If you're going to fly CO I would go dca-iah-hnl-gum. CO through IAH probably means an overnight in IAH...which is a pain. The airport marriott is nice as is the airport sheraton. Personally I have seen very little difference between the BF seat on the 777 and 767...but I guess there is some. CO has a good businessfirst class product but the seats are not truly flat. I personally am not a big fan of them because I am shorter and I tend to 'slide' when the seat is put in 'sleep mode'. I call them the 'slider seat'. My guess is that they're better than the UA C international seat....but nowhere near as good as the UA FirstSuite. The meals on BF are good...generally better than on UA. The service is Generally good but I have run into a BF fa or two who has that CO 'service with a sigh' attitude.

Have you considered buying a full or near full fare Y seat on UA and upgrading with miles?? (assuming this is cheaper) This might be the way to go if you are well vested in the UA MP miles program and the upgrade availability is there. Do you have a generous friend with SWUs? Tried buy it through a consolidator in business class fares...there is a thread on the UA forum with consolidators that various folks on FT have used. This might get you down in a more reasonable zone if your business will allow you to buy them that way.

I would be careful about asking CO for a status comp if you're only flying on them once as they only comp once in a lifetime (afaik). "Use it wisely. Since you're in DC, CO is not the obvious choice there if you like nonstops. This is a lot of EQM not to credit to your UA Mileage plus account if you can possilbly avoid it and CO nonepass has a lot of pitfalls to elite status especially if you can't buy your tickets for work through their website.