Originally Posted by
travelinmanS
If you can get a good connection time thru ICN and fly UA on the SFO-ICN portion, it's usually a fairly easy upgrade when compared with the UA - China flights.
I recommended ICN because KE flies IAD-ICN and ICN-SZX. Since getting to ICN on a different carrier requires a double connection and presumably costs more money, I didn't consider this option.
Given the choice of doing the "Shenzhen Shuffle" or connecting in Beijing, I would lean towards the latter because the former is considerably annoying (i.e. worse than hanging around PEK). In fact, I would stop over here because Beijing is an interesting city.
Bottom line: the only 1-stop options between IAD and SZX are via ICN or PEK.