For Christmas times, its better to buy ahead, since most of the flights will be pretty full, and you won't have any good seats left for the looong journey you have ahead of you. Usually, on UAL.com, the cheapest is $1000-$1200 (consolidators $700-900), but this can quickly jump up to $2000 if they sell a few tickets.

Note these are East Coast fares to HKG. Probably a little cheaper for West Coast fares.

[This message has been edited by teeman (edited Feb 12, 2004).]