United Just Changed Hawaii Premium Cabins. Is The Cost Worth It?

United Airlines is now selling select Hawaii flights as Polaris business class, the first time its long-haul premium label has officially reached the islands. The name is now here, the lie-flat seats are familiar, and there are Polaris mainland lounges too, depending on which mainland airport you start from.

A Hawaii-bound business class visitor can now board a United Airlines flight branded Polaris and walk into the Polaris Lounge before takeoff. That has never been true for Hawaii before, unless you were connecting from an international flight. The change is already showing up when booking, on new reservations, and even some existing ones.

The routes with Polaris are limited for now. Newark to Honolulu is a no-brainer, and it runs daily on a seasonal basis. Chicago O’Hare to Honolulu also runs daily, year-round. Chicago O’Hare to Kahului runs less frequently seasonally. Lihue and Kona flights are not included.

We have flown United’s Hawaii premium products in almost every form they have taken, including the old widebody flights, the tired 777s, and the 757 lie-flat cabin we started calling Fauxlaris years ago. That name said what the product felt like: lie-flat, yes, but narrower, shorter, without direct aisle access, and not remotely the same thing as true Polaris.

Polaris finally reaches Hawaii.

United has treated Hawaii as domestic for decades, even when these flights were longer than many international routes. A Chicago to Honolulu flight runs close to nine hours. Newark to Honolulu pushes even farther, up to eleven, depending on winds and season.

Until now, the branding has not reflected the trip’s length or cost. You could be in a lie-flat seat over the Pacific for most of a day and still be sold something that did not carry the Polaris name or product nuances. That changed this week.

This is not United suddenly upgrading every flight to Hawaii. It is United putting its most premium Polaris label on specific long-haul Hawaii routes where the product and the distance already match what Polaris is supposed to mean.

So is Polaris worth it for you, and at how much of a premium?

We have paid the high end ourselves, $2,100 each on a recent Polaris flight, and walked off entirely underwhelmed. The lie-flat seat did its job. The service did not in any way. Meal pacing dragged on for three hours, which reduced our sleep on the red-eye flight, and nothing about the soft product (service) matched the price tag.

That was on a Pacific route from Papeete to San Francisco, where Polaris has already been the brand, not a new domestic Polaris route still finding its footing. Hawaii travelers weighing this decision should know the seat is only one part of what they are paying for, and the rest can vary flight to flight. We learned a costly lesson.

Fauxlaris, too, did not disappear.

The term Fauxlaris still belongs in this story because United’s Hawaii premium cabins remain uneven. The 757 lie-flat seat was never fake in the sense that it did not recline flat. It was fake in the sense that travelers saw a long-haul-looking cabin and then found a narrow, older seat without the space, aisle access, or other polish people associate with Polaris.

Those 757s remain part of the Hawaii rotation, especially to the neighbor islands. Travelers will still find different premium cabins on United depending on the route, aircraft, and season, so don’t think this new label means any blanket upgrade for flights to Hawaii. For now, United has real Polaris business branding sitting alongside older Hawaii premium products they call United First. It’s confusing.

The Polaris lounge is a new mainland perk.

Polaris Lounge access is a major change for travelers at these mainland airports: Newark and Chicago O’Hare both have Polaris Lounges, so a qualifying nonstop Hawaii passenger can use them before departure. On the way from Hawaii, however, that won’t happen on the Hawaii side since there are no Hawaii Polaris lounges. To some, it will feel like the premium label arrived before the rest of the premium setup did.

Not every route is included.

This is also not for connecting itineraries. The Polaris branding applies to specific nonstop routes, not every trip that happens to touch Newark or Chicago.

A nonstop Newark-to-Honolulu traveler sees the new Polaris label. A traveler coming from another city and connecting onward to Hawaii still needs to look closely at how the itinerary is being sold. United has drawn this new offering around certain long domestic routes, not around Hawaii as one broad market.

Base Polaris fare, which is the new, cheaper tier that removes Polaris Lounge access, changes, and mileage accrual, has now been loaded on these domestic Polaris flights. Avoiding those limitations will cost extra.

What does Polaris to Hawaii cost?

We checked and, for example, found a round-trip between New York and Honolulu for as little as $3,484, although lounge access and other perks will cost you an additional $300. Other dates start as much as three times higher.

United is also controlling premium access for partner airlines.

United has, at the same time, tightened access to Polaris Lounge for many Star Alliance partner passengers. That freed up space for United’s own premium customers at the same time the airline began attaching Polaris to more domestic flights.

With Alaska absorbing Hawaiian, United now needs a strong premium story on select routes to Hawaii.

Have you flown United Polaris, Fauxlaris, or domestic first to Hawaii recently? Tell us what you saw on board and at the lounge door. Your reports help us track what is actually changing.

Photo Credit of United Polaris: © Beat of Hawaii.