United Club Access?

So...what's involved here? I have SE (and shall have it again next year) and I'm doing that F-word over the next few weeks, using SEA, LAX, and JFK. How do I get access to the United Club, and is there a fee involved?

My understanding is that you just show your card and ID, and you're set. No need to show a boarding pass or to pay for anything. Not sure if there's any kind of tipping.

My issue is getting to one of these locations.

Anderson said:

So...what's involved here? I have SE (and shall have it again next year) and I'm doing that F-word over the next few weeks, using SEA, LAX, and JFK. How do I get access to the United Club, and is there a fee involved?

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That's a rather curious request. Do people who equate riding trains with expletives spend their free time in Metropolitan Lounges and Club Acelas? To your point the only United Club fees I'm aware of are when you order something above well from the bar. Other than that what you see is generally free once you're inside. I don't think they expect you to take the magazines or glassware with you but you know what I mean.

Comment overheard in a United Lounge:

"There's some of that Amtrak Rif-raff, United will let anyone into their Clubs!"

Devil's Advocate said:

Anderson said:

So...what's involved here? I have SE (and shall have it again next year) and I'm doing that F-word over the next few weeks, using SEA, LAX, and JFK. How do I get access to the United Club, and is there a fee involved?

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That's a rather curious request. Do people who equate riding trains with expletives spend their free time in Metropolitan Lounges and Club Acelas? To your point the only United Club fees I'm aware of are when you order something above well from the bar. Other than that what you see is generally free once you're inside. I don't think they expect you to take the magazines or glassware with you but you know what I mean.

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I'm pretty sure the "F-word" is "flying".

BCL has it on the nose (witness Charlie recently commenting that he "f***" where the asterisked word was "flew").

Normally I wouldn't be at an airport, but I'm flying cross-country and I figured that I might as well take advantage of the lounges as I'm able to (since United's is free while I'd need to pay quite a bit for Virgin's lounges even though I'm using Virgin).

I am sure the other kind of F-word act would be frowned upon in United Club. That falls within the purview of Mile High Club, and to qualify you have to be flying at least above FL 060 I should think.

It would be interestingly painful to use a United Club at JFK while flying Virgin. Quite a hike as I seem to recall.

Anderson said:

BCL has it on the nose (witness Charlie recently commenting that he "f***" where the asterisked word was "flew"). Normally I wouldn't be at an airport, but I'm flying cross-country and I figured that I might as well take advantage of the lounges as I'm able to (since United's is free while I'd need to pay quite a bit for Virgin's lounges even though I'm using Virgin).

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I understand that F-word is referencing flying. I just find the desire for someone who dislikes flying to spend their free time in a club run by an airline in the middle of an airport overlooking runways and aircraft rather curious. It's a bit like a vegetarian asking for details on redeeming a coupon for a steakhouse. It's not bad thing per se; it's just kind of odd. I'm not much of an airline club person myself. Most airline clubs seem to struggle with providing a substantially improved experience over the general access areas. In other words really great lounges are generally only located in really great airports that don't even need a lounge while really crappy airports that could seriously benefit from a good lounge almost always come with really crappy lounges instead. As a result of this paradox visiting most airline clubs can become a rather pointless experience. That being said, if I had a chance to visit the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse I would absolutely take it. Unfortunately I don't think they sell any day passes.

Devil's Advocate said:

Anderson said:

BCL has it on the nose (witness Charlie recently commenting that he "f***" where the asterisked word was "flew"). Normally I wouldn't be at an airport, but I'm flying cross-country and I figured that I might as well take advantage of the lounges as I'm able to (since United's is free while I'd need to pay quite a bit for Virgin's lounges even though I'm using Virgin).

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I understand that F-word is referencing flying. I just find the desire for someone who dislikes flying to spend their free time in a club run by an airline in the middle of an airport overlooking runways and aircraft rather curious. It's a bit like a vegetarian asking for details on redeeming a coupon for a steakhouse. It's not bad thing per se; it's just kind of odd. I'm not much of an airline club person myself. Most airline clubs seem to struggle with providing a substantially improved experience over the general access areas. In other words really great lounges are generally only located in really great airports that don't even need a lounge while really crappy airports that could seriously benefit from a good lounge almost always come with really crappy lounges instead. As a result of this paradox visiting most airline clubs can become a rather pointless experience. That being said, if I had a chance to visit the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse I would absolutely take it. Unfortunately I don't think they sell any day passes.

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Or just that spending time in nice lounge instead of on the crowded airport floor makes the experience more bearable

Orie has this one more or less dead on. Basically, I'm flying. That's a given, and I've manage to sniff out a decently comfortable airline to fly on in the form of Virgin America. With that in mind, while I'm flying I would like to have a reasonably pleasant experience worked in if possible. The proper comparison, in DA's analogy, would be a vegetarian who is stuck going to a steakhouse...and so who would like to figure out what wine pairs well with the vegetarian option regardless.

Virgin Atlantic's clubhouse does sell passes...but at JFK they're expensive ($75), I don't have any status to make them cheaper, and on top of that the hours don't line up (my flight is at 1300 and the clubhouse is closed between 0745 and 1430). The one at IAD has more cooperative hours for the later flight(s) if/when I take those, and the price is less ($45). The Loft at LAX is the cheapest of the three ($40 for the day) and will probably get a visit.

Edit: And to the initial question, I'm sure that someone who doesn't enjoy doing so but who is stuck catching a train from NYP or CHI (or LAX, WAS, etc.) and who has the proper status (or card) to access the lounge in question would probably take advantage of the opportunity to do so.

You just present your SE/S+ card at the entrance and hopefully they figure out how to swipe it. No fee

Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse day passes are not sold to the general public. They are only available to Virgin America First and Main Cabin Select passengers, and Gold members of the VX Elevate program with a same-day boarding pass.

The F-Word that he is doing over the next few weeks is "flying", I do believe.

PRR60: I'm in First on all of my legs. There was an...impressive sale last week on First ($599 JFK-LAX, $370 LAX-MCO) that landed on top of Amtrak's blackout period. Considering that I got stuck shelling out about $500 for a First ticket on Delta on my way back from NARP and the amenities on their First weren't exactly worth the label...

(Note that most of this discussion would not be happening if Amtrak's OTP hadn't been such a general disaster area going east-west over the last year...)

Anderson, sadly at JFK it would be impossible to use the United Club when flying Virgin America. United uses Terminal 7, the main airline there is British Airways (it actually runs and manages the terminal), Air Canada and a few other random international airlines. Virgin America uses Terminal 4 the main international terminal and Delta's main hub. None of the terminals (except 2 and 4), 3 and 6 no longer exist have post-security connections at.

Seattle's you can defiantly access, all the gates are connected although it's in a far off corner (the walk to it was longer than I expected) of concourse A.

SFO I don't know at all.

Since EWR is United's Hub they only fly JFK to SFO or LAX along with puddle jumpers to Dulles, and none of there other hubs. My last transcon was on United JFK to SFO, took Amtrak back. I booked them mainly to take advantage of the United Club and see what the pre-renovated PS planes where every coach seat had economy plus legroom were like. I got to the gate, was told "one moment please sir" and got and operational upgrade to Buissiness class.

Impressive. What was the basis of the upgrade, dare I ask? (I've heard of random upgrades before; this just surprises me because it is so random)

I have no idea why upgrades happen to me on airlines that I seldom fly and have no status on, like say on British Airways between London and India. Just happens by luck of the draw I guess.

An op-up is often due to overbooking in Coach. If they have seats in Business or First, the will move a Coach pax up to avoid an Involuntary Denied Boarding claim. The selection is often based on status or fare paid.

If a creation of a boarding pass was involved in the upgrade process then you can be fairly certain the decision was calculated and deliberate. Much of the manual leeway which once existed has long since been bled out of the process. Now it's mostly just algorithms and number crunching.

LAX has the same issue as JFK -- Virgin America is in Terminal 3, the United Clubs are in Terminal 6 and Terminal 7, and 3 is not connected airside with 6/7.

My daughter (and her dog) just flew in from San Francisco to Orlando and was upgraded to First.

She flies a great deal on VX and has elite status, which I think helped with the upgrade.