penner42

SFO-LIH has has one flight a day on an INTL 752, but that would add a stop for you.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Just because you see a 752 recently, that doesn't mean it'll be there in November. One is more likely to be on a 738SPF in November.

fly2lanai

I was on 1 on July 1 from LAX-HNL on the newly re-configured 777HD has the lie-flat but would have to have more re-configured before you will see it daily.

I believe they are speeding up the re-con to fly the HNL-GUM route due to the constant complaints of non lie-flat

TennisNoob

You can check for an 764 out of IAH when subbed. Occasionally the 772 with lie flats are subbed.

mander

Out of ORD in November I would take the non-stop if it is flying the day I want to go otherwise I would go to HNL in the non-fly-flat and then take Hawaiian to OGG. On the way back I would go through DEN assuming you got lie-flat like I did on Thursday!

belfordrocks

Well, it's not like those pax have anywhere else to go... not sure 4 hours in a domestic seat followed by a connection in NRT on DL is better for them.

LIH

I have had (and currently have booked) the internal 752 LIH - DEN. I like that connection too also because it makes the return flight longer than LIH > LAX/SFO. You always run the risk of aircraft swaps, of course, but you can find the lie flats on the schedule sporadically.

JDT1955

Every once in a while, you'll see an international class 777 on ORD-HNL. I spotted this when we were in KOA and swapped over to it with a nice lie flat in BF for the 8 hour flight home...wish they'd do this all the time!

IAH-OIL-TRASH

What dates did you fly and what dates do you have a non-stop 752 booked from Lihue to Denver?

OP - all these posts talking about a/c swaps shouldn't get your hopes up. Another talks about a non-existent route. The non-stop 752 out of Denver is rare (and well-booked) in November when I looked at. THE ONLY RELIABLE DAILY LIE-FLATS are out of IAD and EWR. Any booking based on lie-flat being swapped in frequently based on posts here will (in almost all likelihood) end in disappointment. If you want lie-flat, book via EWR or IAD or the rare 752 in/out of Denver. You also don't want to fly to Lihue to get to Maui.

Hipplewm

I am watching this frequently, I am planning family vacation to Hawaii next summer, but I am East Coast and close to IAD, so it make it easy for me. Looking at fare buckets, it seems MUCH easier to find up-gradable fares on the return trip HNL-IAD than it does on the way there.

I imagine we will end up CHS-ORD-SFO-HNL to get there to save money and RPU it, then most likely HNL-IAD-CHS either RPU or award tickets. Coming back is when the lie flats are worth the time and effort to get them.

iaddca2011

I have a flight scheduled for December from LAX to LIH where the plane was swapped out recently with a 757 with flat bed seats. I agree with the others that any moment it could be switched back out again with a domestic first class but I can always hope. For me the only that really matters is the HNL to IAD since no matter what flight you take to the East Coast it is going to be in the middle of the night. I believe this flight is only offered once a week on Saturday's with a return on Sunday morning.

LIH

Upcoming is next Feb, don't remember the exact dates of last one but it was March coming back on a Saturday (land Sunday AM). I agree with you that they're rare but that LIH<>DEN route seems to be there sporadically.

I would take exception with your closing comment only because I think the OP's Hawaii trip may be hugely improved by spending some time on the way there or back on Kaua'i over Maui. But that's a personal (and biased) opinion.

hscottm

Thanks to the many people on here who have shared little tips, hints, ideas, etc., I was able to take a family of 5 to Hawaii in F last week. Before I start, let me repeat something that's been historically said in this forum alot but that I have not heard much recently - if you want F, you should pay for it.

I say that because we pulled the trigger on this trip literally a week before (end of June), and snagged the last 5 F seats on the outbound flight. To those of you who had been watching 145 on July 7 for an upgrade - sorry. 5 F seats really do disappear suddenly when people buy them. I have been a disbelieving one in the past!

Ironically, part of the original motivation for such a trip was that I got an unsolicited challenge from AA (not so popular on that forum) to go from no status potentially all the way up to their top tier for about 1/4 the required miles over the summer. But in the end the AA fares ended up being so much higher - even out of Canada - that I ended up just booking on good ol' UA instead.

We live in PIT, but flew YYZ-IAD-HNL and back. Using google flights and other tips, I found a window from July 7-13 where tickets were like $1300 each (P class). While thats not dirt cheap, its pretty reasonable (and almost half as expensive as it would have been from PIT even with a 30-day advanced purchase), and given that its actually further than most cities in Europe - IAD-HNL is 4817 miles- on a cents per mile basis its not bad. Its only about a 5 hour drive from PIT to YYZ, with 20-ish minutes for the border crossing. For those of you looking to save money and live in the PIT-CLE-etc ring, you might keep Toronto in mind. That said, theres definitely a white knuckle risk component to such an itinerary. We ended up booking the "6am" YYZ-IAD flight, which is scheduled for 90 minutes but only takes 60 minutes - and if you watch flightaware its 60 minutes like clockwork. So why do they schedule it for 90 minutes? Because YYZ is curfewed for takeoffs until 630am - the plane goes out and gets in line at the runway so it can be the first to leave at 630. It lands at IAD at 730. HNL flight is 8:50am. A thunderstorm or other hiccup would make this interesting.

On to the actual commentary on the F service on the HNL flights.. I am posting since I couldnt find any recent trip reports on this flight (and not much on the EWR flight either). I specifically chose the IAD flight because IAD and EWR are the only Hawaii service on UA that have lie-flat seats in F (EDIT - apparently there are occasional 757 DEN-HNL flights with lie flat seats). All the others have recliners, even from ORD which is only 500 miles shorter.

These seem to be give or take the regular 767 business first seats (and IFE) used for Europe - if different I saw little difference from that trip 2 years ago. The main difference is the relative quality of the meal service. While its been mentioned before, its clear this is treated as a long domestic route rather than trans-oceanic route (again, despite the longer length).

On the way over, the breakfast options (starting around 9:45am) were cereal, an omelet, or french toast souffle. Each started with a yogurt, fruit plate and a warm roll or biscuit. This was not a bad breakfast.

What was a bit curious was the 'snack' service, which happened around the 5 hour mark of the 10.5 hour flight. It was a pepperoni calzone. Not bad, but it was hard to be hungry after a decent breakfast. I wonder if this was just a crew looking to get most of the meal service out of the way early? There was a snack basket in the galley - and roaming - for those that got hungry in the last 5 hours.

On the way back, the 9-ish hour flight leaves at 4pm HNL time (6 hours behind) and arrives IAD at 7am. There is a warm nut and drink service, followed by dinner. The initial plate is a beet-leaf salad and roll, followed by choice of butternut squash ravioli, chicken tamales, and short ribs. My wife and I both got the ribs and found them surprisingly good. One of the kids got the pasta and liked it.

This is a red-eye flight, with it getting dark fairly soon after dinner on the eastbound flight. Thus there's not much activity until about 75 minutes before landing when they do an abridged breakfast service. Its nothing special - oatmeal and several slices of fruit. There's a packet of brown sugar for those who like it that way. There were some warm croissants or cinnamon rolls too.

Some other random notes - we were surprised how many of the F cabin travelers were young. On the way over, there were 4 or 5 families with young kids.

If we do something like this again - we might book the same itinerary but with overnight in IAD and just get to airport in the morning. This avoids the 3:45am wakeup call in YYZ.

All in all, a great trip. ends up being almost 21,000 PQMs with 200% for P fares.

nddomer04

Thanks so much for the great trip report! Just one small edit. UA often flies the 757 w/ 16 lie flat seats in F from DEN-OGG/KOA. The 777 flying the DEN-HNL route is the one with the recliner seats in F.

My wife and I have three small boys, and the 5 of us were in F on HA41/42 SFO-OGG-SFO back in February. Hawaiian really does a nice job, and they're really the only airline giving a true island flavor on the planes. With AA, it's basically the usual mid-con domestic F service with the exception of tropical mixed nuts served after takeoff. With a large family, there's something to be said for going nonstop. So, while the service isn't the same as on HA, we're looking forward to taking one of the DEN flights to the islands soon.

blackavar

I can add some additional trip reports for first class to HNL in July

Recently took the ORD > HNL direct route, departs 9:15am.
777-200 plane
Lounge chairs with pillows and blankets; Certainly enough space and the pillow and blanket were decent quality.
The functionality of the chair was okay, but a but wonky, kinda like sitting in your grandfather's living room lazy boy -- that said, I still slept easily when I wanted a nap.
PDE works while you're over the US, but at some point over the pacific, it goes out. In First, you'll receive a Samsung Tablet loaded with movies, which seemed like a paired down, though sufficient selection of movies that were on PDE.
Breakfast meal was choice of omelette, french toast or cereal.
The omelette was filled with an herbed ricotta and also had a sausage and a multicolored (purple potatoes!) hash -- pretty good, I ate all of it.
My wife got the Asian Vegetarian which was a spiced chickpea dish, she enjoyed it a lot.
Plentiful Mai Tai with pineapples and cherries throughout the flight, and maybe it was just me, but I felt like the flight attendants got excited when I started ordering it and were quick to offer me refills!
Prior to landing we got a Hamburger with onions, arugula and some sort of cheesy dressing -- it tasted pretty good and was a nice snack prior to landing.
Bathrooms were stocked with cowshed products, cleansing hand cream was especially pleasant smelling.

The direct HNL>ORD flight back left at 3:50, so we instead opted for a HNL>DEN>ORD flight that left at 8:30pm, which allowed us to have a few extra hours on the beach our last day (it was a short trip). We also thought leaving later would also give us a better chance to sleep as both flights were red eye flights.

HNL>DEN
Same 777-200 plane, with same seats, pillows and blankets.
The later flight meant we only got a "hot snack" which was the previously mentioned pepperoni calzone. It wasn't bad, and did the trick...the burger was much better.
They didn't have pineapples or cherries for the Mai Tais, so that was less fun.
After a quick food and beverage service, I laid back and went to sleep and slept the last 4 hours of the flight and didn't wake up til we touched down in DEN.

We also got to fly first from DEN>ORD, standard domestic first experience with breakfast.

I purchased first class outright when I purchased the tickets at a cost of $600 more per person for the flight than economy. I found that value to be more then worth it for the 18 hours of flying. While the experience isn't quite as refined as international business class, for what I paid, I was exceptionally happy and think it made for a more enjoyable flying experience.