Houston - Sydney direct with United

Definitely want to be in Biz or 1st class for that flight..... start saving your flyer miles now!

You could drive 3 hours from Redmond to Vancouver and then it's just 14.5 hours on an Air Canada Boeing 787 to Brisbane.

Even after reading the related article link, I'd still opt for a layover to break up that flying time. Just too painful and unhealthy to sit in a confined space that long, and I'm a petite person who can deal with the middle seats with no issues and can sleep on a plane. Sure, if you're in Business Class, then no problem...but what about the majority of the passengers? I feel for the folks coming to the US from Australia..it's a looooong flight.
https://www.cnet.com/news/15-hours-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner-in-coach/

I'm with you Agnes, I would also rather break an ultra long journey mid point.
The Australian carrier QANTAS starts direct Australia - London services from Perth next March, using the 787 Dreamliner, and taking 17 hours.
The airline's boss has also recently asked Boeing and Airbus to propose an aircraft it can use on direct flights from Sydney to London and New York. At 20 hours he regards these direct flights as the 'holy grail' of aviation, however I'm not so sure.
https://www.ausbt.com.au/airbus-boeing-bullish-on-new-globe-spanning-jets-for-qantas

Is this longer flying time than the Qantas Sydney/Dallas flight?

QANTAS A380 Dallas Sydney listed as 17hr 05min.
United 787 Houston Sydney listed as 17hr 30min.
Houston Sydney is listed as 18 miles greater distance.

United has the most uncomfortable economy product I've ever had to endure (for me, that was a 14 hour flight between Tokyo & Newark). Unless the airfare were practically free, I would avoid UA unless I were earning triple miles! :-)

Some reviews of the new(ish) United 787 product.

https://travelcodex.com/review-united-airlines-boeing-787-economy-class-sfo-to-singapore/

https://thepointsguy.com/2017/07/united-787-economy-plus-review/

https://youtu.be/SZNjQZy8L1g

The Points Guy in that review did not fly economy; instead he opted for Economy Plus which is a more expensive product but not on par with the Premium Economy product that international airlines offer.

Yes, it's a big gap between what we are used to with the Asian & Mid East carriers, and what Americans are offered on their carriers.

I looked once at Dallas vs LAX to get to Sydney and it's much shorter to fly from Dallas over Mexico, about 2 hours less flying time. From the eastern half of the US of course.

We have flown across the Pacific on three trips, one from Chicago to Beijing on United, one LAX to Sydney and one Atlanta to Narita (Tokyo). The flight to Narita was a bit longer than the other two, but frankly, even though the flight from Houston to Sydney is 17.5 hours, rather than the usual 14 hours from LAX, you don't have a stop in between with more delays.

We had another trip from JAX, Fla to Singapore that would have included two back to back 9 hour flights with 10 hours of delay in between. We chose to overnight at CDG (nearby hotel) and visit Versailles, instead of that brutal schedule.

We never fly other than tourist, but manage quite well on long flights. I take an aisle seat and DW takes window. If the seating configuration is 3 seats on the side, we try to get seats at the rear of the plane where the seats go down to two and there is a little bit of extra space there.