So I have no idea where to stick this, so I'll leave it here for now; mods feel free to move it.

I'm helping my parents plan a trip to Asia over Christmas break, and I can find decent prices for most of the legs (IAH-HKG via EWR, HKG-SIN, NRT-IAH). The big issue for me is SIN-NRT around 12/31-1/1 or so; United wants $1600 (!), Singapore wants 670. If I put the whole itinerary on United the HKG-SIN leg jumps in price due to fare rules, eliminating any savings there.

I did see some connecting flights on some non-*A carriers that are $200 cheaper that I would be OK with (via China mostly), but of course we'll lose some time doing so.

Also for some reason ANA says that prices are TBD, so I have no idea how much one-ways would be around that time.

The other option would be to spend 100k miles for 5 one-way tickets on United.

So my questions are:

1. Will I see any prices lower than 670-ish for one-way nonstop? (And why is United so expensive?) Any other ways to get a lower price?
2. Does China require a visa for transit? We're US citizens.
3. Any idea on ANA pricing? Probably the same as Singapore?
4. In my situation, what would you do?

Have you tried looking at MH - Malaysian Airways, Phillipines airlines or some of the low cost carriers Air Asia or Tiger airways? Or even Jetstar? Have found them to be pretty good at prices within Asia.
Instead of a one way - it may be better to book a round trip and throw away the return leg.

Buy 24k BMI diamond club miles on their website for $430 then for a fare $224 + tax you have 2 one-way SIN-NRT's in business class ^

For 31/12-01/01 the following are available:

1) 31/12 NH112 (763) direct. d:8:30 a:16:20 2 pax in C class tax = $69pp

2) 30/12 SQ656 (333) SIN-FUK d:01:05 a:08:00 then connect to ANA domestic

3) 31/12 many SQ flights to PVG with many ANA connections to NRT

4) 01/01 UA and SQ options to HKG connecting with ANA to NRT

All above is in business

Personally I would just put them on the direct with NH. The overall cost would be $396 each for your parents in C class ^
Not the best seat but still very nice for the day flight and NH service is top notch!!

BMI also allows you a stopover and they can be very relaxed on routing rules so if I were you I would try get the HKG-SIN flight thrown in for free in business class! PM me if you want any help!

Wow did not even think that was a viable option. I'll be looking into that soon (when BMI's servers work properly; every time I try to sign up for the Diamond account I get "The server is down for maintenance" )

This is why I <3 FT.com; really thinking outside the box. Hopefully that would work, especially if it's in C!

Haha that's exactly why I love FT too It will work 100% for SIN-NRT and will be the price I quoted ^ However first try HKG-SIN(stopover)-NRT with them. If they say no then ring back and try again. The BD ICC is hectic and I find that you will have better luck with female agents. After a few tries if you can't manage to get the HKG-SIN flight thrown in then just give up and book SIN-NRT.
Alternatively book your first flight as IAH-SIN instead of to HKG and then you will be 100% able to book SIN-HKG(stopover)-NRT for the above prices with a little more tax ^

Please follow as the thread moves to our Travel->Asia forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Part of the issue in terms of the high pricing is that you are making a lot of stops. UA goes to all the places that you wish to go on its own metal; ordinarily a multisector flight on one company's metal is cheaper than mixing carriers, but you're saying that is not the case. Or is it that the ticket is expensive because most of your flights are on CO (in view of the IAH/EWR sector) and the HKG/SIN is a CO codeshare actually operated by UA? Codeshare situations are still mixing metal.

First things first. Are SIN, HKG, and NRT each places where you wish to actually go and visit, or are any of these actually transits (ie just to connect a flight)? This might change what we might suggest that you do. If even one of these goes away as a legitimate stop, an all UA itinerary might just get a bunch cheaper.

One approach to this is to split your itinerary. You can check the prices of a paid ticket to go from IAH and some Asian point (eg NRT, HKG, TPE, BKK etc) and buy the ticket to the cheapest location. Then you can use an award ticket to fly within Asia. If we're talking about UA MP using Tokyo as your destination, it is possible to fly say NRT-HKG on say NH, then HKG/SIN on UA, then SIN/NRT on NH or SQ. Presumably you can do the same on CO OnePlus. Alternatively if your paid ticket goes to HKG, you can buy a cheap ticket on one of the LCC's such as Jetstar or I think Tiger to get to Singapore (this is what dd1612 is suggesting). Note that flying on an Asian LCC is similar to flying Southwest, you won't be able to interline anything (research this in the Budget Travel forum), plus they're much less generous with the weight allowance. Unfortunately AFAIK none of the SE Asian LCCs flies to Japan although I think that AirAsia is talking about doing this late this year.

To answer the first two of your questions (just because you asked; pogonation is giving you a lot of good advice):

1) Answered above. Note that at least recently, UA has been flying full loads SIN/NRT and SIN/HKG, plus end December is the end of the Singapore school vacation period - prime time, thus high prices.
2) For transiting through China, US citizens don't need a visa (however you need proof of onward transit, ie a boarding pass or an e-ticket receipt with the pricing information on it, not just a printed itinerary). There's a desk where China Immigration checks your passport and puts a stamp in it. There's also a provision where US citizens can transit in China for I think 48 hours but I've never tried it myself. In any case there's a big thread in the China forum on this.

Good luck!

It's funny, I did price it all on UA metal before, and the price was as high (2400). I broke it down and I found out that HKG-SIN has some special pricing that you would only get if it was a totally separate itinerary; add anything on and it jumps in price.

Yep we want to go to all of those places.
Yea I checked some LCC; unfortunately none of them fly SIN-NRT at the moment. MH was the best one-way price I could find (350ish).

No wonder they're so high; going HKG-SIN was cheap, but SIN-HKG was double. SIN-NRT was high no matter what (unless I really moved it out)
That's good to hear if we need to transit through China.

Thanks for your help!