Originally Posted by feastandexist

Hey everyone! Looking to book a flight for me and a +1 on ANA from SEA to HND in a few months and ideally get an upgrade to the Room each way (meaning I'd stop through SFO). I've been reading through and wanted some advice on the best option here as I look to buy economy tickets (ideally not looking to spend >$3k pp round trip).

So Step 1 is to book on United in one of the required fare classes (B, C, D, E, G, J, M, U and Y). Currently the cheapest economy requested fare class I can get is U and that's looking to be $3k round trip per person. Meanwhile premium economy on ANA is looking to be in the $2500 range (Fare class R - which according to earlier comments needs to be up-fared. I'm not presented with the option to book O or A when I search on United's site). At the moment I'm seeing >75% availability in business on the flight but there's no availability at this time for an upgrade/award ticket and I'm going to be waitlisted.

Should I 1) book premium economy and get the fare into a higher class so that, at minimum, we have a comfy flight each way on ANA (upgrade or not)? 2) Pay a little extra for the economy fare and hope everything works out by using PP on ANA? 3) save 3 hours and just go direct from SEA to HND in economy (which will also be cheaper overall) on ANA or 4) try to get upgraded to Polaris out of SFO (which will also be a cheaper option)?