As everyone knows by now, United Airlines released the initial domestic schedule for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner yesterday. Beginning Saturday, you’ll be able to book a ride on one of the many 787 flights to/from Houston as follows:

While none of the flights will be the true inaugural, I’ll definitely be on one of them on November 4. I’m leaning towards flying out from LAX on Saturday November 3 and return on the 3:30 p.m. departure on Sunday, scheduled to be the 787. As the official schedules aren’t loaded yet, here’s my plan.

I’m going to assume the current 3:37 p.m. departure out of Houston, flight 1209 showing as a 757-300 right now, will become the 787 flight on Saturday. As of right now, upgrade space is showing as R9 (at least nine seats available).

Sometime tomorrow, I’ll book and pay for my roundtrip and once it’s ticketed (usually within an hour), I’ll apply a Regional Premier Upgrade and snag one of the upgrade seats.

When Saturday rolls around and the official schedules are loaded, I’ll hope to see my freshly booked flight operating as the 787 with the upgrade in tact. If not, I’ll simply cancel it and rebook a new reservation courtesy the 24-hour flexible cancellation policy. Yes, the R-inventory might be zeroed out with the newly loaded flight, but this is my no-cost way of jumping the gun and hoping I’ll fly BusinessFirst on the first day of scheduled operations.

I know I won’t be the only one in Houston on the 4^th. Are you there? Want to meet up for 787 spotting party?

Related posts:

Video Tour Inside United’s First Boeing 787

United Will Revenue Manage the 787 Differently Than Rest of Fleet