I am interested in flying to asia first class in January 08. I can be flexible with my dates and have more than enough miles, but currently only coach is available for a standard award. Does anyone have any tips for securing a first class or business class ticket?

You can try NWA, but it is only business class on CO and NWA.

You can't redeem CO miles for "real" International F (I'm not counting all the Carribbean options), so you'd have to go with on of the J options available to you. You can fly on Korean, NorthWest, Delta and Continental, and you can mix and match. You could fly KE to ICN and then connect on NW to NRT and then on to GUM on CO or NW, for example.

If you have some more information on where in Asia you want to get to someone here can probably help you.

I am interested in either Hanoi, Hong Kong or Singapore. Business class is fine, true first clas is not necessary. Am I better of calling customer service or is the inventory the same online? Thank you.

You'll definitely have to call for partner inventory as it is not listed online.

Not sure where you are flying from, but your option to HAN is pretty much just KE from ICN. AF flies there, too, but only from Europe and that isn't a valid routing on an Asian reward itinerary. You could do a RTW in from ICN and out to CDG (via BKK) if you wanted, but that is way more miles.

For HKG there is the EWR-HKG non-stop, NW via NRT (getting to NRT on NW, DL or CO) or KE via ICN. There is also the CO GUM-HKG route, but that would involve going through either NRT or HNL as well, and is only offered 2 days/week, plus it is domestic F-type seating, so probably not so useful.

For SIN you're stuck with the NW routing via NRT or KE routing via ICN. Again the european partners offer the route, but they got the "wrong way" to get there.

You can also go into one city and out of another (open jaw) plus add a stopover in NRT if you want. Getting between the cities in SE Asia is very inexpensive on the local LCCs.

Don't forget that with China Southern there's now a second Asian Skyteam carrier. CZ flies CAN-HAN but it's not up on their international website yet. CAN-SIN is doable on CZ as well and that is up on the website. You could connect at ICN, NRT, or HKG to link up to the CZ network. Of course this assumes CZ will join Skyteam in November as anticipated and they will have reward inventory available to Onepass!

http://www.flychinasouthern.com/

China Southern is already a CO partner, even though it's not yet Skyteam. So, there may already be awards available. But expect to spend some time with the Onepass agent to figure out the details.

Thanks for all of the info. I will explore the options you have suggested to see if business clas is available.

CZ flys out of LAX-CAN daily, there's no need to go to ICN, NRT, or HKG first if you want to use them.

Eva (BR) hasn't been mentioned yet, that's another option for you. It requires more miles than the other partners however.

Best seats are
KE 777-200
NW A330
BR 777-300

These are all lie flat seats in business though some may be on a slight incline. I'd try to route my trip to use one of these 3 for the transpac portion.