SKY TEAM: NYC-SIN $2517 (China Eastern)

Various dates in Jan and Feb of 2018 available.

China Eastern the whole way and back. Lay flats on every flight. Haven't ever tried CE (only China Southern and it was better than i thought it was gonna be) so no idea on what soft product is like.

Great price though!

ATL

Good fare for CE. I flew them last year to Beijing and Xi'an. CE has a great hard product, but they have a pretty terrible soft product. Cabins smell like cigarettes (I think the staff smoke on board) and the food was disappointing.

They do have some pretty compelling pluses though. They offer car service to and from the airport if you book in advance (I didn't get to use this feature as I waited to long to attempt booking it). They are very flexible with stopovers and changes. Despite booking my flight through expedia.com, I had no issues calling the Airline directly to make free changes to my itinerary twice! Once prior to initial departure and again to extend a stopover. I don't know if that is standard practice, but the agents I spoke to were very helpful and seemed to have a lot of leeway in helping me.

FYI: China Eastern's airline code is MU.
There could be language issue with some FA.
Smoking on board is no longer an issue on MU intl flights. Domestic still a problem.
Remember this is a Chinese airline so set your expectation of catering and menu choices accordingly.

MH = Malaysia Airlines (Malaysian Hospitality, as the ad went)
MU = China Eastern

oops, corrected. Thanks for the reminder.

Not true

LAX-PVG - SMOKE 14 hours striaght
PVG-BKK - SMOKE FREE!!! YAY
BKK-PVG - 737 SMOKE for 4 hours, unbearable to breathe on 737
PVG-LAX - SMOKE for 12 hours non stop

75% chance of Smoke
Food - Bring your own cause its NO BUENO

I had read a review which mentioned EXACTLY what you had written above. It said the pilots were chain smoking and that the flight attendants vehemently denied it, despite the rampant smell of cigarette smoke. The reviewer said he felt especially sorry for the first class passengers who were directly outside the cockpit and paid an extraordinarily high fare to be there and be subject to all that smoke. Geez.

Smoke on an airplane -- and the airline knowing about it -- is enough for me to say "no thanks".

Also heard the food was beyond ghastly. I've flown China Southern and Air China in Biz Class and both were pretty bad with food. Air China was beyond bad. China Southern was fair. One half notch below Air France.

ATL

Im sure there is a chance that people can enjoy a smoke free trip but the odds are heavily favored against them. I booked this flight since it was same fare as above and I have been actively trying to warn people against flying this airline.

How is it Delta shoots out propaganda videos on the ME3 than takes part ownership in a state-subsidized airline which allows smoking.

MH = Malaysia Airlines!

Absolutely they still smoke on international flights. Seven out of eight for me this year between Bangkok and New York. And the one I didn't notice might have been only because we were far enough back in J. It's revolting. Beware. If it doesn't matter to you, fine. But I've decided to pay more to fly smoke free on legitimate modern airlines.

Perhaps is a route-specific issue?

I've flown PVG-JFK multiple times on first/second row of Y, never ever had detected smoke and I'm very sensitive to its smell.

I'm unable to find JFK-BKK on MU nonstop. What route were you flying? Perhaps BKK-PVG is the smokey one.

We flew BKK-PVG-JFK. The one flight on which we did not smell any smoke was when we were seated in about row 12 of Business Class. I'm guessing that we didn't smell it because we were far enough back that it didn't waft back to where we were seated (others have reported this too). First or second row of Y would be even farther back, so not surprised that you didn't smell anything.

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My flight on Air China was Beijing to Singapore. About 6.5 hours. No smoke i could detect, thank God. Miserable flight though. Food tasted like Lean Cuisines. Wine served in 2 oz. glasses. Flight attendants were surly and disappeared when food service was done. And seats were from 1977.

My flight on China Southern was from Tokyo to Sydney. About 10 hours. Nice hard product. New aircraft and biz class looked like Virgin's. Flight attendants didn't know much English but they tried very hard. Couldn't fault their service. They were always in aisles to assist. Food was fair to poor. I slept very comfortably. No smoke detected.

The fare seems to have become widely available, from now through the end of 2017 and beyond.

A few other MU Asian fares are interesting as well:
HND - $2,250
MNL - $2,504
DEL - $2,567 (click through to search on the MU website)
SGN - $2,611

The TPAC segments book into J while the intra-Asia segments book into I. Credited to Delta, MU J earns 200% RDM, 200% MQM, and 40% MQD; I earns 175% RDM, 150% MQM, and 35% MQD.

This type of fare sale is no secret--MU has been advertising on their US FB and IG pages.

150-200% MQM if you credit to DL. And if you have PM or DM status, each Asian r/t should gets you 40000 SkyPesos, more or less.

And free airport limo (to/from LAX, SFO, ORD and JFK within 60 miles). If your final destination is PVG, you get free limo too. Or a longer layover like a few days in Shanghai, you get the free limo upon arrival in PVG, but not the departure leg.

No smoke smell on the past 6 JFK/PVG and 6 Shanghai/Taipei short haul biz flights I've taken. The FA service got better and better, maybe because I always say please and thank you to any FA and I also speak Mandarin to them.

Free pajamas on ULH, just ask.

I book with MU NYC office directly and have contacts. I don't get referral bonus though. I just want MU do well in these routes and maintain the same discounted biz fares, which cost 50% less than DL, CI...etc.