Originally Posted by emcampbe

Yes, point of sale restrictions are extremely common. Not just UA, but by pretty much every international carrier. It's just a fact of life.

It's not a mistake. What is different about UA vs. other carriers is how they enact these POS restrictions. Most carriers simply base it on your departure location on their own websites, so if you are departing the US, you get the US point of sale and are departing, say, Israel, you get the Israel price, and can use a card from any country allowed. UA bases it on CC billing country. You don't have to like the policy, but it certainly isn't a mistake, it's the way they choose to enforce it. With other carriers, the difference is you don't see it since it is strictly based on departure city. You will see it on an OTA though. Try booking intra-Asia (at least ex-India) to wherever on Thais website (even try the US site). It will price in INR, and give you a discount fare - same with Cleaetrip or other Indian OTAs. Try the same flights on Orbitz or another US OTA, and you'll see only full Y fares which will be about double the price. And that's because Thai typically offers only full fare from a US point-of-sale.

I suggest you also go onto BAs website and try booking, say, Madrid-EWR while selecting the US website. When you submit the search, the results will come from their Spanish website, price in Euros, and be bookable with a US card. Try that with UA, search will be from the US site, but price will update based on the country your card is billed to.

Essentially, yes, on this route, right now, you can buy the same flights cheaper using a US or Canadian credit card then a Chinese one, apparently. Tomorrow, the fares may be available for China. Or maybe not.

If you want to buy the US-based fare with a foreign card, the only way to do it will be with a travel agency. Orbits, Travelocity, Expedia, etc. will have the US-based fares, and will likely allow you to use a foreign credit card.