Originally Posted by
formeraa
It seems that the more complicated itineraries may require a call to HA to make the reservations. Unfortunately, that may incur a phone reservation fee. Have you tried one of the booking sites (travelocity or expedia). Their booking engines may be more sophisticated than HA's website.
While I find HA's flight attendants friendly and the Hawaiian-themed atmosphere on the plane soothing, I'm not sure if HA's service is going to be overly impressive. It's probably better than other US carriers, but may not be as good as some Asian carriers.
Thank you very much for your reply! After some searching I guess it may be that the booking class O is not available in these combinations. All SFO-OGG; OGG-HNL; HNL-PEK flights I found are with different booking classes, which makes the original fare basis OLXOPK not available.
I actually found sth more interesting. (too bad I couldn't post screenshots though) The original flight I found is SFO-PEK with a layover in HNL for $278. Fare basis is OLXOPK. It works on 12/4, 12/6, 12/9 and some other dates in November (but doesn't work after 12/9). When I search SFO-HNL; HNL-PEK (stopover in HNL since it is permitted by the fare rule OLXOPK), in Expedia and several other OTAs I am able to find flights around $300, which is similar to the original SFO-PEK flight. These OTAs don't show fare basis, but I assume it is also OLXOPK.
However, when I search it on ITA matrix and the Hawaiian airline official website, the price (with the same fare basis OLXOPK) skyrockets to ~$800. From my understanding, adding a stopover without changing the fare basis should only cause a ~10% price increase due to taxes. Why does the price goes to nearly 3X here without changing the fare basis? And why couldn't ITA matrix find the price I found on Expedia?