United Polaris Review: The Old Planes Have the Better Seat
Polaris scores 8 out of 10 and beats Delta One on our rubric. Its best layout is on its oldest aircraft: the 767s run 1-1-1, with no adjacent seats anywhere in the cabin.
Best for: Anyone comparing the two US carriers to Europe, and anyone who would rather not sit beside a stranger
By Jon Miksis6 min read
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United does not have the best business seat to Europe, or the best screens, or the cheapest fare. It wins our comparison of the two US carriers anyway, and the most interesting thing about its cabin is that the best version of it is on the oldest aircraft.
The scores
Our score
8.0/10
- Seat
- 8
- IFE
- 8
- Lounge
- 10
- Value
- 6
Scored against our published rubric.
8 out of 10, number 17 of the 31 carriers we score, and ahead of Delta One at 7.5.
The seat scores 8 rather than 10 for a single reason: no privacy door on most of the fleet. Polaris is lie-flat with direct aisle access from every seat, which takes eight of the ten available points. The door is the missing two.
The oldest planes have the best layout
| Aircraft | Seat | IFE | Lounge & bags | Value | Product |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 777 / 787 (Polaris) | 8 | 8 | 10 | 6 | 8 |
| 767-300ER / 767-400ER | 8 | 8 | 10 | 6 | 8 |
The 767-300ER and 767-400ER run an unusual 1-1-1 layout with no paired seats at all, which is more private again. Select 787-9s add Polaris Studio suites with doors in the front rows.
1-1-1: no adjacent pairs anywhere in the cabin, the most private Polaris layout.
Both Polaris cabins score the same 8, and the reason they do is worth spelling out, because the raw score hides something a traveler would actually want to know.
The 777s and 787s are 1-2-1 — everyone reaches an aisle, and the middle pair sit beside each other.
The 767-300ER and 767-400ER are 1-1-1. No adjacent seats anywhere in the cabin. Not a single passenger has a neighbor, and nobody negotiates anything.
Our rubric scores both at 8 because both are lie-flat with direct aisle access and neither has a door, and it does not award points for privacy beyond that. But if you are traveling alone and you have a choice, the 767 is the better cabin — and it is the aircraft most people would assume is the compromise. Select 787-9s do add Polaris Studio suites with doors in the front rows, which is the genuine upgrade when you can get it.
This is the opposite of the pattern everywhere else on this site. Lufthansa's good cabin is on newly delivered aircraft and its 2-2-2 is on the older ones. Qatar's Qsuite is fitted to a minority of its A350s. United is the rare carrier where the equipment substitution cannot really hurt you.
Reach is the strongest thing about United
317 priced economy routes — more than any other US carrier in our grid, from 25 US cities into 17 European ones.
| From | Routes priced | Cheapest fare | Routes won |
|---|---|---|---|
| Las Vegas | 16 | $809 | 10 |
| Tampa | 16 | $751 | 9 |
| Charlotte | 15 | $766 | 6 |
| San Diego | 14 | $811 | 5 |
| Salt Lake City | 13 | $928 | 4 |
| Houston | 16 | $774 | 3 |
| Raleigh | 16 | $471 | 3 |
| Nashville | 15 | $471 | 3 |
| Orlando | 13 | $477 | 3 |
| Dallas | 13 | $786 | 2 |
| Minneapolis | 12 | $611 | 2 |
| Phoenix | 12 | $811 | 2 |
| Portland | 10 | $471 | 2 |
| Denver | 17 | $471 | 1 |
| Austin | 14 | $799 | 1 |
| Chicago | 13 | $517 | 1 |
| Philadelphia | 7 | $779 | 1 |
| San Francisco | 16 | $750 | 0 |
| Washington DC | 13 | $501 | 0 |
| Los Angeles | 12 | $796 | 0 |
| Detroit | 12 | $766 | 0 |
| Seattle | 12 | $766 | 0 |
| Atlanta | 11 | $766 | 0 |
| Boston | 6 | $471 | 0 |
| Miami | 3 | $761 | 0 |
Only 35 of those routes are nonstop. The rest connect, 97 through Washington Dulles, 82 through Chicago and 75 through Newark. Three hubs is what lets United sell almost every US city on our list.
Where that turns into real money is Iceland, and the result is genuinely surprising.
United prices Keflavik from 24 US cities — more than Icelandair itself, whose entire business is connecting Americans through that airport. On the nine routes where both sell, United is the cheaper carrier on five of them: Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, Orlando and Raleigh. On the other fifteen, including Portland, Nashville, Phoenix and Salt Lake City, Icelandair does not sell a fare at all.
The cheapest is $471 round trip, from Portland, Denver, Raleigh and Nashville, all connecting through Chicago. Those are cities with almost no nonstop European service, paying a fare competitive with what well-connected coastal gateways pay.
That does not make United cheap — Icelandair is still joint-cheapest across the whole grid at a $0 median premium, and it wins Boston, Washington and Miami here. It makes United the airline that turns up in places the specialists skip, which is the recurring theme of this page.
What the Lounge 10 is actually measuring
Every business cabin on this site scores 10 on Lounge, and that deserves an explanation rather than a shrug, because a dimension where nobody loses is not doing much work.
The score is entitlement, not decor: five points for lounge access included in the fare, up to three for checked bags, two for a carry-on allowance. United includes lounge access, two checked bags and a carry-on, so it takes all ten — and so does almost every transatlantic business fare, because those inclusions are effectively the definition of the cabin.
We score it anyway for a reason that will matter later rather than now. As carriers unbundle business class — and several have started charging for seat selection inside a premium cabin — this is the dimension that will move first, and a score that is currently flat is the baseline against which that change becomes visible. It also keeps the rubric honest about what it is: four things that can be verified without boarding, not a ranking of how nice a flight feels.
What the Lounge score does not capture is which lounge. United's Polaris lounges are widely rated among the best US business facilities, and none of that is in our number, because "widely rated" is exactly the kind of judgment this rubric refuses to encode.
The fare, in both cabins
In economy, United is fine rather than cheap: a $95 median premium across 317 routes, outright cheapest on 58, ranking number 22 of 31 and scoring 8 out of 10 on Value.
In business it is expensive: $1,723 median premium across 268 routes, and Value drops to 6.
| Carrier | Product score | Business routes | Median premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| EgyptAir | not verified | 4 | $80 |
| Turkish Airlines | 8.8 | 353 | $233 |
| Air Canada | 8.5 | 97 | $681 |
| TAP Air Portugal | 8.5 | 132 | $800 |
| Lufthansa | 8.8 | 251 | $1,019 |
| Avianca | not verified | 12 | $1,092 |
| Austrian | 8.3 | 23 | $1,351 |
| LOT Polish Airlines | 7.3 | 36 | $1,388 |
| ITA Airways | 8.5 | 23 | $1,422 |
| Brussels Airlines | 7.3 | 5 | $1,507 |
| SWISS | 7.3 | 105 | $1,708 |
| United | 8 | 268 | $1,723 |
Against its own alliance, United's business fare is the most expensive on the table. It beats Delta because Delta is dearer still, not because it is good value — Turkish scores 8.8 on product at a $233 premium against United's $1,723, and Lufthansa's Allegris scores 8.8 for less.
Winning the US head-to-head is not the same as being worth the money, and this page would rather say so than let the Delta comparison flatter it.
Booking it with points
United is a Star Alliance carrier, so Aeroplan, ANA, Turkish Miles&Smiles and United MileagePlus all reach it.
Two things worth knowing. MileagePlus prices United's own metal dynamically, so the same seat costs whatever the cash fare implies — which on a $1,723 premium is a lot of miles. Aeroplan and ANA price partner awards on a chart instead, which is why our transfer table scores Chase to Aeroplan at 86 against Chase to United at 62.
And Marriott Bonvoy transfers to MileagePlus at an effective 2:1 rather than the usual 3:1, the only Bonvoy route that is not simply bad. If you have hotel points and no use for them, that is where they go.
The verdict
Polaris is the sensible US choice to Europe. It beats Delta One on our rubric, it reaches more of the country than any other carrier we price, and its worst aircraft is arguably its best cabin.
It is also, against Star Alliance, the most expensive business ticket on the table. If you are buying with cash and your route has a European alternative, Lufthansa or Turkish gives you a better cabin for less. If you are flying from a city where the European carriers do not sell — and there are many — United is frequently the only one-carrier ticket available, and the 767 is the one to hope for.
Common questions
- Is United Polaris good?
- It scores 8 out of 10 on verifiable product, number 17 of the 31 carriers we score, and it beats Delta One at 7.5. The seat scores 8 rather than 10 because most Polaris cabins have no privacy door — the layout is 1-2-1 lie-flat with direct aisle access from every seat, which is the part that matters most on an overnight.
- Which United planes have the best Polaris seat?
- The oldest ones. The 767-300ER and 767-400ER run an unusual 1-1-1 layout with no adjacent seats anywhere in the cabin, which is more private than the 1-2-1 on the newer 777s and 787s. That is the reverse of the usual pattern, where the newly delivered aircraft carries the better product. Select 787-9s add Polaris Studio suites with doors in the front rows.
- Is United or Delta better to Europe?
- United, 8 to 7.5. Delta has the better seat and much better screens — free wifi puts it on a full 10 for IFE where United scores 8 — but United wins on the fourth dimension we can verify. Its median business premium is $1,723 against Delta's $3,797, which scores 6 on Value against Delta's 0.
- Is United cheap to Europe?
- In economy it is reasonable: a $95 median premium across 317 routes — more routes than any other US carrier in our grid — cheapest outright on 58 of them, ranking number 22 of 31 and scoring 8 out of 10 on Value. The cheapest United fare we recorded was $471. In business the premium rises to $1,723 and Value falls to 6.
- Have you flown United Polaris?
- Yes, in business on a Europe route, which is why this is labeled Flown rather than Researched. Service, food and ground recovery are still unscored, as they are in every review here — they cannot be read off a specification, and the four dimensions below are the ones that can.
Written by
Jon Miksis
Jon Miksis has run travel businesses since 2017 and spends 3–6 months a year traveling, two to three of them in Europe. He has taken 250+ flights and booked every one himself, and regularly flies Boston to Europe for under $300 round trip. Every “Flown” review is from his own seat.
This review is from Jon's own seat on this airline and cabin, on a Europe route.
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