ual or amr to hawaii
 

We have enough miles to upgrade to business to fly to Hawaii from Chicago on either United or American. We want to go first to Oahu for a few nights, then on to Kauai for a week and then back to ord. Which is the better airline to fly upgrading to business and which is the best route? Thanks

If you want to upgrade to business United does use the 3 class 777 so that will be an option on the leg to HNL. However on the intra-island stuff you're out of luck. When I did the intra island stuff, it was on Aloha and they used 737's so there was no business class. I also don't know if United will have non-stop ORD-HNL. I'm looking at the current schedule and they have one flight that is discontinued effective 10/27 and another one that says 10/28-10/30. If that's the case you'll need to fly to do something like this ORD-SFO-HNL or ORD-LAX-HNL.

UA does not fly any 3 class planes to Hawaii. The 777 is a 2 class plane.

[This message has been edited by auh2o (edited 10-30-2001).]

It's my understanding that both UA & AA service to Hawaii are pretty much the same.

My only recommendation is to avoid taking a 757 if possible and try for a 767 or 777 2 class plane.

Hmmm just did a search and there were some flights that offered C.

I heard that both UA and AA had lousy F service to Hawai...

The best options I could identify were (not sure of order/quality):

1. CO Business Elite
2. Air Canada
3. Hawaian

Maybe you're right given the recent change in aircraft on many routes. What flight # and days were you looking at?

I just finished a trip from LAX to KOA on UA. The F class service was one of the best I've had. They have awesome Mai Tais and the food was done by a Hawaiian chef. Can't comment on AA, but the UA service was great. We flew a 767 with 2 classes of service.

I hear that TWA has pretty good service from STL-HNL/OGG. FWI, it is very hard to get upgrade inventory on these flights. I think American is the only airline to fly ORD-OGG, but it is on a 2-class 763 last I checked, and really nothing special.

There is an evening flight LAX-HNL that displays availability in C on a 767-300, but this is a domestic version of this aircraft. A booking in C would put you in the F cabin, with seats at a 38" pitch. If you look at the seat map, there is no true C class cabin. Flight number is 935, which suggests it is a continuation of an international flight, but with a change of gauge at LAX.

Looks like American is your only option if you want a direct flight from Chicago to Honolulu. Seeing as United's service is on par with American, there's no reason to take a connecting flight with United.

If you want better service than that provided by AA or UA, then try this. If it's still true that TWA's service hasn't deteriorated since its acquisition by AA, I would recommend using your AA miles to fly out to St. Louis, and take TWA flight 1 from St. Louis to Honolulu...

If your miles are transferable to other airlines, then CO is the way to go. They do an International Business First service with 55" seat pitch, individual entertainment systems, great food and pretty good service. Unfortunately, you would have to route ORD-IAH-HNL. Getting seats on CO with miles can be very tough to HNL, so have to plan very far ahead.

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What do you mean I can't charge my heart bypass to my Visa? I need the MILES!!!

We flew TWA PDX-STL-MCO in early October and the service was nothing special. Seemed like coach but with larger seats. Old jets, as AA has been taking the newer TWA equipment and placing the older AA stuff onto the TWA line -- seriously, the jets we flew had an American paint scheme, except with vinyl "TWA" lettering.