Hi again,

Just wanted to post an update regarding my experience re: booking with Orbitz and upgrading with United Miles.

1. Called EVA Air to confirm if award seats (D Class) were indeed available for my particular flight. Agent was extremely helpful and told me they were not, but suggested other dates/flights that were available.

2. With this information in hand, proceeded to book the flight with Orbitz (at a cheaper price than if I had booked directly from the EVA Air website).

3. Received confirmation number from Orbitz and immediately checked the EVA Air site and sure enough they already had a record with my confirmation number in Economy Y Class.

4. Went to the United MileagePlus site for Upgrade Awards on Star Alliance Partners and entered the required details. Note: Since I didn't have any ticket number from Orbitz, I just provided the actual EVA Air confirmation number, but that was enough. After a few seconds, the site displayed that sure enough, upgrade award seats were available for a cost of 30,000 miles (as per the information provided in post #4 by asiadxer).

5. After receiving the Star Alliance Award Upgrade Confirmation, I returned to check the status at the EVA Air site and was happy to see that my previous Y Class booking was now listed as Royal Laurel, Z Class.

All in all, very smooth transactions from all the companies/sites involved. Most appreciative to asiadxer and the others who have taken time to post on various threads on this site of their experiences. Thanks so much everyone.

Looking forward in trying out the Royal Laurel Class product.

Regards,

Greg