The beautiful new United Club at LAX has opened and although it has received great praise, many are disappointed that it does not offer shower facilities.
Say you are flying from Melbourne to LA and then on to Washington. You get in from Melbourne – a 14 hour flight – and have a two hour layover before your connection. A shower would certainly be nice…
United will install showers in its Polaris lounges (Chicago has already opened) but those will only be available to passengers departing in business or first class on a longhaul Star Alliance flight. For Star Alliance Gold passengers or United Club members who will not have access to these lounges, that leave United Clubs, few of which offer showers at the moment.
Which United Clubs Offer Showers?
Here is a list of United Clubs that currently off shower facilities:
- Hong Kong
- Houston (Terminal C and Terminal E)
- London
- Newark (Terminal C)
- Tokyo Narita
That’s right, only six United Clubs right with showers now if you count the two in Houston separately. Only two in the USA.
These showers are available to all guests. If you’re interested in a shower, simply enquire at the front desk of the lounge and you will be either placed on a waiting list or directed right to the facilities.
Here is what the showers look like in the United Club at Newark:
A Competitive Disadvantage
Delta Air Lines has showers at its clubs including:
- Detroit
- Atlanta
- Detroit
- Los Angeles
- Miami
- New York JFK
- San Francisco
- Seattle
- Tokyo NRT
American Airlines has showers at its clubs including:
- Boston
- Chicago
- Dallas (Terminals A, B, C, and D)
- London
- Los Angeles
- Miami
- New York LGA
- New York JFK
- Paris
- Raleigh
- San Francisco
- Santiago
- Sao Paulo
- Tokyo NRT
United cannot snap its fingers and suddenly match American Airlines in terms of club lounge showers, but it is surprising that its newest crown jewel lounge in Los Angeles omitted showers when 1.) they are clearly valued by customers 2.) the competition is offering them.
Hopefully as United continues to update its lounge network, it will start to make showers a higher priority.
The showers seem to be of limited value at international destinations, since arriving pax can’t get to them after passing through passport control. The exception would be if you are transiting the airport.
@Miles: Correct — that makes them all the more important at domestic destinations and AA certainly has UA beat on that front.
I remember using showers in ORD UA lounge, was this one that was converted to a Polaris lounge?
@Alex H: The UA lounge in Terminal C did have showers available to all guests, but those have now been provisioned for Polaris Lounge users only.
DL also has showers at MIA/SFO/SEA
Odd, I had those included but may have published the wrong version of the post. Thank you for pointing that out.
Houston showers are Polaris only. None of the United Clubs have them.
You are now correct. Note the publish date of this post.
The Cowshed bottles in the UA showers seem to be reused and recycled. I find that disturbing. The bottles all seem to be squeezed a few too many times (from many uses), and the bottles always seem only half filled. I hope I am not the only one that has noticed this.
The shower products given by Delta are all sealed – as they should be. Sometimes if I have time and a Delta Skyclub is nearby, I will go to the Skyclub for a better/proper shower.
It has been a few years since I showered in an AA lounge (JFK/ORD), and I recall the shower products being in dispensers on the wall. That too is fine with me.
I believe the Arrivals Lounge at SFO is still available, and will remain open even after the Polaris Lounge opens up.
At são paulo, United uses the staralliance lounge for gold members and passagens traveling with business class. They have showers in Sao paulo as well.
at least in IAD – with time – you can shower at Turkish or Lufthansa lounges
This blog is becoming my new favorite by the day! I loved it even when you were on upgrd but it was harder to check and there wasn’t as much content. Keep it coming. Gut gemacht mit dem Wechsel zu BoardingArea!
I am happy to report that united Polaris at ohare has beautiful shower facilities, mimic 5 star hotel properties
Ana codeshare also has great showers at narita
I’m currently at United Club Terminal C in Houston. United closed down shower services.
Indeed, since the publishing of this post United has discontinued shower service at all of the above lounges.
There is a shower in the United International Arrivals lounge in SFO, I’ve been traveling through SFO for the last two years, every few months and believe me, it’s there. It is possible that when you wrote this article is wasn’t there, but it’s there now.
The shower in San Francisco is not available for returning International gold card members even though you are still not past immigration on the first floor. United only accepts Red Carpet passes, so even after returning to San Francisco and waiting 2-3 hours in transit for a flight up to Seattle I can not take advantage of United Showers. I did use United Showers at Newark Airport in 2017, but they we’re under contraction this past February, 2018. Showers are normally a godsend in Tokyo, I’ve used them often. United needs to know we United Gold Card members will complain if they ignore our wish for simple showers, it just make travel so much more enjoyable. I am taking a Red Eye night tomorrow for New England and transit Washington Dulles, and reading your posts I guess I am out of luck finding a shower in Wash. Dulles? Thanks, Karl Weaver
How long before the club closes for the evening are showers allowed? Looking ahead to a flight next July where we arrive internationally around 6pm and leave at 10pm. We’ll probably leave out of C130-ish in EWR, and I believe the club itself is open until 1030pm. Do they close access to the showers a meaningful number of hours before the club closes? Thanks for this post and your reply!
I would think the cut-off would be around 10pm. Please report back if this turns out not to be the case.