halls120

Change to a flight where you can get an upgrade. It's your honeymoon, isn't it?

Kacee

To HNL? From ORD? That's a problem.

halls120

connect through SFO, LAX or DEN. It's a honeymoon. Which won't start off well in a 10 wide 777.

Kacee

You say that as if SFO, LAX, or DEN is an easy, or even reasonably likely upgrade. Those days are over. HNL has become very very difficult. And of course the hub-to-hub connector from ORD is nearly impossible.

halls120

If it was my honeymoon, I'd be sucking it up and buying up into F. YMMV.

domzals1

LOL - that's a decent selling point in itself!

I knew it was going to be a tough upgrade, and quite honestly, wasn't willing to risk playing upgrade roulette on the West Coast to maybe get a domestic first UG when there was a direct flight from ORD. DEN-OGG isn't running, and the DEN-HNL loads at time of booking (and currently) are fuller than ex-ORD. Throw in the fact that we're doing an unprotected connection to intra-island, and it seemed like a no-brainer at the time. With all of the horror stories about the 10 abreast Y, though, maybe not quite as clear cut at this point. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Unfortunately (which I use tongue-in-cheek as we are extremely lucky to be able to take these kinds of trips) we did an ORD-SYD trip this year to visit one of her sisters, so the vacation budget was already blown. I think we were looking at another $1500+ per person to buy into F. Just not in the cards this year, honeymoon or not.

I will count my lucky stars, though, as we cleared into C on the LAX-SYD-LAX legs in May.

Kacee

None of the options are great for upgrading 2 pax. I wouldn't second-guess your call. With the nonstop, at least the flight will be over much quicker than if you were connecting. And you're going to Hawaii!

domzals1

Maybe I'm not as up on GPU roulette as I thought, but never would I have thought I would have a harder time clearing a GPU on ORD-HNL on a Monday than LAX-SYD on a Friday. Oh well. The quicker I can get to the islands, the better! Been having all kinds of issues with WP on our HNL-LIH flight, but that's a completely different story.

I'm going to bite the bullet and switch us into 39A+B and pray that there isn't a swap. Either way, I think I've finally found a flight that I'll get a chance to use my surplus of drink chits!

DELee

The problem/challenge with the HNL-ORD flight is a) there's only 1 a day and b) ORD is one of United's superhubs so much of the right side of the country and *A partner elite flyers are transiting back from HNL via that flight as well as the other once a days into IAH and EWR. That and the 772HDs only have 28J seats.

Alas, one of the negatives of flying out of a superhub - you're competing with everyone O&D out of ORD as well as the rest of the UAL/*A world transiting ORD.

David

FlytheTail

Flying tonight ORD to SFO. Plane landed late and they are trying to do a quick turn. cleaning only took 10 min, which means the plane wasn't really cleaned. They filled the F cabin then rolled catering carts from door 2R to the front gally. No pre-departure beverage. Wish they would have just boarded 15 minutes later. A quick turn isn't possible with this configuration. Glad I bought a P fare nonetheless, the Y cabin is miserable when traveling solo.

ryder1650

My biggest issue with these 777 domestic flights is that they are always running late. The turns are too short and the gate agents can't handle such a large group of passengers. Takes a while to deboard, clean/service, and board, but UA did not make the schedules wide enough to support that.

Also, the gate areas, especially in ORD, are not big enough to handle the gigantic group 1 lines for these flights.

Adding an extra 30 minutes to the HD 777 turns will go a long way.

char777

I agree. I'm a plane geek and will usually go for a widebody, but these HD 777s on LAX-DEN-LAX take forever to board for a 1h55m flight. The boarding area at the gate becomes a mess, and people take forever clogging up the portside aisle not knowing how to board a widebody. I will take a 739 over this thing whenever possible.

SPLITTERZ

How are upgrades handled on ORD/IAH/DEN-HNL? I usually see the trips with +2 blocked upfront. Are those seats truly blocked off for crew rest, or are they released at departure for upgrades?

N104UA

Those are usually blocked off until T-24 for disabled pax, at T-24 they should open.

JDS747

I believe this happens on all UA flights in all cabins (they normally block off two bulkhead E+ seats too) and as N104UA mentioned they are released at T-24 if there are no disabled PAX on the flight.