Absolutely - but the difference in service is just not worth it IMHO. Especially if you are paying $$ not miles.

If you're flying via the US, I would suggest Europe-SFO (LH had some good fares and connections for the dates I was looking at), then connect to UA (etc) in Y.

If you travel via the US the trick seems to be to do it so that you can connect on the same days in both directions and avoid the need for an overpriced F overnight flight from the US-HNL, or a very long connection in LAX.

Trouble is a lot of the flight times don't allow one to do this so you need to plan it very carefully!