CDKing

Car was on all cash J fares but they changed it to C/D/Z/I only (HU deal was in R).

Hotel is for everyone regardless of class of service just depends on airport and length of stop as to whether one is provided. Note on economy fare its sharing room with another person. most if not all major mainland china carriers offer it. I thing Air China was exception but they may now. I recently booked on China Southern and the premium economy hotel for example was going for $30 a night so i would have just booked my own room. You don't want to risk hotel in middle of nowhere. I'm not sure what the business class hotel is in PEK since i didn't realize it was a benefit so booked one in the city. I did get the escort to carry my hand luggage from domestic terminal to the airport express in intl area.

TProphet

The "shared room" practice is really important to note. If you're traveling with someone else, it's not a big deal that you have to share a room. However, if you're traveling alone, the airline will put you and another random person from the plane into the same room. There *may* be more than one bed.

VegasGambler

I wouldn't share a room with a stranger under any circumstances, and certainly not to save $30.

This airline looks great though. Really good I and R fares... and my friends have been recommending that I visit Chongqing... and there are direct flights from LAX.

Thanks to @CDKing for the tip about the car service; I'll probably try to find an R fare for a convenient (ie, not overwhelmingly hot and humid) time next year before 11/30

CDKing

R is no longer eligible. That was the cool fare class because it was misclassified as first class for a while

VegasGambler

R is still available. I see 2 round trips per week, LAX-CKG, up to Dec 4 with R available.

Is it going away after that? The lowest I fares I see are about $300 more

CDKing

R fare used to get limo now it does not.

https://www.hainanairlines.com/US/US/Limo-service

CDKing

December 1, 2017 was the last ticket purchase date to get Limo on R fare. The fare class will continue to exist but no limo. Also as of 10/1/18, AS earnings on R dropped from 200% EQM/RDM to 100% EQM 200% RDM (plus RDM elite bonus on base miles)

Hainan notice on R fares to travel agents:
https://www.ccra.com/wp-content/uplo...nt-15NOV17.pdf




Current restrictions:
https://www.hainanairlines.com/US/US/Limo-service

VegasGambler

Oh I understand. Sorry, I thought that you were saying that R was going away.

Didn't you say (upthread) that R bookings made before Nov 30 would get the car service? That's why I was saying that I should book it now.

EDIT: Oh I see that was Nov 30 2017. I'm a year late

Oh well, R fares seem like a good deal anyway. And if I can't find one, I is still reasonably priced.

VegasGambler

Ok, so, when planning my trip to CKG, some of my friends suggested that I do a quick side trip to PEK. I was looking for fares and I noticed something...

HU has published fares LAX-BJS RT fares in I and R that:

• have valid routings through CKG, CSX, or CTU
• are the same base price as LAX-CKG, and only add $7.50 per segment of carrier surcharge to the total price
• books into C for the intra-china segments (at least, according to ita)

The intra-china segments can be almost 1000 miles so having them book into C seems pretty valuable... C earns an extra 150% CoS bonus over I and R. So as MVPG you would be earning 450% RDM and 250% EQM.

I don't completely understand booking code and overrides... I do notice that these flights have C space and nothing else in business. Is it common for a fare to book into a higher booking code for some segments?

Assuming that this is correct, as MVPG, you're looking at about 50k rdm and 20k eqm for a ticket that can be as cheap as about $2200, on what seems to be a pretty good product. Maybe not quite a milage run, but it seems to be a nice little mileage rebate if you want or need to visit these cities anyway.

I'm not sure if it's possible to set up something longer with their other fares. The ones without specific routings listed seem to be stingier with the max allowed miles. The "best" I've found is LAX-CTU-PEK-CTU-LAX (and stops are free; 1 in each direction). I'll probably fly LAX-CKG-PEK-CTU-LAX so I can visit all 3 cities.

moondog

If you value your sanity, keep the intra-China segments to a minimum (e.g. CKG-PEK-CTU is idiotic).

VegasGambler

I actually want to visit all three of these cities though and there's no way to do that without that many segments.

Note that I'm not just saying in the airport between flights... this is NOT a mileage run. The mileage is just a nice bonus that rebates me about half my fare in miles. And of course, once I'm making the trip anyway, I want to maximize that rebate

I'm thinking about spending 3-4 days in each city. I'm taking advantage of the "one free stopover in each direction" rule to visit 3 cities for the price of a single round trip. I often try to do this when I travel to new places... I want to see as many as possible. There are a lot of cities in the world and if I limit myself to 1 per round trip I will never get to go everywhere that I want

moondog

Ah, got you. Beijing is well worth a visit.

CDKing

I don't know why but domestic flights seem to always book into Y/C however if yiu go to trip.com for example it has several different economy fare levels. When i was on HU site PEK-PVG was $230 and book into Y trip.com there was a business class fare for the same amount. Though i don't know how to tell what the underlying fare class is.

moondog

If you search on their Chinese site, you can map economy fares to fare classes based on the discount multiplier. If you don't read Chinese very well, simply call ctrip.

FYI, unless you're connecting from an overseas flight, there is usually no point in flying from PVG.

VegasGambler

I'm taking about, eg, this:

I don't really understand why this fare basis is booking into C for the domestic (Chinese) segments but it seems to be a nice bonus. I'll take the extra 2900 EQM / RDM