I recently had the opportunity to fly United Polaris business class from San Francisco to Tokyo on a plane.
It wasn't close to the best but it wasn't bad.
Pros
Direct aisle access was available in all seats (seats were arranged in a 1-2-1 configuration).
Seats were more comfortable than most business class seats, especially when flat
United provided two pillows and a blanket. One was a standard size pillow and the other was a small memory foam pillow. I really loved the memory foam one.
We chose bulkhead seating and had tons of legroom (we had previously read that bulkhead seats offer more legroom).
A divider between middle seats can be raised or lower depending upon whether you want to talk with or want privacy from the person next to you.
In flight wifi was very fast while it was working
Cons
There is no privacy door
Service was inconsistent
Food was mediocre
No extra padding or pajamas were provided for this 11 hour flight (my understanding is that pajamas are available for flights of 12 hours or more)
In flight wifi cut out for a few hours in the middle of our flight
Photos and Captions Follow
While we sat in bulkhead seats, this shows the regular seating behind us. Piled on the seat are a rolled up blanked, an amenity kit, a small memory foam pillow, and a standard pillow. The partition between middle seats is raised, but it can be lowered for speaking with the person next to you.Bulkhead seating offered plenty of legroom, but some who are taller than me (which is most people) may find the foot space cramped when sleeping.Maisie was surprised to receive a phone call mid-flight. The Internet (while it was working) was easily fast enough to support phone conversations. Maisie kept her voice very quiet so as not to disturb any other passengers.The lack of a door means that there’s a bit less privacy, but the way the seats are staggered makes it fairly private anyway.I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the lie-flat seat was comfortable even without additional padding. I also really liked the little blue memory foam pillow.I appreciated the professional way in which the lack of a mid-flight snack was communicated on the menu.Maisie ordered the short rib and said that it was really good. I ordered the salmon, which wasn’t great. This photo makes it look like our seats were very close together but we had purposely sat on the inner edges of our seats in order to get both of us in-frame. In real life, there’s plenty of room between middle-seat neighbors.The baked egg breakfast was fine. It’s pretty much what I’ve learned to expect for airplane food.
