Great photo of “The Sky’s the Limit” at ORD by w4nd3rl0st from Flickr
The United Global First Lounge at O’Hare
My trip began at O’Hare, as many of them do. I didn’t like the United flight to start the trip, but I figured that the almost brand new 747-8i in Dulles would make this worthwhile. I could also visit the United First International Global First lounge before departure, which added a little variety to my routine at ORD. Despite walking by that lounge a lot, I’ve only ever visited it one other time, on my last Star Alliance First Class trip. It is located behind the customer service counter near gate C20.
O’Hare Global First Class Lounge
Now that I’m looking at my photos, I find it funny I took photos of the same things as before. The ramekins of nuts and the drinks selections…
Question: How much as the drink selection changed in about 2 years between visits?
July 2012
November 2010
Answer: not much
Anyway, this lounge is perfectly nice, if a little dated. It is small, but it is significantly less crowded than the United Club it shares a wall with. There is a selection of magazines and newspapers, and a few televisions.
There is a wide variety of snacks, primarily consisting of cold food; including sushi, finger sandwiches, vegetables, and fruit. There is a decent variety of self-serve alcohol as shown above.
This lounge it put to shame by many lounges outside the US, but for a US lounge run by a US airline, its pretty high on the list. Its private, and its quite exclusive. Its not really worth going out of your way for, but I’m at O’Hare a lot, so the change of pace was nice.
Who can get in?
Access is granted those traveling in International First Class on a Star Alliance carrier. From the Star Alliance website:
International First Class Customers: Customers have access to International First Class1 and/or any Star Alliance member carriers’ own lounges.
- Customer must present a boarding pass for travel in International First Class on a Star Alliance flight
- The customer must be departing from the local airport in International First Class
- Customer must be a revenue customer
- Customer is entitled to one guest1 Except: LH HON/First Class Lounges in FRA/MUC; LX HON/First Class Lounges in ZRH/GVA; OS HON/First Class Lounges in VIE; TG Spa Lounge in BKK
In practice, at least with United lounges, the second bullet point above is not observed. I access it with my Lufthansa First Class boarding pass, despite that flight departing from Dulles. My flight departing O’Hare was a domestic flight in United First.
tarmac views from the O’Hare United Global First Lounge
After a little bit of relaxing and some snacking, I headed off to my gate for the flight to Dulles. The flight was an unremarkable domestic flight on United, so I will not cover it in any detail. It was an A320, there was drink service and the snack basket was passed. We arrived a few minutes early at Dulles, and had to wait 10-15 minutes to get the jetway moved to our plane.
