Well yeah, but I might have to detour just to get an upgradeable flight. And since I have not experienced any Polaris lounge yet, one of the goals of this trip is to do just that. But you know how in technology and cars, people say you can have something fast, reliable, and cheap, but you can only pick two of the three?




In airline flights, you can have three different things:
1. A good itinerary (day of week and origin/destination that's convenient)
2. A comfortable seat
3. A good price.

But you can only pick two of the three. For me, (2), or J cabin, is a requirement, for access to a Polaris lounge. So unless I want to just throw money at the problem, I need to sacrifice (1) to get (3). Last time I threw money at an airline to get a specific seat, it was to get on seat 1A on the UA 744 before it was retired (had to buy a J seat outright to be eligible for the upgrade). It was a good seat, but it wasn't $5 per minute for 10 hours good. Anyway, I did find some upgradeable *A flights out of SFO, but they require a nearly 24 hour layover to connect to my destination city, due to the late afternoon arrival time in Asia not being well suited to making connections.