Whether you frequently or only occasionally fly Star Alliance<\/a> business or first class and take advantage of reciprocal access to United Polaris Lounges, we\u2019ve got bad news. United just rolled out unannounced changes to the access policies for its most premium lounges.<\/p>\n In short, to access a Polaris Lounge<\/a>, you\u2019ll now need to be flying on one of the following partner tickets:<\/p>\n To help make sense of these changes, travelers flying business or first class on airlines like Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, and EgyptAir \u2014 among others \u2014 no longer receive complimentary Polaris Lounge access.<\/p>\n In other words, if you\u2019re passing through Chicago O\u2019Hare (ORD), Houston Intercontinental (IAH), Los Angeles (LAX), New York\/Newark (EWR), San Francisco (SFO), or Washington Dulles (IAD) on a now ineligible partner ticket, you\u2019ll be redirected to a United Club<\/a> or another partner lounge instead.<\/p>\n Moreover, access on eligible partner tickets is limited to departure before your long-haul flight. That differs from flying on a standard or flexible United Polaris ticket, where you can access the lounge at departure, during connections, and on arrival as part of a same-day itinerary.<\/p>\n Related: How to Use the AwardWallet Lounge Tool to Find All the Airport Lounges You Can Access<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n United Airlines is on a bit of a heater when it comes to rolling out less-than-favorable changes for travelers. That includes brand-new basic fares in premium cabins<\/a> and all but requiring a co-branded credit card<\/a> to fully participate in the MileagePlus program. And paring back lounge access for Star Alliance partners \u2014 even if it\u2019s warranted due to crowding \u2014 doesn\u2019t reverse that trend.<\/p>\n In the Reddit thread<\/a> that an AwardWallet reader, Brian, pointed us to, one traveler discovered these updates the day they went into effect. After scanning what would have previously been an eligible boarding pass, they were met with a red \u201cnot eligible\u201d message at the entrance.<\/p>\n And, in my humble opinion, there are better ways to roll out negative changes than letting your biggest spenders and most frequent flyers find out after getting barked at by a boarding pass scanner.<\/p>\n Page Contents<\/p> United Airlines giveth and United Airlines taketh away. Lately, though, it\u2019s been doing more of the latter. The latest example are new restrictions on Polaris Lounge access (which are more premium than United Clubs), by removing entry for travelers flying business or first class on certain Star Alliance partners. Here\u2019s what to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":258511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[12069],"tags":[12627,12628,12678],"coauthors":[36432],"class_list":["post-258510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-fees-rules-and-policies","tag-travel-experience","tag-united-airlines"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258510"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258516,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258510\/revisions\/258516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258510"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=258510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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Bottom Line<\/span><\/h2>\n