Gorgeous New United Club Opens At Newark Airport

Beautiful lounge. United has some of the best lounges in the country and their Polaris lounges are some of the best in the world. Very impressed with the upgrades they have made in the last few years, especially in catering and airport facilities.

After a groundstop at EWR caused a diversion and a missed connection, I was left with a lengthy sit time. I was very impressed with the newly opened United Club near gate 133. Multiple staff approached me throughout my time there in a friendly and professional way. I was able to eat, shower, and recharge my phone and myself before the last leg of my trip. After so many flights were cancelled/delayed, it was crowded, but able to accommodate the number of passengers.

I understand that United offered early access for you to review/promote the new club at Newark. Please go back and review it in real life operation. I agree that Newark clubs were always a disaster, but this one is also a disaster and there’s probably no hope. I’ve been there twice now, not a lot by your standards but that means you can do us a real service by visiting again after your initial glowing review. My first visit was so bad I gave up. No seating anywhere, or at least no seating that wasn’t occupied by either luggage, people’s feet, or whole bodies laying on chairs and couches. The employees were not doing anything to establish order or provide corrective actions. In fact, they seemed pretty much to have given up. Same thing with the long, long lines at the food service. You showed us the empty service area but who thinks it makes sense to have plates at one end and a long single line of foodstuffs that is apparently engaged as a “all you can eat, buffet line” - Vegas style but without the discipline or quality. My second visit was maybe a bit better because I had longer to spend before my delayed flight. I circled round and round until I spotted a newly empty and dirty table. I’m willing to buss dishes and wipe away crumbs so I got a place to sit and do some email with a light snack. The lines were manageable, if not efficient, and the food was better than past Newark clubs and much better than Denver clubs, but no where close to the LA club. (Actually, that’s the club you should visit … it’s well designed, lots of single person spaces to sit even as parts of group settings, and no couches that encourage encampments of apparently homeless travelers.) While you are reviewing clubs, it might be time to consider the usability of clubs and ask the question of whether or how the purpose of these clubs has changed. I have a few choices with membership at AmEx clubs, Priority Clubs, and United Clubs. I use to kick myself for now buying the lifetime United Club memberships 20 something years ago when that was a deal, but I was committed enough that I paid my membership through the pandemic although I rarely had the opportunity to use them (even when they were eventually opened). Appreciated when United thanked me for my loyalty and offered a partial rebate (NOT). The clubs were always part of my work to get work done while avoiding crowded gates or working in endless substandard airport restaurants/bars. Well, now the restaurants and bars are looking pretty good and clubs (at least the United Clubs) are overrun with unsupervised kids that would not happen in a restaurant, except maybe a Chucky Cheese with video games blaring as bad as the business people who think its ok to hold their Zoom calls on speaker phone in the club. According to the club employees, they have apparently been told that families can do what they want. Also had a similar experience in a Polaris club where a staff member at least apologized and told me that the flight for the kids playing ball in the club would be leaving soon. Maybe United is trying to be nice because the kids won’t be able to blare their video games once they get on the plane, or maybe this is the precursor to the next iteration when even on the plane everyone will have boomboxes and headsets will be the way of the past. This is not a tirade about kids, we take kids and grandkids to United clubs (and appreciate that unlimited numbers of them are free) but we also were aware to be courteous to others around us. And I have never thought it would be a good idea to take up 4 seats by sleeping on an airport club couch. That’s where this started … please revisit the United Newark club and tell us how it’s working out in real lift in contrast to the review setting that you photographed and wrote about. An accurate review could actually make a difference as United redesigns more clubs. You might help them avoid more mistakes. At the same time, maybe there is a business opportunity to put Chucky Cheese outlets in airports. Or tell us it already exists and review that.

Very disappointing. It looks like the student lounge at an inner city community college or like someone cleaned out their mothers basement and sold everything to United. I would like to know who fell for this scam.

lol EWR. That's all I'm saying.