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As much as I try to fly a variety of airlines each year I have to admit that most of my travel in and out of London Heathrow is done on oneworld carriers. This means that I don’t often get a chance to experience the Heathrow lounges offered by a whole host of other carriers so, when a rare Singapore Airlines Business flight out of London gave me access to the United Club at T2, I jumped at the opportunity to check it out.
The United Club lounge at Heathrow T2 is just about as far away as you can get from where passengers exit security and enter “airside” for the first time…but it’s conveniently located for United Airlines departures near Gate B35.
There is no shortage of signs to show you the way…
…but you’ll have to take an elevator to the main entrance to the lounge as it sits one floor up from the boarding gates:
The lounge itself seats in excess of 280 people and is essentially divided lengthways in two.
Down one long side of the rectangular-shaped lounge are floor-to-ceiling windows which let in an abundance of light – I love lounges like this.
Down the length of these windows are a variety of seating options…
…separated by a 25-seat bar in the middle:
There are numerous USB points and power outlets near all the seats….although you will need an adapter if you don’t have a UK-style 3-pin plug for your larger devices.
The rest of the lounge (which is separated from the window-side seating by an aisle running the length of the lounge) offers tables and chairs for dining…
…as well as more relaxed seating:
There isn’t much access to power if you’re seated at a table designated for dining but the more relaxed seating areas offer USB sockets and power outlets just like the seating areas by the windows.
At the far end of the lounge is a circular area (mostly closed off to the rest of the lounge) which United has decided to call a “TV lounge”.
Calling it a TV lounge may be a bit of a stretch as it only has one medium-sized TV, the seating on offer isn’t exactly set out for TV viewing and this is where also where all the newspapers and magazines are laid out.
During my morning visit, this was more of a place to get away from the rest of the busy lounge than it was a TV watching area and it was actually quite a good place to relax.
Next up is one of my favorite aspects of this lounge and it’s an area called the “phone rooms” located towards the rear right side of the facility.
You may be looking at the pictures and thinking “sure, nice work area, but so what?” but that just means that you haven’t spotted the key point here…and that’s the name that these rooms have been given.
The fact that these rooms are specifically called “phone rooms” gives guests a lot more to back them up when asking a fellow flyer to hold their loud phone conversation/inane FaceTime chat in a designated area rather than through phone’s speaker while seated right next to them.
These phone bandits are the flyers that come second only to parents who refuse to control their children in the league table of annoying people to travel with, so any opportunity to shut them up (or move them on) is hugely welcome – Thank you United!
*end of rant*
Lastly, from a facilities point of view, come the lounge showers.
The United Club offers 8 “spacious shower suites” and these can be requested from the attendant(s) positioned in the entrance to the shower area.
The shower suites look fantastic and put to shame the showers British Airways offers at its flagship T5 facilities.
The staff on duty can supply guests with pretty much everything they may need inside the shower suite, and each one comes furnished with Cowshed toiletries.
These are better shower rooms/bathrooms than most people have at home! 🙂
Food & Drink
I was visiting the United Club Lounge ahead of a mid-morning departure so the food on offer was breakfast.
In a good-sized semi-circular room attached to the lounge a very decent spread of food was set out as a buffet.
For those looking for a lighter/cold breakfast the lounge was serving a variety of cold cuts, cheeses, salad items, fruit, cereals, pastries and various types of bread:
For guests looking for a fuller/hot meal, all the usual breakfast items were available – sausages, bacon, eggs, beans, etc…
It looked like the lounge had something to offer for most mainstream diets.
From a drinks standpoint, the lounge offered the usual hot drinks, a range of sodas…
…and a choice of four fruit juices:
For anyone looking for something with a little more punch, there was the option of the bar (mentioned earlier) which serves a variety of alcoholic beverages.
Here’s a couple of pictures showing what the menu looked like on the morning I visited (click to enlarge):
Bottom Line
I was surprised and impressed at the quality of the United Club lounge – by US airline Business Class lounge standards this was very good.
The food was good, the staff were friendly (not Qantas friendly, but friendly enough), the seating was comfortable, the shower facilities were excellent, and the phone rooms are something every good lounge should have.
The one negative was that the lounge got quite busy at one point and empty seats started to become scarce…but that’s probably down to the lounge becoming a victim of its own success.
I certainly wasn’t the only Singapore Airlines flyer in the lounge and there were a few Air Canada flyers in there too…and both of those airlines have their own lounge within a short walk.
Overall, the United Club is a good place in which to relax or get some work done time before a flight and is a very solid option if you have a membership or boarding pass that grants entry.
I really enjoyed my visit there too. It was like a Polaris lounge minus the restaurant dining option. Same style of decorating and same feel to it, including the individual bathroom rooms rather than unisex bathrooms with stalls. When I visited in the afternoon they also had candy dispensers for those with a sweet tooth! The staff went above and beyond finding and tracking down my business partner and my checked bags when they were apparently going to misconnect and having someone in the bowels of the airport hand tag them and walk them over to our connecting flight.