming days, you’re going to see a slew of posts that have exhaustive, professional-quality photos of every nook and cranny of the lounge, so my focus is less on documenting each individual chair and floor tile and more about giving my general impression after spending a couple hours there. I didn’t have a flight to catch (United provided me a gate pass to get through security), so I was able to relax and take in the lounge on its own terms. (Check out this post from Live and Let’s Fly for more photos.)

Initial Impression

Walking into the lounge, you’re greeted by a quarry’s worth of white marble, which is to be expected from the Polaris visual design. Overall, one of the things I like about Polaris is how it offers a consistent visual identity that extends from the lounge to the plane, the amenity kit, the food presentation, and so on. This is something I find missing from Delta and American’s premium products. American’s Flagship First lounges look fantastic, but aside from some gray and red, nothing about it screams “American Airlines,” and that continues onboard their planes, where gray, beige, and black vie for attention, depending on what configuration you get. I know I’m more interested in visual identity than most people, so I’m sure a lot of folks couldn’t care less whether United’s lounge reflects the overall brand presentation or not, as long as it’s a nice space. And it is, so don’t worry.

The lounge is long and narrow, with two levels that snake along the edge of SFO’s international terminal. The shape means that there’s a mostly unbroken panorama of the airport, including a great view of the widebody aircraft lined up at the international terminal’s G gates. If you’ll excuse the bird shit on the window, here’s a good example of what you’ll see from the sitting area on the upper level.

My other initial impression was that the space is gigantic. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a lounge this big before — stick a duty free store in there and it would feel like its own terminal. You can spend a good five minutes just walking from end-to-end on each floor. When it’s up and running, it’s going to have to serve a ton of passengers, so hopefully its enormity will help keep it from becoming overcrowded. That was certainly a problem at the Chicago Polaris lounge, which at one point had a line of people near the entrance just waiting for a seat to open up.

Seating

There are tons of different seating options, although my favorite remains the cubicle chairs. They have these in Chicago too, although if memory serves me, the Chicago ones are narrower. In fact, if you are small and you have a buddy who’s also small, and you and your buddy like each other a lot, you’ll both probably be able to fit. There’s one particular seat that faces the window, which makes it my favorite seat in the lounge. (The odds of this seat being open on any future visit are probably pretty small, though, so I tried to get my money’s worth tonight.)

Here are some other seats:

Eating/Drinking

I was starving when 6:00 rolled around and it was my turn to enter the lounge, so I made a bee-line for the dining room. Here’s the sign United has outside the dining room, which I guess is technically true, in that American only offers sit-down dining for first class passengers.

While it’s great that United offers this service, the wait to sit down once the lounge opens for real is going to be nuts. I counted forty seats in the dining room, so if the lounge is operating at capacity, that means that less than 10% of the guests at any given time will be able to eat.

Here’s what the dining room looks like:

I ordered the pasta, and it was really high-quality. It’s not the best meal I’ve ever had, but I was impressed with the presentation, and the portion size was good given that it was pretty rich.

It was clear that there are still some kinks to work out with the service, but that’s the point of doing a soft launch. Nothing major, it just seemed a little disorganized, and it took a while for my meal to come out (this is with around 15 people in the dining room). I’m sure they’ll hit a groove relatively quickly, at which point this will be a really nice pre-flight dining option for anyone who can get a table.

I didn’t stick around for dessert, because I wanted to sample some of the other food. If you think that I didn’t leave the dining room and immediately hit up the ramen station, then you obviously don’t know me very well. The ramen was okay, but it didn’t compare to the quality of food in the dining room.

There’s also a buffet of finger foods (as well as a very excellent offering of sweets), which I skipped. It looked pretty decent, but I have to say that the tapas that they serve in the Chicago lounge were better. There were more diverse options, more on par with something you’d order at a sit-down restaurant, whereas this buffet was more geared toward basic carb-y stuff. (The pasta salad looked pretty tempting, though, I’ll admit.)

And let’s not forget the bar, of course. I didn’t get a good photo of it (FOR SHAME!), but you can see it in one of the above photos of the seating. They’ve got some top shelf stuff there, too. I had a Balvenie 12 year scotch and a Whistle Pig straight rye, and any time I get two high-end whiskies without paying extra, I’m gonna be pretty happy.

Features and Amenities

This is where the lounge shines, although again, I hope the eventual number of passengers doesn’t make it too tough to snag nap rooms or showers.

In the middle of the second level, there’s a bank of glass-walled offices, which are very generously sized. In fact, they probably could have installed twice as many without them feeling cramped.

Then on the first floor, past the “library” sitting area (pictured at the top of this post), you get to the spa area, where the nap rooms and showers are located. I guess it’s not really a spa, but it’s behind a set of glass doors and you check in a desk where they keep the towels, so it’s at least spa-adjacent.

The nap rooms are okay, but they’re not all that conducive to sleeping. The day bed is pretty hard, and the back curves up so much that you can’t really make too much use of the pillow there. Plus, there are no blinds on the windows of each room (or doors for that matter), so you can’t entirely shut out the world around you. The noise machine is a nice touch, though. If I had a long layover after a long flight, I’d much rather spend it in one of these rooms than out in the main part of the lounge, so they do serve a purpose.

Then there are the shower rooms. If you thought that I wasn’t going to take a shower just for the hell of it, then you obviously don’t know me very well. I knew from the Chicago lounge that the shower would be excellent, and it didn’t disappoint. There is a rainforest shower head as well as a standard angled one, and each shower head has two modes, so you have a total of eight possible shower configurations. A+ all around. (I should also mention that the bath mat is totally sublime. I don’t think I’ve ever cared about a bath mat before, but the one in the shower room was as soft and fluffy as a cloud, but not just any cloud… a cloud that was also filled with memory foam.)

There’s a full-length mirror on the door, so I took an obligatory selfie. However, I should note that you can see the mirror from inside the shower, so if you’re a normal person who’s disgusted by the sight of your own nude body, just remember to keep your eyes forward.

The last feature of the lounge is something called “The Studio,” which is on the opposite end of the second level as the dining room. I don’t really know what this is for — I think I overheard someone saying it would be a noodle bar, but it didn’t really look set up for cooking. It’s an attractive space, though, so whatever it is, I’m sure it will be a worthwhile addition.

I didn’t take a photo of the bathrooms, although you can probably imagine them. They basically look like the shower rooms only without a shower. Each bathroom is its own self-contained room, which I love. Plus, unlike the Chicago lounge, the bathrooms are spaced out in banks of four or five throughout the lounge, rather than all being laid out along one hallway. This makes it less awkward to hunt for an unoccupied stall, and it also provides more space to wait for one to open up.

I do wish that United had provided a better means of determining whether a stall is occupied, since it’s really hard to read the word “occupied” on the door. It’s under the lock, and the dark lighting makes it almost invisible. I know I’d feel like a real weirdo putting my face right up the handle on every bathroom trying to find one to use.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got. Overall, I loved it, and I’m super excited to go back this fall before my flight to Zurich on Swiss. If it weren’t for the terrace of the Concorde lounge in London, I’d say this is my favorite lounge that I’ve been to so far. I loved that terrace, though.

There’s no denying that the Polaris lounge is a fantastic addition to SFO. While SFO is a nice airport, it isn’t exactly known for its lounges, although that’s going to change now. I haven’t been to the murderer’s row of “best lounges in the US,” but I can’t believe this wouldn’t rank high on that list. I think it might even siphon some traffic away from the Centurion lounge, since I know a lot of Star Alliance premium passengers use that lounge instead of the mediocre United Club and Global First lounge.

Did anyone else go to the preview today? Do you have any plans to check out the lounge in the near future? You’re in for a treat if so.

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

I was fortunate enough to spend a couple hours in United’s brand new SFO Polaris lounge today during their soft open, and it was really great. I should point out that I paid for this privilege (with 2500 miles) and wasn’t compensated in any way by United. I’m actually pretty surprised it was so cheap — when I read a tweet about United offering access in two-hour slots, I figured it would be ungodly expensive, or that it would have sold out in minutes. I had just woken up when I found out about the offer, and I bought my ticket immediately. That ended up being a good call, since most of the slots were taken by the time I was ready to leave for work.

In the coming days, you’re going to see a slew of posts that have exhaustive, professional-quality photos of every nook and cranny of the lounge, so my focus is less on documenting each individual chair and floor tile and more about giving my general impression after spending a couple hours there. I didn’t have a flight to catch (United provided me a gate pass to get through security), so I was able to relax and take in the lounge on its own terms. (Check out this post from Live and Let’s Fly for more photos.)

Initial Impression

Walking into the lounge, you’re greeted by a quarry’s worth of white marble, which is to be expected from the Polaris visual design. Overall, one of the things I like about Polaris is how it offers a consistent visual identity that extends from the lounge to the plane, the amenity kit, the food presentation, and so on. This is something I find missing from Delta and American’s premium products. American’s Flagship First lounges look fantastic, but aside from some gray and red, nothing about it screams “American Airlines,” and that continues onboard their planes, where gray, beige, and black vie for attention, depending on what configuration you get. I know I’m more interested in visual identity than most people, so I’m sure a lot of folks couldn’t care less whether United’s lounge reflects the overall brand presentation or not, as long as it’s a nice space. And it is, so don’t worry.

The lounge is long and narrow, with two levels that snake along the edge of SFO’s international terminal. The shape means that there’s a mostly unbroken panorama of the airport, including a great view of the widebody aircraft lined up at the international terminal’s G gates. If you’ll excuse the bird shit on the window, here’s a good example of what you’ll see from the sitting area on the upper level.

My other initial impression was that the space is gigantic. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a lounge this big before — stick a duty free store in there and it would feel like its own terminal. You can spend a good five minutes just walking from end-to-end on each floor. When it’s up and running, it’s going to have to serve a ton of passengers, so hopefully its enormity will help keep it from becoming overcrowded. That was certainly a problem at the Chicago Polaris lounge, which at one point had a line of people near the entrance just waiting for a seat to open up.

Seating

There are tons of different seating options, although my favorite remains the cubicle chairs. They have these in Chicago too, although if memory serves me, the Chicago ones are narrower. In fact, if you are small and you have a buddy who’s also small, and you and your buddy like each other a lot, you’ll both probably be able to fit. There’s one particular seat that faces the window, which makes it my favorite seat in the lounge. (The odds of this seat being open on any future visit are probably pretty small, though, so I tried to get my money’s worth tonight.)

Here are some other seats:

Eating/Drinking

I was starving when 6:00 rolled around and it was my turn to enter the lounge, so I made a bee-line for the dining room. Here’s the sign United has outside the dining room, which I guess is technically true, in that American only offers sit-down dining for first class passengers.

While it’s great that United offers this service, the wait to sit down once the lounge opens for real is going to be nuts. I counted forty seats in the dining room, so if the lounge is operating at capacity, that means that less than 10% of the guests at any given time will be able to eat.

Here’s what the dining room looks like:

And for those that care, this is the menu:

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I ordered the pasta, and it was really high-quality. It’s not the best meal I’ve ever had, but I was impressed with the presentation, and the portion size was good given that it was pretty rich.

It was clear that there are still some kinks to work out with the service, but that’s the point of doing a soft launch. Nothing major, it just seemed a little disorganized, and it took a while for my meal to come out (this is with around 15 people in the dining room). I’m sure they’ll hit a groove relatively quickly, at which point this will be a really nice pre-flight dining option for anyone who can get a table.

I didn’t stick around for dessert, because I wanted to sample some of the other food. If you think that I didn’t leave the dining room and immediately hit up the ramen station, then you obviously don’t know me very well. The ramen was okay, but it didn’t compare to the quality of food in the dining room.

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There’s also a buffet of finger foods (as well as a very excellent offering of sweets), which I skipped. It looked pretty decent, but I have to say that the tapas that they serve in the Chicago lounge were better. There were more diverse options, more on par with something you’d order at a sit-down restaurant, whereas this buffet was more geared toward basic carb-y stuff. (The pasta salad looked pretty tempting, though, I’ll admit.)

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And let’s not forget the bar, of course. I didn’t get a good photo of it (FOR SHAME!), but you can see it in one of the above photos of the seating. They’ve got some top shelf stuff there, too. I had a Balvenie 12 year scotch and a Whistle Pig straight rye, and any time I get two high-end whiskies without paying extra, I’m gonna be pretty happy.

Features and Amenities

This is where the lounge shines, although again, I hope the eventual number of passengers doesn’t make it too tough to snag nap rooms or showers.

In the middle of the second level, there’s a bank of glass-walled offices, which are very generously sized. In fact, they probably could have installed twice as many without them feeling cramped.

Then on the first floor, past the “library” sitting area (pictured at the top of this post), you get to the spa area, where the nap rooms and showers are located. I guess it’s not really a spa, but it’s behind a set of glass doors and you check in a desk where they keep the towels, so it’s at least spa-adjacent.

The nap rooms are okay, but they’re not all that conducive to sleeping. The day bed is pretty hard, and the back curves up so much that you can’t really make too much use of the pillow there. Plus, there are no blinds on the windows of each room (or doors for that matter), so you can’t entirely shut out the world around you. The noise machine is a nice touch, though. If I had a long layover after a long flight, I’d much rather spend it in one of these rooms than out in the main part of the lounge, so they do serve a purpose.

Then there are the shower rooms. If you thought that I wasn’t going to take a shower just for the hell of it, then you obviously don’t know me very well. I knew from the Chicago lounge that the shower would be excellent, and it didn’t disappoint. There is a rainforest shower head as well as a standard angled one, and each shower head has two modes, so you have a total of eight possible shower configurations. A+ all around. (I should also mention that the bath mat is totally sublime. I don’t think I’ve ever cared about a bath mat before, but the one in the shower room was as soft and fluffy as a cloud, but not just any cloud… a cloud that was also filled with memory foam.)

There’s a full-length mirror on the door, so I took an obligatory selfie. However, I should note that you can see the mirror from inside the shower, so if you’re a normal person who’s disgusted by the sight of your own nude body, just remember to keep your eyes forward.

The last feature of the lounge is something called “The Studio,” which is on the opposite end of the second level as the dining room. I don’t really know what this is for — I think I overheard someone saying it would be a noodle bar, but it didn’t really look set up for cooking. It’s an attractive space, though, so whatever it is, I’m sure it will be a worthwhile addition.

I didn’t take a photo of the bathrooms, although you can probably imagine them. They basically look like the shower rooms only without a shower. Each bathroom is its own self-contained room, which I love. Plus, unlike the Chicago lounge, the bathrooms are spaced out in banks of four or five throughout the lounge, rather than all being laid out along one hallway. This makes it less awkward to hunt for an unoccupied stall, and it also provides more space to wait for one to open up.

I do wish that United had provided a better means of determining whether a stall is occupied, since it’s really hard to read the word “occupied” on the door. It’s under the lock, and the dark lighting makes it almost invisible. I know I’d feel like a real weirdo putting my face right up the handle on every bathroom trying to find one to use.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got. Overall, I loved it, and I’m super excited to go back this fall before my flight to Zurich on Swiss. If it weren’t for the terrace of the Concorde lounge in London, I’d say this is my favorite lounge that I’ve been to so far. I loved that terrace, though.

There’s no denying that the Polaris lounge is a fantastic addition to SFO. While SFO is a nice airport, it isn’t exactly known for its lounges, although that’s going to change now. I haven’t been to the murderer’s row of “best lounges in the US,” but I can’t believe this wouldn’t rank high on that list. I think it might even siphon some traffic away from the Centurion lounge, since I know a lot of Star Alliance premium passengers use that lounge instead of the mediocre United Club and Global First lounge.

Did anyone else go to the preview today? Do you have any plans to check out the lounge in the near future? You’re in for a treat if so.