Originally Posted by npei

UA Explorer Card gives you access to saver economy award seat(s). Then once you book economy award seat(s), you can pay $ for economy plus seats (assume you are not elite).




There are many UA award ticket options from east coast RDU-IAD-Singapore-Bali via Europe or California.
I did similar UA award ticket routing in mid-Jan 2023 IAD-SFO-SIN-HKT (easy to substitute HKT with DPS),
and return early Feb 2023 DPS-SIN-SFO-IAD. All with 2-4hr stopovers.

Avoid SFO stopover <1hr for international connection.

For your itinerary, without knowing your exact travel date constraints, you can book multi-itinerary trip
start from mid-Jan RDU and end DPS on outbound : RDU-IAD-SIN-DPS (stay Bali for 7+ days )
SIN stopover for award ticket from DPS-RDU for your Singapore cruise duration
and return SIN-IAD-RDU after cruise


for example I was able to find 120k saver award multi-itinerary economy routing
mid-Jan outbound RDU-IAD-SIN-DPS
(You can add free segment end of Jan DPS-SIN for free award stopover for cruise trip)
mid-Feb SIN-IAD-RDU