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United is releasing economy and Business Class award space on its 787-8 and 787-9 Dreamliners from Asia and Australia, not so much to. I didn’t used to see any award space in the flat bed BusinessFirst (Business) cabin, and American Airlines isn’t currently releasing Business Class space on its Dreamliner, so I wanted to share the good news.
Routes
United flies its 787-8 Dreamliner between:
- Denver and Tokyo-Narita (65k miles in Business)
- Los Angeles and Tokyo-Narita (65k miles in Business)
- Los Angeles and Shanghai (70k miles in Business)
United flies its 787-9 Dreamliner between:
- Los Angeles and Melbourne (70k miles in Business)
The difference is that the 787-9 has 33 extra seats including 12 extra Business Class beds.
Award Space
When the Dreamliners made their way onto United’s schedule, award space was nearly impossible to find in Business Class. (The planes don’t have First Class.)
Over time, that has changed somewhat. Hopefully the same change happens with Business Class on the American Airlines Dreamliner.
In November, I wrote about some award space appearing on the 787-9 to Melbourne. I took a look at the award space now, and I found only one day in the next 11 months with award space from Los Angeles to Melbourne in Business Class on the direct flight–April 7.
Interestingly enough, using united.com Expert Mode, I found the flight has 9 Business Class award seats–“I” below.
The return from Melbourne to Los Angeles, though shows much more award space. There is award space in the next week, which is a common pattern in premium cabins on United flights. United is generally good about releasing unsold seats at award space at the last minute.
And there is also award space from Melbourne to Los Angeles in July, August, September, and October.
This pattern is observed on all the United Dreamliner routes: award space is far better on the flights to America than from America to Asia and Australia. I’m not sure why that would be, but you can take advantage by using your United miles to fly home and using American or Delta miles to fly to Asia and Australia.
For instance, from Shanghai to Los Angeles on the smaller Dreamliner, there is award space 13 days in the next month in Business Class.
And from Tokyo to Denver, there is award space eight days in the next two weeks.
The flights to Tokyo and Shanghai have far less award space.
Bottom Line
United is releasing more and more Business Class award space on its Dreamliners from Australia and Asia to the United States. Award space is far better on these eastbound flights than the westbound flights to Australia and Asia. Either fly a United partner, fly United economy, or use another type of miles to get to these places and then return in United Business Class on its new Dreamliners.
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If the goal is to just to fly on United’s Dreamliner, I’d suggest that LHR-IAH (either direction) is a possibility, often with very good (especially close-in) availability. It’s a 9-11.5 hour flight, so nothing to shake a stick at. And with the current sale, it’s only 57.5k miles to boot.
Yep, and about $400 in LHR departure taxes. Good deal!
OR you can spend five seconds thinking about it to find any one of the two dozen or so connecting flights to LHR (e.g. from WAW on LO, from BRU on SN, from MUC on LH) and dump 90% of that cash outlay. Come on now.
That’s true, but most european airports have some kind of non-trivial tax amount, and you have to factor in connection times, etc. What’s your time worth? I recently flew SQ coach from LHR just because going to AMS to save on biz class departure taxes was a massive headache and would waste almost 18hrs of my time.
Would fly direct to my destination for $400 no problem
If the goal is to just to fly on United’s Dreamliner, I’d suggest that LHR-IAH (either direction) is a possibility, often with very good (especially close-in) availability. It’s a 9-11.5 hour flight, so nothing to shake a stick at. And with the current sale, it’s only 57.5k miles to boot.
Yep, and about $400 in LHR departure taxes. Good deal!
OR you can spend five seconds thinking about it to find any one of the two dozen or so connecting flights to LHR (e.g. from WAW on LO, from BRU on SN, from MUC on LH) and dump 90% of that cash outlay. Come on now.
That’s true, but most european airports have some kind of non-trivial tax amount, and you have to factor in connection times, etc. What’s your time worth? I recently flew SQ coach from LHR just because going to AMS to save on biz class departure taxes was a massive headache and would waste almost 18hrs of my time.
Would fly direct to my destination for $400 no problem
Meh. Take a look at that United 787 business class seat layout: 6 across – seriously! Not a good use of miles IMHO. If you want to actually ENJOY that 11 hour flight, get on a non-US carrier’s Dreamliner in business class instead. Just one example (there are others), ANA has 3 seats across in business on their international 787 flights. 3 across beats 6 across in my book.
Meh. Take a look at that United 787 business class seat layout: 6 across – seriously! Not a good use of miles IMHO. If you want to actually ENJOY that 11 hour flight, get on a non-US carrier’s Dreamliner in business class instead. Just one example (there are others), ANA has 3 seats across in business on their international 787 flights. 3 across beats 6 across in my book.