This week, I’ve embarked on my first-ever trip outside of the United States. My mind has been blown more times than I can remember in the past 24 hours and I’m far from being done yet. All of it has been amplified by the fact that, for the first time ever, I flew something better than basic economy. So, what’s it like being a serial cheapass and flying first class? Let’s find out!
I’m in Nice, France to test the brand new Audi [REDACTED]. Normally, this would be the kind of trip we’d send a freelancer to go on so our full-time staff can focus on getting out the content you crave. However, the crafty Matt Hardigree and David Tracy decided to use this trip as a big push to motivate me to finally get my passport. I’ve been flying since 2016, yet I’ve never left the borders of the United States. As it turned out, getting a passport was totally painless and I wonder why I’ve waited so long.
Now, it’s time to enjoy the spoils of international travel. Well, technically, I already am. I’m writing this from a ridiculously expensive villa on the French Riviera. I have so many comments to make already, including the fact that I just heard the sounds of a loud Harley-Davidson. Even when you’re thousands of miles away from home you can’t escape loud pipes!
But you’ll have to wait for my trip report. First, I want to talk about the experience of what it’s like flying first class as a cheapass, or something along those lines.
(Full Disclosure: Audi invited us to Nice, France to test the new [Redacted]. Audi has paid for all of my travel, lodging, and food, with the interesting twist of paying for the best seats on every aircraft I’ll be flying on.)
Normally, we wouldn’t write about traveling to a press event because, really, who cares? The vast majority of the time the automaker will put you in a cattle class seat that, at best, might be Economy with a little extra legroom. You’ll usually sit in the middle of the plane, pay for your own checked luggage, and pay for anything additional that isn’t just plopping your tuchus down in an uncomfortable chair.
This is the standard procedure for most press trip travel, regardless if you’re flying to a Land Rover event or a Honda event. At the very least, I’m happy that the automakers put us on decent airlines. They could cheap out and put journalists on Spirit flights, though then you run the risk of your attendees not making it.
Audi could have done the same here, but it went beyond.
As I said in my previous entry, Audi gave me a selection of different flights to get me to France. I chose my flights entirely based on aircraft type. I picked United as it paired me with a Boeing 787 for the leg across the Atlantic and a Bombardier CRJ-900. My other choices were Boeing 777s and Airbus A320 series aircraft, which are fine, but aren’t anything new for me. I’ve never been on a 787 and it’s been a few years since I was last on a CRJ, so that seemed to be a good pick.
Eventually, Audi sent over my flight details and I did a double-take at what I saw. These weren’t just seats, but United Polaris business class. If you’re taking an international flight with United Airlines, Polaris is likely to be the top class of the aircraft you’re on.
When flying Polaris, you sit at the very front of the aircraft in a little pod that’s like a tiny bedroom complete with a seat that folds into a bed. United then gives you more stuff than you know what to do with, including two different kinds of pillows, two different kinds of blankets, all the free drinks you could ask for, and piping hot cuisine inspired by different cultures.
The price will vary wildly depending on where you’re going and when you book it, but the last time I checked, United said that flying from Chicago to Nice in Polaris business class costs $7,100 if the trip is booked a month ahead of time. The price goes even higher if you pick a more prime time. Matt Hardigree suspects that Audi paid about $10,000 for each direction for my trip.
That’s an unthinkable amount of money to my cheap brain. I’ve never flown anything better than Economy for my entire life. I paid $277 to fly to Florida to buy my Smart Fortwo Cabriolet and I think I overpaid for that. I pride myself in traveling over a thousand miles for $30 and I was excited to fly a round trip on Frontier for just $58.
I’m just so used to plain planes like the one above and cannot fathom spending $20,000 for 20 hours worth of flying. I’ve purchased brand-new cars for less than that! I’m not sure if I’m programmed to do expensive things.
According to Forbes, the Polaris program was launched in 2016 with the installation of the O’Hare Polaris Lounge. The idea here was to give international business travelers an upscale experience on the ground so that they keep coming back to the airline. In 2017, the first aircraft with United’s Polaris seats, a Boeing 777-300ER, took to the skies. Since then, the Polaris Lounge network has grown to six locations: Chicago O’Hare (ORD), Houston Intercontinental (IAH), Los Angeles (LAX), New York/Newark (EWR), San Francisco (SFO), and Washington Dulles (IAD). Here’s what the Washington lounge looks like:
But how does all of this work in real life? I decided to document the surprises of what it’s like to live life like a rich gal, at least for a handful of hours, anyway.
My journey started at O’Hare, where my Polaris seat gave me access to United Premier Access. This fancy program gives you benefits like a dedicated security line, priority check-in, and your bags are also given priority during loading and unloading. It’s basically a bit of a white glove service.
I didn’t check my bag, so I went straight for the dedicated security line.
This line was a fraction of the size of the regular TSA line at the airport and the TSA agents were a lot more chill. I read warnings that you should get to the airport at least three hours before an international flight. I didn’t want to miss this flight, so I got there five hours early.
I’m not entirely sure what I expected. It’s said you should arrive two hours early for a domestic flight, so I wondered what the extra hour was supposed to be for. At least in this case, it didn’t seem to mean anything. Security screening went exactly the way it does for a domestic flight, only I showed the TSA agent my passport in addition to my driver’s license. I even got through security in a third of the usual time.
Apparently, it was supposed to be even faster than that. There were a number of folks in line who were pissed off because the TSA wasn’t using every scanner and thus wasn’t going as fast as they normally go. One guy got so mad he even yelled at a random TSA agent about it.
On one hand, I was excited by how fast and painless the dedicated United Premier Access line was. I never want to do standard security ever again! Yet, the people waiting in line were much meaner and more grumpy than the folks in the standard security line. I heard “we paid for this” quite a lot while in line.
Oh well, I was on a mission. I was super hungry, so I decided to go straight to the United Polaris Lounge at O’Hare.
Viewed from the outside, the lounge doesn’t seem impressive. It just looks like a room in the airport. But walk through the doors of the Polaris Lounge, and you’re seemingly transported into a different, far more luxurious dimension than just any room in an airport.
The O’Hare Polaris Lounge is under construction and was about half of its planned size. You could have fooled me because the lounge was absolutely dreamy.
First, I was shocked when I walked in because the lounge was such a huge departure from the rest of the airport. I love O’Hare’s design, but it’s nothing like this. I did a double-take because wait, hold on, I’m still in O’Hare? I adored all of the little details like the sparkly ceiling above the bathrooms, the elaborate chandeliers, and the stone accents.
Hot decor is a good start, but the Polaris Lounge goes way harder than that. The lounge has shower suites, day beds, and a relaxation area with a bunch of different body devices. Then you have your choice of a bar, a restaurant, or a buffet.
I didn’t even know what to do. I usually eat at a food court and then “relax” in the hard chairs at the gate. Here, I was allowed to just walk up to a station, grab as much food as I wanted, and eat it while sitting in a comfy chair. I ate off of real plates and used real silverware, and the food wasn’t the same old awful airport food.
Admittedly, I did zero actual research on the Polaris Lounge before I went into it, so I kept looking for prices on things. And where was the garbage can? Where do I put my dirty plate? Such things are not the concern of those in the Polaris Lounge. Wonderful people dressed to the nines take away your plates, your empty drink cans, and your trash. And the food I ate? It was included.
Also included were some of the best mixed drinks I’ve ever had in my life. The Polaris Lounge at O’Hare has a huge bar and the bartenders can make any drink you can conjure up in your head. Check out this really spicy Bloody Mary! They’ll then keep serving you drinks, even if you haven’t finished your current drink. Once again, it felt bizarre to be downing drinks at a bar and not paying anything, so I tossed some cash into the tip jar.
The bartender assured me that the lounge was all-inclusive. At the time I thought that was unbelievable. However, if you’re paying $10,000 for a plane ticket I would hope for perks like these.
Still, I felt like a fish out of water, a city girl in the country, or a Volkswagen that’s not in a shop. It felt so wrong. I saw women decked out head to toe in Prada, yet I was “slumming it” in my 10-year-old dress from Torrid. I felt like I didn’t belong.
Then I ordered another drink, sat in a chair, and did some plane spotting. I’ve never seen 5 hours fly by as easily as they did in that lounge. Forget sitting at a stuffy gate with crying babies, crowding, and hard chairs. You could walk into a Polaris Lounge, take a nap, and feel like a million bucks just to waltz out of the lounge and right onto your plane.
I never want to sit at a gate again. Sadly, the only way to get into a Polaris Lounge is to get a Polaris seat on a flight or a premium seat on a Star Alliance member flight. That means you’re going to be burning a lot of cash or a lot of miles. So, this might be a very rare treat for me.
This is only just part of the experience. The Polaris Lounge is followed up with the Polaris seat. I’m going to stop here, so you’ll have to tune in to the next chapter of my cheap-ass flying first class to find out if a $10,000 airplane seat is worth it or not.
(Images: Author, unless otherwise noted.)
I’ll admit ever since I got an Amex Platinum card with complimentary Priority Pass, I started making good use of it. Yeah it’s not United Polaris levels of posh but the annual fee of a credit card with such service is many times cheaper than paying a 1st class ticket so it might be worth checking out.
Airport lounges are such a relief when you need to wait several hours for a plane and if you think about it you might end up spending more money for some mediocre food and drinks at an airport food court.
We were so spoiled by the experience that last time I flew from LAX I felt ripped off because my Credit Card company switched from Priority Pass to Lounge Key and the experience has been way more inconsistent (at least in American lounges) to the point I had to buy from a food court in both LAX and O’Hare (on a 7 hr wait due to the Microsoft outage back in July). Dayummm I got humbled that day
Sapphire Reserve will give you Priority Pass too, though they mostly don’t compare to the Amex Centurion lounges if you’re near one. Haven’t yet been to the Sapphire lounge but am looking forward to it.
Of the two, I find the Chase points to be much easier/beneficial to use. They seem to be worth more. Amex is good for upgrades on travel, but not necessarily free travel. After 4-5 free lounge drinks I care less about the seats in coach.
true, Airport Lounge + Coach / Economy is my jam
Snarky, Cheap Bugger me feels like all the above comes under the heading of “first world problems”. As an old fart that flies 2-3X/year and spends an embarrassingly large sum (for me) on my SWA affiliated Chase card, the best I seem to be able to get is the occasional flight on miles. No free drinks, no friend flies free, no a-list status.
Given the amount they are shelling out for your trip… I assume the Audi [Redacted] isn’t a product on the lower end of their line?
The worst part of flying Business is to ever fly coach again
I don’t fly much, and when I do the only extra I pay for is a window seat. Earlier this year I flew out to Vegas for a friend’s b-day celebration (side note – first and last time I’ll ever spend time in Vegas. What a terrible place.). Buddy I was flying with travels much more often, and is more savvy with the credit card / points game. Whatever card he had, got us access to the Delta sky lounge. Not quite as swanky as the Polaris, but same deal. I felt just as much a fish out of water, ordering all this stuff and not having to pay.
We go with a friend that grew up in Vegas and it is a hoot. When I was younger and going with other ne’erdowells from L.A. I got tired of it very quickly.
Can’t wait for the continuation of this series, Autopian sends Mercedes on increasingly fancy flights just for the reviews! Next is working through each level of ultra first class Emirates flights, then the series of reviews of private jet services! Top level membership to the site gets you leftover pillows and blankets from first class flights
fancy kri***?
hard NOPE!
fancy Mercedess!
Why not both?
Her alter-ego: Maybach Streeter.
That’s Ms. Maybach to you!
Maybach Autobahner.
You know what is even better? Flying on private jets. Sure Polaris is posh and nice but you are still dealing with the airport and all it’s issues.
With private, you can show up 15 min before your flight at the private air terminal. Usually no one else is there. no TSA, chat with the pilot and walk right onto the plane. when you land, the pilot hands you your luggage and get in your car. that’s the true joy of air travel.
I like that Audi’s dropping the alphanumeric nonsense but surely they could come up with a better first-real-model-name than [Redacted]? And how pissy will their marketing people get when people start calling it the Audi Redacted without the square brackets?
Just wait till they see the [expletive deleted].
I’m waiting for the de-contented version, the Volkswagen [THIS SPACE LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK]
The downside is that it will make your next economy trip seem that much worse. If you really want to see the top of the air travel lounge food train you need to go to Asia, and I imagine the Middle East. Airports there often have a Business lounge and a First Class lounge, and First Class is a noticeable step up, e.g. chef at a station to make your food instead of a buffet. Enjoy the perks.
So proud to have been a part of such an important moment in your life!
WOWZERS! That’s pretty freaking cool! Glad you’re enjoying your trip!
“Yet, the people waiting in line were much meaner and more grumpy than the folks in the standard security line. I heard “we paid for this” quite a lot while in line.“
Nothing like a sense of entitlement to turn people into grade A A-holes in no time flat!
Entitlement / grade A assholes (read: “chicken / egg”)
In the same vein, don’t worry about not wearing Prada. The moment you treat the staff like people, you’re clearly identified as an imposter on a freebie.
Hahaha
If I paid $20k with the understanding that expedited security screening was part of the deal and then had to wait in line anyway I’d be pretty pissed too. They paid for this, they literally are entitled to it.
I’m not saying that justifies berating a lowly TSA agent who has no control over it, but I can’t really blame them for being annoyed.
More first world problems.
Live it up, girl! Don’t forget that you earned this. You’re not there because you won a contest, you’re there because you’re a professional automotive journalist.
“ Apparently, it was supposed to be even faster than that. There were a number of folks in line who were pissed off because the TSA wasn’t using every scanner and thus wasn’t going as fast as they normally go. One guy got so mad he even yelled at a random TSA agent about it.”
That is some serious fucking privilege to yell at someone who could have you detained by security with the press of a button. I’m guessing TSA agents are told to give more leeway to the high rollers. My policy would be to send the first passenger who behaved like that off to the interrogation room as warning to the others about what happens when you piss off the mighty TSA.
I’d rather just abolish the TSA altogether.
“Security Theater.”
Let’s think about the implications of that…
Sadly, they preform an essential function. That’s not to say they couldn’t work to make the experience better.
Yes, they choke up entry into a terminal so profoundly that a terrorist attack could have five times the body count in the security line as any flight-based attack.
You’d be surprised how many people still try to board with pistols/weapons at my small city airport in the South….
What is that exactly? Because it’s not catching weapons or bad guys:
https://reason.com/2021/11/19/after-20-years-of-failure-kill-the-tsa/
How about taking a page from El Al’s security book and concentrate on suspicious characters rather than overweight grandmothers. TSA seem to go out of their way to avoid groups of people that have proven to be sketchy.
I am no big fan of the TSA as an entity, but good grief. You may have money and/or be in the fancy line on someone’s dime, but the rest of us can still tell you’re trash when you’re rude to service employees.
I felt like you did the first time I flew business class. I had my tray table down. When they handed out the hot towels, I thought you were supposed to use it to wipe down your tray table. Luckily I watched to see what other people did with it…lol
Put it on your face like you’re at the barber?
I washed my hands with that towel, but that’s for the plane story! 🙂
This totally reminds me of Crocodile Dundee’s first interaction with a bidet
Get the next one to Doha and fly in the Q-suite. It makes Polaris look like a middle seat on Southwest.
i am going to post this again, since i was late the last time commenting on your announcement story that you were coming out here and i hope you can get to drive some of the area nearby where i live because it is gorgeous.
“you are coming to my neck of the woods! i live the next village over from st tropez, and since you are getting a fancy car and coming to the côte d’azur, you will probably pass this way. because that’s the fancy thing to do. 😀
if you do decide to come up to St Tropez region from Nice, you can either take the A8 autoroute to Frejus, and then the coastal road up to ST. another alternative is take the coastal/hill road from Cannes to St Raphael/Frejus. Nice to Cannes along the coast is terrible slow, but after Cannes it is a very nice hill drive on curvy hill roads that takes about 2-3x times as long as you would taking the highway, but it’s a good drive.
Luckily for you traffic at this time of year is much better than at the height of the tourist season. mornings to St Tropez and afternoons from still suck. But if you find your yourself in traffic leaving St Tropez, you can take an alternate route via Ramatuelle. this is a great road, and in high traffic season it is twice as long in distance, but less time to get out. i highly recommend this because it is peak rural Côte d’Azur, with vineyards and medival villages. Ramatuelle is worth a stop too.
i would also highly recommend the coastal road from La Croix Valmer/Gassin to La Lavandou.it’s a spectacular drive.it‘s all slow driving but man, it’s worth it. 🙂
but just so you know, the roads are NARROW on some roads. so take it easy. no shame in it either. i have seen super cars passed by scooters on some of these hill roads.
it’s a great place to come and visit, especially if you have a good car. i hope you get to experience it.”
Man, I really gotta goof off in France sometime.
Five hours!! I can’t imagine showing up that early to a flight in the US. ORD security, even the regular lines, have been quite efficient for at least the last year. When I flew to London in March, I walked out my kitchen door and was at the gate an hour later and on the plane a half hour after that, pulling out of the gate half an hour after that. At least you had a great place to hang out for all that time – I’ve gotten to use it once, and I loved it. I sure wouldn’t want to spend five hours in the terminal. European airports can be something else entirely. Two summers ago was an epic s***show when we connected through ARN, and even in the best of times I find that EU airports take a good bit longer to get through than US ones.
Tip for Mercedes: download the “Mobile Pass” app. When you arrive back at customs at ORD, you go through a separate line to special kiosks and you’ll be through customs in minutes instead of waiting in a possibly very long line if you arrive with a bunch of other overseas flights. It was just as easy as Global Entry when I used it, and it’s free. Edit: I just opened it and it’s no longer allowed by CBP 🙁 Apparently it can be used for going through TSA, though.
This is why I fly out of a small regional airport. I’ve never waited more than 10 minutes for security there, and that was only one time. Mostly you walk right up. I only plan to get to the airport an hour-ish ahead of my flight to make sure I can check my bag (they stop accepting them 45 minutes before).
Granted, I might do thing differently if I had spent $20k on a ticket with access to a lounge like this.
I fly frequently from O-Hare and I always get to the airport less than 1 hour before take-off, and I’ve only missed a flight once (out of hundreds) because the people mover tram had an issue.
I’ve never understood this whole “get to the airport half a day before your flight” thing, my time is precious to me and I’d rather not spend it in airports.
I’ve probably saved a year of my life by not arriving extra early.
My wife and I went to Italy last year and we had enough credit card points to pay for our first class flights to LHR. We hung out at the ORD Polaris lounge and, frankly, I could have spent my vacation just in that lounge.
Here’s the problem: it will absolutely spoil you. As snooty as this sounds, I cannot fly internationally in Economy or Economy Plus again.
100%. It only takes one experience to level up your expectations and they do NOT go back down.
Case in point: I had to make a last-minute work trip this week and due to Reasons stayed in a Residence Inn. It was perfectly fine. 10-years-ago-me would have been thrilled that there was an actual living room IN THE HOTEL ROOM. Except … no bathrobe? No minibar? No one asking for the honor of carrying my bags? Blech.
Egad!
Excuse me while I pick up the broken pieces of my monocle.
You don’t have a butler and a staff to clean up the pieces? (Sniffs with disdain at you for being poor)
I did a first class trip on the company dime. They usually only do economy but they needed me to fly out the next day, and only 1st class was available. That was one of my best trips 🙂
Have fun living the high life Mercedes 🙂
And this is how the capitalist goons get you! Beware, Mercedes!
JK, have a great trip!
“How Ya Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?)“
You do have expensive tastes Mercedes: Phaetons, Mercedes/ Swatch cars, and diamonds, lots of diamonds. It’s only fitting you fly Polaris to Nice! Every now and then, it’s good to peek over the fence.
I got an invitation once from United to make a reservation on a secret restaurant in Newark called Classified. You enter to a regular restaurant with a back door and a secret hallway very dark, it looks like you enter another dimension. They have really good food, drinks and its so quiet, big windows to watch planes, I felt really fancy on this company trip. There is nothing better than not spending your money on trips.
If they ask what you drive, just say an absolute reliable VW Phaeton.
First we had Fancy Kristen, and now we have Ms Mercedes, International Woman Of Mystery!
Just what I thought. I had to double check it was Mercedes posting it
Old site Fancy Kristen. New site Unfancy Mercedes.
Great minds, amirite?
Yes I laughed when your comment appeared. I am usually the one posting 18 seconds later.
I typically only fly Southwest so this entire concept is foreign to me.
Same!
Southwest…where every seat is 3rd class!
Even a modern Southwest flight is loads more comfortable than what flying was like when was a kid. The planes were dryer, smelly (lots of smokers), and there always seemed to be a lot more turbulence. I don’t recall the seats being more comfortable either but I was a lot smaller then.
Getting TO the flight was a HELL of a lot easier though! Curb to gate was like 15 minutes in LAX without having to pay extra.
For me the entire process of getting to the flight has changed my mind on flying. I have to get to the airport 2 hours early now, go through al the hoops, then get crammed into the plane for however many hours. I really used to like flying but if it’s within 4-5 hours these days I’d rather drive.
4-5 hrs is probably a good cutoff. Renting a car on the other end is it’s own brand of Hell.
Back then? It was “the right crowd and no crowding”.
Which is still a better experience than flying American or United in domestic coach (not to mention Frontier/Spirit/etc.).
I normally fly Southwest, as I appreciate the non-assigned seating. That being said, I am a little nervous about their new leadership losing the things that made Southwest the most bearable .
Yeah, for as much as people complain about Southwest, I’m on Team Southwest Is Good, Actually. I was not ruined by upgrades on other airlines, either! I’ll still take it over flying American or any of the ultra-low-cost airlines any day. The seats are a bit more spacious than coach on some of the main carriers (United, I’m looking directly at you AS A SHORT PERSON NO LESS). Two free bags. No obsessive policing of carry-ons. Generally friendly staff. No absurd nickel-and-diming a la the ultra-cheap carriers. I’m here for it (and I also share your worries about the new leadership not understanding why Southwest Is Good, Actually).
3rd Class! Ha. Southwest has no class.