I have a Star Alliance award ticket booked for later this year with ORD-LAX-CHC-SYD-SFO-ORD. The LAX-CHC and CHC-SYD segments are on Air New Zealand; everything else is on United. I'll be in New Zealand for two weeks and Australia for two and a half.

Should space magically become available, I'll happily pony up the extra 30,000 miles to sit in Business class, but right now I'm stuck back in Economy. Neither United nor AirNZ have PTV's in coach (although AirNZ does have plans to install them, I believe -- you might want to check out the implementation schedule) but I really don't care. Sure, they would be nice to have, but for me getting to my destination in the shortest amount of time possible is what really matters. I'm traveling nearly halfway around the world so I can go on vacation, not so I can stare mindlessly at the seatback in front of me. The westbound trans-Pacific flights usually take off late at night anyway, which means most people are asleep very soon into the journey, especially those connecting from the eastern United States who already ate dinner and/or are on running on different time zones.

I know this runs contrary to the FlyerTalk mindset, but remember that the numerous 747's crossing the Pacific between the United States and Australia each day have hundreds of seats in coach and those people all survive the trip. People do it all the time, and I'll be doing it myself unless something radically changes. Personally, I think going through Asia just for a PTV is absurd; it's another matter entirely if you plan to spend time there, but to waste all that time just to have a television is flawed logic to me.

Also, if you're going to buy the trans-Pacific ticket, remember that buying a United ticket and flying on a United plane will not only get you very close to Premier status (25,000 miles flown per year) but will also earn you at least four 500-mile upgrades that can be used for future domestic flights.

In conclusion: It is my opinion that you should take every opportunity to maximize the benefits (be they miles, progress toward status, in-flight entertainment, or what have you) of a journey, but not at the expense of time spent at your ultimate destination. Ten years from now you'll remember all the cool stuff you saw and did in Australia, not the movie playing on the screen buried in the seatback in front of you.