Originally Posted by
lsquare
It is the same day. As I said in the OP, I'll be arriving early in the morning and then fly out in the evening. I think the part that confuses me is how do I tell UA to let me pick up my suitcase at SFO after arriving from PVG? At PVG, they'll be giving me the boarding passes to SFO and then onward to YVR right? FYI, I've never tried to do this at SFO before.
You will* go through US Customs at SFO, even though your final destination is outside of the US. You'll need to pick up your bags at baggage claim and walk them through customs. You can then drop them off again at a special re-check station that's set up just outside of customs. If you need to put something in your bag, or take something out of it, or whatever, you can do it there. You could also just walk away with your bag and bring it back to the United counter later.
And, yes, you should expect to get your SFO and YVR boarding passes both in PVG.
* Barring a significant change of procedure, anyway. There are some US airports where international-to-international bags do not have to be re-checked, but SFO isn't currently one of them. This isn't a major worry, in my opinion, but I mention it for completeness.