a uselessly personal text-only review of a business class flight
The first thing I learned is that "business class" and "first class" are made-up terms. Airlines can sell whatever seats they want under whatever name they want, often depending on whether the flight is domestic or international. The best way to understand what a ticket gets you is to look reviews up for the specific seat on the specific airline.
Specifically, then, I flew United Polaris between San Francisco and Taiwan a few months ago. I felt weird about it because it was probably the most expensive single purchase I've ever made, period (how many malaria nets are we talking again?). But in the end I decided I could justify it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Another point in favor was that it's a purchase that takes zero additional time to enjoy. I don't really act this way but I "should be" treating time as my most precious resource; and along that dimension the upgrade is cheaper than the cheapest book, movie, or game, because the flight will take exactly as long either way.
I am not a professional airline reviewer, so all you get is a laundry list of observations.
boarding and earlier
The first perk of United Polaris is access to United Polaris lounges at the airport. There are only six United Polaris lounges in the world, one of which is in SFO. They're apparently even nicer than the more common United Club lounges, but I've never been to a United Club lounge either so that description doesn't help me. The lounge I went to in SFO was massive, but still full enough that it was hard to find an empty seat. Every seat was huge. Most seats had outlets.
A plaque explained that they were using compostable dishware that day because of an equipment issue. There was free food and drink: salad, charcuterie, pork, fish; gummy bears and mixed pretzels; pear-and-cinnamon-infused water, plus a standard array of tea and coffee and soft drinks. There were massive showers with fancy panels outside, which I didn't use. Overall the food was good, but not outstanding.
Jumping around the chronology a bit, I actually enjoyed my experience before the return flight more: Taiwan did not have one of the five other United Polaris lounges, nor even a United Club lounge, but United contracts with various third-party providers of fancy lounges in different airports, so I got access to the EVA lounge instead there. I loved it because it had all the Taiwanese comfort foods I know and love, including self-serve boba.
The second perk is you get to board early. I never understood wanting to board economy flights early; why would I voluntarily choose to spend more time in my cramped airplane seat? It made a little more sense for business class, so I figured I'd try, but for reasons I don’t understand, Boarding group 1 was still massive, so I still had to wait for a long time to board my SF flight.
On the return flight, though, because I had taken a long detour to the EVA lounge to check it out, I was the last person to board through the business class tunnel (though there were many boarding groups after me, so I wasn't at risk of missing the flight). I got to watch the staff close the tunnel behind me.
on the flight
The star of the show, the place where I‘d spend most of my time across the full flight experience, is of course the airplane seat. The first time I stretched my legs all the way out in that seat, I had a little wow! moment; I'd never been able to do that on a plane before. But then, I sit at my desk at work all day and don't feel compelled to stretch my legs. Unfortunately, there was a little shelf at my feet that cut the vertical space into two, at a maximally awkward height such that I could only rest the arch of my foot on it and not the heel, making it still a bit uncomfortable to stretch my feet from the upright seating position for long.
The main selling point of business class is that you can lie completely flat to sleep. I did do that. That's not bad, but I think I was hoping I'd be able to close my eyes and sort of pretend I was lying in a bed at home, and the experience definitely didn't reach that bar. My feet had barely any room to move laterally, plus I had to put my seat belt on over my blankets. At best it felt like a hospital bed (a setting I unfortunately know well). Rereading reviews after my flight, the meta play may have been to ask a flight attendant for a "mattress topper".
To give some more flavor, I slept deeply enough to have a few dreams. In one dream I was a few actions away from winning a game of Magic: the Gathering when I got disconnected. In another dream I coincidentally ran into a high school classmate's parents. In both dreams, I was still on the plane.
Another important note is that you can't lie flat during takeoff and landing. So if I were to do this again I might have still brought a neck pillow for those parts of the flight, even if I suspect some people would have looked at me funny.
Finally, the seat had lots of storage space, but split into many nooks and crannies that made it a bit hard to use. To the right of my seat I had a table-like platform and cubby where I could maybe have stored a small purse, then there were a few more oddly-shaped pockets all around. Awkwardly, my large backpack did not fit “under the seat in front of me” because of the aforementioned shelf; I had to remove my headphones and iPad and shove them into other nooks first.
food and stuff
The food service and alcohol on the flight was... okay. If it was a restaurant I wouldn't go back to it, which is maybe the most scathing review I can give — I could never work as a food critic because I would give most any random dish five stars, including (read: especially) grocery store sushi. I did like the "signature" ice cream sundae, but it's hard to go wrong with ice cream sundaes, I imagine. Like I said, I'm not a reviewer. I also don't drink much, but I got the pinot noir on the way there and champagne on the way back just for the sake of it. Champagne is pretty good.
They provided some nice toiletries, but I was not impressed with the sleep mask, which was too tight even when loosened maximally, too flat around the eyes, and not particularly good at blocking light from around the nose. I preferred the sleep mask I had brought with me, which was some random Chinese brand I bought on Amazon a decade ago (!).
Okay but what does one do during the flight?? Bizarrely I did not use the in-flight entertainment at all. I had the foresight to buy some iPad games ahead of time I hadn't gotten to on my backlog, so I mostly played Slice & Dice on the first flight, and shapez and Balatro on the second (yup, I managed to wait almost two years before starting Balatro). I also wrote a little bit of the random words that became this post. I discovered that iPad + compact bluetooth keyboard is a great setup for typing on a plane, much nicer than a laptop since you can independently find positions for the iPad and keyboard that work well with your hands and eyes in the cramped space. (I just have a Logitech Pebble Keys 2 K380s following the Wirecutter guide.) But mostly I found that the video games made time pass impressively quickly.
This really just threw into relief how expensive the flight was; I could have bought a brand new Switch 2 and a brand new iPad with a bunch of accessories and games for each leg and still come out ahead.
conclusion
Like I said, cool once-in-a-lifetime experience but I probably wouldn't do this again, at least not until I've exhausted cheaper strategies for getting a better flight experience, like one of those wacky travel pillows that cover your entire head. Or, did you know many airlines let you book two seats for yourself if you just want extra space? Or it might be that I can just greatly expand my gaming budget.