Merlin666

Years ago on RTW in First I managed to score a stopover in HNL on UA metal:

UA898 Beijing (PEK) Tokyo Narita (NRT) First Confirmed
Fri 15-Jan 2010 Fri 15-Jan 2010
UA880 Tokyo Narita (NRT) Honolulu/Oahu (HNL) 777 First Confirmed
Sat 16-Jan 2010 Sat 16-Jan 2010
UA42 Honolulu/Oahu (HNL) Denver (DEN) 763 First Confirmed
Tue 02-Feb 2010 Wed 03-Feb 2010

Now I would like to try something similar in business class just going west, I would like to go any time between October and December, and have tried YVR, LAX, SFO, HKG, NRT, ICN and tried many dates and combinations but have found zero availability. Is this possible at all? If not, I would pass on the stopover and just go straight TPAC. Any suggestions to accomplish this are welcome.

Jasper2009

It's definitely not impossible to include a stopover in HNL. Your main options are:

NH: NRT-HNL and HND-HNL
OZ: ICN-HNL
CA: PEK-HNL

Merlin666

Thanks, I meant as in possibility to actually find an available reward seat in J.

Jasper2009

Having done a month-long search a while ago I did find some (very) limited availability on CA and OZ in business class, but availability on that route indeed seems to be rather scarce.

Merlin666

It seems to be even more difficult from the North American side, i.e. from DEN, LAX, SFO, or YVR. Whay's the best option for a straight TPAC in business class?

quantumofforce

EVA is quite a popular answer to that question here.

yyzgigi

I think you may be missing the context here. EVA is great for getting from NA to TPE not so good at getting a HNL stopover on the way to Asia. I would agree with the assessment; there is virtually zero availability on J/F reward tickets on UA or AC.

Chowtime

I have done it. YVR-PEK AC / PEK-YNT CA / YNT-ICN OZ / ICN-HNL OZ / HNL-YVR AC
All in J Class on a single redemption. It didn't show available online but I phoned in the itinerary.

Garbageman

Have you been searching for the legs separately? Find a leg for (NAmerica)XXX-HNL and then search and find an itinerary for HNL-XXX(Asia)? If you can find two one ways like this, you can call them in and feed them to an agent to book manually.

Merlin666

Yes, I searched both on Aeroplan and ANA site.

Merlin666

So if it didn't show availability, how did you find a date to call in?

Chowtime

I just called in with the itinerary that I wanted and they approved it and I was good to go and booked it. I gave them the dates that I had planned to go.

WKnight

A less than glorious option would be to look for GUM on UA metal as an option to bridge HNL with Asia. In the past I've seen NRT/FUK/KIX segments into GUM, and then GUM to HNL, but if it's for the end of this year, which is about 6 months out, then you likely won't find any business award seats. They probably get snatched up at the opening of the 330-day booking window.

WKnight

Har, I see someone just used GUM as a way to get from PEK to HNL, including 5 layovers after GUM (all economy though)! Snipped from the "FAQ: List of valid and booked mini-RTW itineraries version 2.0 thread"

eywer2018

Sign up for ExpertFlyer and use that to search loads, availability of reward seats, etc then call it in. I booked a 6 stop mini-rtw on AC and Star, all in J (well, I) with no trouble (stopovers Asia and Europe, enroute to Australia) this way.