Originally Posted by
emofeng
Does anyone have a routing or airline they would recommend? I don't think I saw any first class cabin available, but is it worth the extra miles to go in first class if it is available? Like I mentioned, flight food/service/comfort is most important.
Am I able to book a round trip ticket with awards where the outbound is in business/first and inbound is in economy?
Yes, you can book in different classes each way. But United decides which cities are your destination and stopover, so if it's pricing out wrong it may be because you aren't agreeing with United on which is which (and you lose that battle
). For example, if you want to go to New Zealand and Australia and you fly SFO-SYD in business, stopover, SYD-AKL in business, destination, AKL-SFO in economy; United may consider SYD to be your destination and AKL as your stopover and price you at business both ways. So you'd need to change SYD-AKL to economy to price as you want.
Can't stop in Europe en route to Australia.
Generally you don't have the luxury of selecting the airline you want unless you are very flexible on days. Given the choice I would go with EVA, ANA, or Singapore. Asiana is fine but much more travel time. But if you're paying more for a partner and that's what's making you do economy on the other direction, I'd rather do United business both ways than a partner business one way + economy the other.