S/O Travel: United Airlines

brij2006 · January 2016

Has anyone ever flown with United Airlines for a long trip? If so, do they have individual TV's like you would find with American or Virgin Airlines for an international flight?

H and I are trying to figure out what all we need for Hawaii and are debating whether or not we should get a few movies downloaded to the iPad to watch. We're flying United Airlines from Chicago to Hawaii. So it's an 8-9 hour flight.

*Edited because I double checked which airline we're traveling.

julieanne912 · January 2016

I did once, but it was on a 777. I was just flying from Chicago to SFO, but the flight was continuing onto Beijing.

I'm asking H if any of his flights from Denver to Vancouver had TVs, he flew United for those.

als1982 · January 2016

You should be able to tell the exact plane you're on by looking online. Once you've found that, I'd Google it to find out. Seatguru.com is a good resource as is Flyertalk.com. In general, United planes are pretty crappy. But, even if you booked through United, you could be on a partner carrier. For what it's worth, I flew United to and from Oahu in 2014 and the plane there had individual TVs but not on the way back.

brij2006 · January 2016

By my searching, it looks like it's a 777.

I've flown United multiple times, but it's just on a 737 to North Carolina and Vegas from Chicago. Neither one had the individual TV's.

brij2006 · January 2016

WTF? It says there are no meals for Economy travelers. Guess I got spoiled by the long flights through American and Virgin to London from Chicago.

We fly out at 9am and don't get there till 2:45pm. Going to have to grab a sandwich or something at the airport and throw it in my carry on.

JoanE2012 · January 2016

It all depends on the plane - definitely try and check seat guru. We flew united direct from newark to hawaii a few months ago and every seat had a tv both ways. But when we flew a year ago, we didn't have them for one of our flights. We had a layover in Chicago on the way home - I'm almost positive it was that flight. Incredibly frustrating to get in the plane and realize that.

hoffse · January 2016

Ditto seatguru if you want to know for sure.

I've flown United long-haul a couple times, and it is about as good as any other US legacy carrier... which is to say, kind of meh, but you will get there in one piece!

Delta and American really aren't any better, IMO.

JoanE2012 · January 2016

brij2006 said:
WTF? It says there are no meals for Economy travelers. Guess I got spoiled by the long flights through American and Virgin to London from Chicago.
We fly out at 9am and don't get there till 2:45pm. Going to have to grab a sandwich or something at the airport and throw it in my carry on.

Yup! No meals on domestic flights! Bring food. We always fly in economy plus for hawaii and can get a meal (for a price, of course!), but we heard that the choices were slim by the time they made it to the back of the plane. I always bring some snacks too.

julieanne912 · January 2016

You can pack your own food by the way... just no liquids bigger than 3oz.

H just responded and said on his flights to Vancouver, the bigger planes they used during the summer (because of cruise-goers), had the TVs. The smaller ones they used during the winter did not.

hoffse · January 2016

JoanE2012 said:

WTF? It says there are no meals for Economy travelers. Guess I got spoiled by the long flights through American and Virgin to London from Chicago.
We fly out at 9am and don't get there till 2:45pm. Going to have to grab a sandwich or something at the airport and throw it in my carry on.
Yup! No meals on domestic flights! Bring food. We always fly in economy plus for hawaii and can get a meal (for a price, of course!), but we heard that the choices were slim by the time they made it to the back of the plane. I always bring some snacks too.

It's crazy to me that Hawaii and Alaska are considered domestic for the purposes of the kind of service you get. All these airlines definitely put them in their own category when it comes to points redemption!

brij2006 · January 2016

Well I shouldn't have gotten on seatguru. Every single review for this specific flight is absolutely horrible. No TV's, the paid Wi-fi barely works, and the seat and leg room is comparable to a 737. :-( This isn't going to help me win H over for a long haul European flight. I sort of told him these longer flights are much better than the ones we take to Vegas.

Also says there aren't any power outlets. So our iPad will die before the flight is over. Note to self, pack the Kindle and a physical book.

It's even saying first class doesn't have any of these amenities either.

Thankfully our flight back is a Redeye, so hopefully it won't matter then because we'll be trying to sleep.

brij2006 · January 2016

julieanne912 said:

You can pack your own food by the way... just no liquids bigger than 3oz.

H just responded and said on his flights to Vancouver, the bigger planes they used during the summer (because of cruise-goers), had the TVs. The smaller ones they used during the winter did not.

That's what I'll probably do. I have a collapsible travel water bottle that I use while flying, so I'll bring that with and fill it up before we board (even though beverages are free, I drink a ton of water). We'll both have carry ons without a ton of stuff in them. So I'll probably throw some stuff in there.

hoffse · January 2016

brij2006 said:

Well I shouldn't have gotten on seatguru. Every single review for this specific flight is absolutely horrible. No TV's, the paid Wi-fi barely works, and the seat and leg room is comparable to a 737. :-( This isn't going to help me win H over for a long haul European flight. I sort of told him these longer flights are much better than the ones we take to Vegas.
Also says there aren't any power outlets. So our iPad will die before the flight is over. Note to self, pack the Kindle and a physical book.

It's even saying first class doesn't have any of these amenities either.

Thankfully our flight back is a Redeye, so hopefully it won't matter then because we'll be trying to sleep.

Ah boo, sorry to hear that.

On the way back from Paris, H's TV didn't work, and he hadn't brought anything to entertain himself because he assumed he would have TV. So he just spent 9 hours staring at the back of the seat in front of him. Not awesome, but he survived.

Keep in mind that people love to complain about flights. They might be kind of meh, but keep telling yourself that you will be in sunny Hawaii in 7 hours, 6 hours, 5 hours.... that's what gets me through the transatlantics.

For the red-eye, you might want to invest in a couple of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Pillow-Travel-Head-Chin-Support/dp/B009416CVC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1452802507&sr=8-3&keywords=travel+pillow

They are pricey, but H and I really like ours. The shape helps support our heads so we can sort of sleep. We would get no sleep at all on red-eyes if we didn't have them.

MommyLiberty5013 · January 2016

The website will tell you what aircraft you're on. But each aircraft, depending on its manufacture date, can be configured in different ways. So, it can be a toss up on whether or not you will have a personal TV. Furthermore, airlines can change the aircraft at the last minute depending on where their equipment is located and what they have available.

iPads aren't heavy or big and downloaded movies don't cost a lot. I'd go ahead and do that. If you do end up with a personal TV, then you can watch the movies in your hotel rooms at night or something or stuck in the airport.

als1982 · January 2016

brij2006 said:
Well I shouldn't have gotten on seatguru. Every single review for this specific flight is absolutely horrible. No TV's, the paid Wi-fi barely works, and the seat and leg room is comparable to a 737. :-( This isn't going to help me win H over for a long haul European flight. I sort of told him these longer flights are much better than the ones we take to Vegas.
Also says there aren't any power outlets. So our iPad will die before the flight is over. Note to self, pack the Kindle and a physical book.

It's even saying first class doesn't have any of these amenities either.

Thankfully our flight back is a Redeye, so hopefully it won't matter then because we'll be trying to sleep.

Actual international flights are far better. You can book via United but fly on partner carriers. Lufhansa, Air Canada and Air New Zealand are all United partners and in my experience are amazing. Decent food and several rounds of service, plus free booze is typical. They make flying actually enjoyable!!

Xstatic3333 · January 2016

hoffse said:

brij2006 said:

Well I shouldn't have gotten on seatguru. Every single review for this specific flight is absolutely horrible. No TV's, the paid Wi-fi barely works, and the seat and leg room is comparable to a 737. :-( This isn't going to help me win H over for a long haul European flight. I sort of told him these longer flights are much better than the ones we take to Vegas.
Also says there aren't any power outlets. So our iPad will die before the flight is over. Note to self, pack the Kindle and a physical book.

It's even saying first class doesn't have any of these amenities either.

Thankfully our flight back is a Redeye, so hopefully it won't matter then because we'll be trying to sleep.

Ah boo, sorry to hear that.

On the way back from Paris, H's TV didn't work, and he hadn't brought anything to entertain himself because he assumed he would have TV. So he just spent 9 hours staring at the back of the seat in front of him. Not awesome, but he survived.

Keep in mind that people love to complain about flights. They might be kind of meh, but keep telling yourself that you will be in sunny Hawaii in 7 hours, 6 hours, 5 hours.... that's what gets me through the transatlantics.

For the red-eye, you might want to invest in a couple of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Pillow-Travel-Head-Chin-Support/dp/B009416CVC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1452802507&sr=8-3&keywords=travel+pillow

They are pricey, but H and I really like ours. The shape helps support our heads so we can sort of sleep. We would get no sleep at all on red-eyes if we didn't have them.

I had this happen once and completely panicked. I'll never go unprepared again! I lucked out and the woman next to me noticed, didn't want to watch tv, and offered me her headphone jack. I had her put it on HGTV since that's pretty much guaranteed to be unobjectionable and mildly entertaining.

brij2006 · January 2016

@hoffse I just ordered a neck pillow today. Our seats are assigned to be the 2 next to the window. The plane is set up 2, 5, 2. So thankfully I'll be able to lean on H and vise versa. Our seats are also right behind the exit row, so the travel agent said those usually have more leg room (H is 6'4").

And yeah, reviews are usually pretty dramatic to me. As long as I know beforehand what to expect, then I'm okay planning accordingly and adapting. Still sucks if the reviews are accurate, but I'll just make sure to toss in a few extra pieces of entertainment and load some music onto my phone to listen to.

@MommyLiberty5013 We'll definitely load up the iPad with a few movies and make sure it's fully charged. It's just a FWP because then we need to pick up a headphone splitter and juggle with having it in a spot where we both can see it.

vlagrl29 · January 2016

We went for our honeymoon but it wasn't your airline. Ours was 7 from Denver to Honolulu. Plane was HUGE! They played movies you could listen to on ear phones. I'm pretty sure we could buy food but we wanted to save money so I packed our lunches the night before to take with us. We also had to fly from KC to Denver. On that big plane you forget your in the air. Took the red eye back and won't do that again because I can't sleep on planes.

BlueBirdMB · January 2016

brij2006 said:

Has anyone ever flown with United Airlines for a long trip? If so, do they have individual TV's like you would find with American or Virgin Airlines for an international flight?
H and I are trying to figure out what all we need for Hawaii and are debating whether or not we should get a few movies downloaded to the iPad to watch. We're flying United Airlines from Chicago to Hawaii. So it's an 8-9 hour flight.

*Edited because I double checked which airline we're traveling.

We always fly United. They have individual TV's on their big planes and certainly for international travel. You don't need to bring it to go to Hawaii- you'll be covered.

jtmh2012 · January 2016

BlueBirdMB said:

We always fly United. They have individual TV's on their big planes and certainly for international travel. You don't need to bring it to go to Hawaii- you'll be covered.

Ditto. We flew United to Hawaii and to Thailand as well as a few other places. They're just about the only option we have out here short of paying more. Aside from their short hall flights (we're not on a hub airport) where they use what I'll call "puddle jumpers", we've always had a TV. Even it if was the size of my phone. There is usually food, but it isn't free. The only time I've had free food is on an international flight.

I've not personally used the wifi, but I do networking/systems/database stuff for my day job. The thing most people don't understand is you're on a plane, you can't run a cable line back to wherever, so the signal is bouncing up to a satellite and back. So it'll never be as good as the connection you have back home or your local Starbucks. Physics just won't allow it.

As an aside, we cashed out just about all of our points last time we flew. We only fly about once a year and we just decided especially with all the new rules in place that it just didn't make sense anymore to stay with one airline/award network.

S/O Travel: United Airlines

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