Review: United Club, London Heathrow
In the last of my London Heathrow Star Alliance Lounge reviews, we end on a high with the United Club located in Terminal 2B.
Location
The United Club can be found by navigating across to the B gates at Terminal 2. Unlike Air Canada and Singapore Airlines, the United Club is located separately with you needing to turn right when you get off the escalators instead of left. Follow directions towards gates B31-35, B46-49 as well as Lounge B1 - the designation for the United Club.
Access
As per all other Star Alliance Lounges at Heathrow, for admittance to the lounge you either need to be:
Travelling in Business or First Class with a Star Alliance carrier
Hold Star Alliance Gold Status
Virgin Australia Velocity Gold or Platinum Status (from mid-2022)
The lounge is open between 07h00 and 16h00 daily.
Design
Despite a slightly glum looking reception (excuse the blurry photo above), the Lounge opens up into a bright and airy space with expansive windows from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. This creates an impressive space that is a real joy to be in.
In front of the window features the signature marble-covered bar with two bartenders permanently stationed to attend to lounge patrons while soaking up the sun beaming through on the odd day that happens. As a consequence of Covid service alterations, and despite the lifting of all Covid restrictions besides masks in airports at the time of visiting, stools are still an omission at the bar.
The layout of the United Club is mostly open plan with a varied selection of seating areas including sit-down tables, high top tables and armchairs - which should satisfy most guests.
Some parts of the lounge feel a bit dated, such as the use of blue transparent plastics which serve to break up the open plan design or the awful looking barren trees. The latter seem pretty pointless in my opinion since the addition of plants or greenery should be to bring a bit of life to an indoor space - rather than needlessly taking up space.
Despite my dislike of the trees, the theme continues into a part of the lounge which is the most secluded and quiet - a semi-enclosed area suitable for working without too much distraction from the rest of the lounge. I took a Zoom call here since it was quiet enough to move over
For even greater privacy, private call booths are available within the United Club - although some are closed for an unknown reason.
Food and drinks
We settled down at the marble covered high top tables located at the far end of the lounge near the bar. This lounge is the place you will want to come to for the best selection of drinks out of all Star Alliance Lounges at Heathrow Airport. A decent selection of red, white and sparkling wine was available in addition to Prosecco, regular and rosé champagne - although admittedly I am not an expert on wines.
Extensive spirits were also available and I imagine that the bartenders could create almost any drink you could want - although a cocktail menu was available.
I did try out a cocktail on my visit, my go-to Classic Mojito. The flavour was good with the right amount of sugar, mint and rum although, and this is being picky, the ice was not crushed. This may seem like a moot comment but perceptively, the flavour of Mojitos does seem to genuinely change between regular and crushed ice - and should certainly be an improvement for the United Club.
Non-alcoholic drinks come in the usual selection of fizzy drinks and fruit juices in addition to self-serve machine coffee. Usually I give these machines a wide berth as they more often than not spout out weak coffee that lacks any flavour - however I am happy to report these machines with Illy coffee beans are good. I even opted to try out a Cappuccino on this self-serve machine producing a well balanced taste that provided a mid-afternoon caffeine boost. There are about four machines dotted through the lounge meaning that you will only have a short wait until your next coffee.
United Club food can be best categorised as ‘British home comforts’. The self-serve menu on the day consisted of
Cottage Pie
Honey Thyme and Mustard Roasted Chicken Thigh
Vegan Bean Chilli
Alongside sides including Spring Greens, Garlic Parmesan Roasted Baby Potatoes and Rice
While I'm never one to eat Cottage Pie, out of my disdain for mashed potato but that’s another story, the Chicken Thigh dish was tasty and actually quite enjoyable - so much so I went back for seconds. The food is certainly nothing out of this world, and my personal taste preference is for the Singapore Airlines SilverKris Lounge offering, but I think it will be a people pleaser catering to most guests visiting.
Other food stuffs were on offer and seemed to be available all day including salads, brownies, biscuits and cakes.
Perfect for WFL (Work from Lounge)
Having reliable connectivity was key to my lounge visits on this day. I needed to get quite a lot of work done and so a decent internet speed was necessary to complete tasks. After a subpar internet experience trying to connect to a Zoom call in the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge, my expectations of the United Club were well and truly exceeded. In my book, a decent speed for a lounge is around 10 Mbps up and down - which is not earth shattering but more than enough to get work done on G Suite and Slack. United Club obliterated that expectation with speeds 10 times that - see below.
Based on this alone, if you need to get some urgent work done before a flight or send large files then head straight across to this lounge. Even better, this speed test was conducted when the lounge appeared around 60-70 percent full with many people working on laptops. Why the Air Canada Lounge, who use the exact same provider, cannot improve their WiFi even a tiny bit is beyond me.
Toilets and showers
Eight shower suites are offered at the Heathrow United Club and few were in use during my visit. Similar to other parts of the lounge, the wallpaper feels a bit late 2000s but otherwise these are very serviceable shower rooms that are private and slightly better than Air Canada’s lounge thanks to the inclusion of a rainfall shower.
The rooms also include a small wardrobe which can be accessed by staff - which I assume means they can be pressed but I cannot confirm if this service is (still) offered.
Amenities are provided by Sunday Riley, who are the same brand used on-board by United. The quality is fantastic with shampoo, conditioner, body wash and moisturiser that doesn’t make your skin itch while providing a pleasant scent in the meantime. The toilets feature a similar design and the same amenities
Conclusion
If one word can describe my United Club experience, that would be ‘surprising’. I wasn’t expecting much from the United Club at Heathrow because of the negative connotations the brand has in the USA - the airline has done a good job with this iteration. Yes, there are elements which feel dated but that is not too much of a problem when you have a highly functional and versatile space that can be a good place to spend time prior to a journey. The United Club at Heathrow is, in my opinion, the go to option for most departing Star Alliance passengers. Singapore Airlines is my preference solely down to the food on offer but for the vast majority the inclusion of an excellent bar, speedy WiFi and solid food as well as showers that are open is a winner.
