What are my chances for business class seats opening up
 

I was able to get business class seats per UAL via a partner carrier Asiana (yeah :D) for Chicago to Bangkok in Oct. However one leg of the flight, Seoul to BKK is economy. No business available yet. Chicago to Seoul and the entire route back is business class. When I call UA they tell me this should open up as its so long to go. I need two seats.

There is one seat available now but they advise me to wait as to take it would split the reservation which I am told could be problematic. Hmmm. I sure don't want a hassle and if I can't get two seats at the same time the flight time is just under 6 hrs. so its cool.

So what are your thoughts/advice on this?

Thank you.

The UA telephone agent telling you "the seats should open up..." is airline-employee (and especially United-employee) talk that means "please go away, I don't really want to deal with your problem, so I'm telling you that everything will work out by itself."

Asiana has already made its initial allocation of award seats for the ICN-BKK flight. If they make additional setas available, it would likely not be until very close to the flight date -- maybe 2-3 weeks in advance.

2 bus. class award seats are available on the ICN-BKK flight on most days in October. If you can change your travel date by a day one way or the other --and, obviously, if the ORD-ICN flight is available -- that might be the best way to proceed.

I would not be concerned about taking one of the business sats now (splitting the reservation into 2 PNRs), as long as you're originating in Chicago and only taking Asiana flights.

We tried a date change. No dice. Thanks for the reply.
Larry

Do you suppose it would help to call Asiana directly?

Bring the gate agents donuts maybe? =)

LOL! Actually i called everyday since the booking day of approx. Dec. 30 and persistence pays off sometime. We got ANA to Narita, then Thai airways (A380) to BKK business class and kept the Asiana flight for the return. Yeah. :-)

DS was on the A380 from BKK to NRT (you're doing the reverse) and he just loved it. I'm sure it will be a good experience for you. Persistence pays off!!!

I called Thai and got seats in biz on the upper deck. Looks good!

Does your Asiana flight have the Quadra Smartium business class seat?

jacketwatch, I was able to make last-minute changes to DS's FF ticket. He was originally flying BKK to ORD by way of China. After reading some pretty bad reports on the airports, I was really happy to see the option of the TG A380 become available, BKK-NRT, followed by UA NRT-ORD, all in 1st class. DS was very happy with what I found for him. This was just about 7-10 days before he was scheduled to fly. It pays to keep an eye on reservations and also keep checking saver awards that become available at the last minute.

The upper deck on the A380 if great!!! Good for you!!!