I have not been paid by any entity in any way (financially, benefits) to write the following post. This is from a trip that occurred in April 2019. Any airline, lounge, and/ or loyalty program policies may have changed since then.

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After ending a week-long trip to NYC, it was time to go home. Being the exuberant individual that I am though, I scheduled myself to fly on United’s Transcontinental service from Boston to LAX for $172.30 and 20000 United MileagePlus miles to experience this flagship route. Fortunately due to weather in Boston and later NYC, I ended up getting switched to a direct flight from Newark to LAX, making the trip more seamless and eliminating my short hop to Boston.

Today’s trip starts at New York Penn Station, where I would catch the New Jersey Transit going to Newark Liberty Airport.

After buying my ticket to EWR, I passed by Amtrak’s Club Acela, which is a “premium” lounge for Amtrak’s Acela Express First Class customers and oddly enough, “United Club Members with a valid United Club Card, including their spouses and children under the age of 21 or two guests, and United Polaris Business Class passengers with a flight coupon or boarding pass with a same-day, international segment in United Polaris Business Class…” So hopefully someday I’ll have a chance to see this very disappointing lounge before the new Metropolitan Lounge gets set up in 2021 in the Penn Station expansion.

Once it was time to board I hopped on the train and took in the “scenery” on the ride to EWR.

I did have a pretty neat traveling neighbor though!

After about half an hour, we were pulling into Newark Liberty Airport station.

I then made my way up to the AirTrain, where I could get to Terminal C to catch my flight to LA, getting some pics on the way.

I finally made it up to the check-in area to check my bag, and I was reminded how “meh” Newark airport is, which I had not seen in a few years. Despite the updates made to modernize the area, a lot more will have to be done to make Newark into a more aesthetically pleasing airport.

When I finally got airside, I headed to the United Club, getting a quick pic of the Polaris Lounge entrance on the way there; hoping to also see this lounge in person soon!

Once I got to the United Club, I realized that this lounge was WAY too crowded. Granted, complimentary snacks and refreshments beats out the amount of cash someone would have to dish out in the terminal, and since access to the lounge was included in my business class ticket, I stayed despite there really not being any seats. Granted, flights were being delayed due to storms in the area, but I had heard of these United Clubs consistently being crowded.

And now, we finally get to the main event!!!

Overview: United Transcontinental Business Class Review

Airline: United Airlines
Flight No: UA 1600
Aircraft: Boeing B757-200ER
Registration: N510UA
Seat: 2A
Route: Newark (EWR) – Los Angeles (LAX)
Class of Service: United Transcontinental Business Class

Due to the storms in the NYC area, the incoming crew was delayed for our flight, pushing us back about half an hour to an hour. Once they arrived, they quickly boarded the flight to get us out as fast as possible. Finally, we boarded UA1600 heading to LA.

One of the things I love about flying B757s is that you get to board through the second door, which is a cool experience no matter if you turn left or right! On this particular day however, I was lucky enough to be turning left into the front business class section since my seat on this flight was 2A.

What I was unhappy about though, was the fact that I was scheduled on an ex-Continental Airlines B757-200ER from Boston to Los Angeles, and if you know me, you’ll know that I LOVE the buzz and roar of the B757 Rolls Royce engines! Ex-United B757s come with the weaker Pratt and Whitney engines, which don’t come close to the amazing sound of the RRs.

Once everyone got situated onboard and we were ready to go, we pushed back and headed to the runway as fast as we could before we got delayed even further.

Soon we were rolling and roaring towards LAX.

Once in the air, I saw what had been holding up traffic in and out of the NYC area.

Although it caused quite a bit of turbulence, I love the way an airplane’s wing looks when flying through clouds!

Once we got to 10000 feet, the wifi system is enabled. Since I needed to get some work done, I hopped on my phone to check out the rate for this flight, and WOW. It would cost a pretty penny at $40.99 for the entire flight! I decided to just work on what I could offline and resign to watching reruns of the Big Bang Theory and whatever other shows they had on the AVOD.

Granted, this flight is catered towards corporate executives and employees that have to travel regularly between the New York/East Coast area to the San Francisco/LA/West Coast, so it would make sense to charge so much for wifi when in theory, many of those flying are on corporate accounts, and can simply charge the wifi to those same corporate accounts, if its not already included.

Dining

As soon as it was safe, the flight attendants began the meal service on this 5.5 hour flight to the west coast. The menu reads as follows:

The drink menu was as follows:

Service started with the flagship towel.

This was of course followed by the drinks of my choice and warm nuts. I chose to have a cranapple vodka cocktail and a glass of ice water.

Then the starters were then served

The starters consisted of a solitary shrimp with a more generous offering of pineapple. I will say that the salad was much nicer, as it was lively and fresh. Overall, a 6/10 for the starters, with the salad carrying the team. I was surprised to find a salad dressing, which I quite frankly didn’t like as much, but I’m glad they even offered anything for the salad considering my rant from my very first review!

Up next was the main:

The grilled chicken breast was just as good as you’d expect a grilled chicken breast on a plane would be. All in all, not too bad, but not great either. My favorite part of dinner is always the pretzel rolls!

Finally, the highlight arrived: an ice cream sundae with fixings!

You also can’t forget the awesome dinner time view

I proceeded to nap for a bit, and we were finally descending over Nevada into LAX.

I managed to snap a pic of the descent, which was much nicer than I thought it would be.

Finally, we took our final turns, heading into LAX, lined up for the runway, and came in for landing.

United Transcontinental Business Class Verdict

This was a very pleasant experience on United’s Transcontinental flight to LAX, however I was very disappointed to be flying on a legacy United Airlines B757, which has Pratt and Whitney engines mounted versus the symphonic sounding Rolls Royce.

The service itself was nice, as is expected for the most important premium route in the country. I do believe that United can do more for their premium customers, such as providing Business Class customers access to the Polaris Lounge versus the often crowded United Club, like American Airlines, which offers Flagship Lounge access to both their First and Business Class transcontinental passengers.

Furthermore, the food options could have been better, but then again I can only compare this experience to international premium routes since I have yet to try another airline’s transcontinental service.

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As always, remember to keep living life one trip at a time!

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