What's the best way to fly into Shanghai?

I am a grad student studying abroad in Shanghai from June 18th to August 14th this year. I need to buy a round trip ticket asap.

I will be in Florida a week before leaving for Shanghai (PVG), but am flexible to leaving from any city that makes the flight more economical.

I have access to Student Universe discounts, but they don't seem to be helping. Right now, the best prices I can find are just under $1700 and most often include a stop in Toronto with Air Canada (not counting Russian Airlines going through Moscow for $1100, which seams to get very poor reviews).

I've browsed this forum before and have been impressed with all the detailed and helpful responses, but couldn't find what I was looking for. I guess I have three questions:

1. What city generally offers the best (price, time, reliability, etc.) flight to Shanghai?
2. What website has the best way of searching flights to and while in China?
3. On a student's budget (i.e. no business class), any good tips on seating for someone 6'9"?

Thank you in advance, I really appreciate any and all suggestions!

M

Traditionally, it's been the West Coast US gateways esp LAX that tends to have less expensive TPAC flights, but that doesn't seem to necessarily hold true anymore. Unfortunately, you are travelling at the worst possible time (except maybe Christmas holidays), summer flights are very busy in both directions across the big water. And flights from anywhere in North America to anywhere in Asia seem much higher than normal even now when we're not in high season. If you can get from Florida (or the East Coast) to Shanghai for $1100, I strongly suggest you consider doing that even if it means a Moscow connection. If you're flying Aeroflot, their international flights are now considered no worse than flying the longhaul USA carriers. The unattractiveness of a Moscow connection may end up being worth sucking it up to save a few hundred dollars.

Do you have any flexibility, especially on the return date? Even delaying until after Sept 1 can drop that fare down. August is notoriously awful for TPAC prices.

Try other major US cities, if a Florida origin is proving to be very expensive. You'd still have to find a way to get a cheap ticket to your US international gateway, but in the USA, at least there are options and specials. If you can snag something less expensive to anywhere in China (PEK, CAN) then it's relatively easy to get a domestic Chinese ticket or even use the train services. For domestic Chinese tickets, use www.ctrip.com or www.elong.com or www.travelzen.com all of which have English language versions of websites. Note: do not use these for international flights to China, and usually not for internationals out of China.

As for what's the best strategy for a very tall person travelling in Y, it to some extent depends on aircraft. At a minimum, get an aisle seat. It may be possible to snag an exit row but if you don't have frequent flyer status, very tough on a US carrier longhaul. Many airlines will not issue exit row assignments until check-in, so sometimes not doing online advance check in and showing up very early at the airport can produce one of these. Bulkhead seats get mixed reviews since some of them don't always have the leg room you expect, and you usually get babies and small kids around you.

Wow... at those price you might as well fedex yourself, a comfy chair and an oxygen tank. Put fragile and an arrow facing the right way up to reduce discomfort.

Otherwise consider purchasing points and using them to buy the ticket. You wont be saving much but you probably be able to choose a better route for less.

Yeah, an easy, and totally above board, way to buy miles is from USAir:

http://www.usairways.com/en-US/divid...s/default.html

http://www.usairways.com/en-US/divid...c=USBuyLanding

The 75% bonus is what makes it worth while (this bonus is usually 100% when it's offered; it rotates between buy, share, and gift). It looks like $962 plus taxes will be enough if my quick math was correct.

A cool thing about buying US miles is that they will put a ticket on hold for three days for you before you buy any miles. You just give them a US account number.

Short of that, if you know anyone with DL miles, it wouldn't hurt to shop for flights and seek a trade on the off chance you find flights that work with your schedule. (They are close to worthless these days.)

Failing that, wait until closer to your trip and check fares again.

ETA: I just noticed that they'll throw in an additional 25% bonus if you use their toolbar to make the purchase. As much as I hate toolbars, I would gladly use one for the thirty minutes it required to make the transaction and uninstall in order to save an extra $200. Also, don't forget to ask about business class availability. It only costs 50% more miles and you might find flights are open in biz but full in economy.

If you're referring to Aeroflot Russian Airline, I can vouch that they are very decent. I recently flew PVG - SVO - MAD round trip with them. In economy, the service was no worse than the mainline American carriers. However, the planes were new and clean. The seats had VOD (not too many movies though). The only bad thing that I experienced was no alcohol during the SVO - PVG leg.

So I think $1100 during the peak summer travel is a pretty good deal. For the last few years, we always had to pay around $1500 for summer travel from China back to the U.S.

The cheapest gateway to Shanghai, I found, were usually LAX and YVR (vancouver).

I was just looking for a similar flight to yours....and it's really too pricey to even consider buying....

The cheapest options I was finding were ex-JFK on CX but were still about $1200. Ended up using a *A award.

The buying US Miles seems to me the best option. Although I booked through them and I had to fight to stop them from putting me on a flight through FRA...

I just checked the rates again, assuming the 100% bonus.

For an economy ticket from the US to China, you need 60k miles, which cost $825, assuming you book with their toolbar. For business class, you need 90k miles, which will set you back $1237.50.

For those that aren't used to booking award tickets, the process can be a bit daunting. You see, if you give the agents your exact dates and tell them you want to go from Daytona Beach to Shanghai, they'll almost definitely spend ten seconds on their computer and then tell you to pound sand.

But, if your schedule is flexible by +/- three days in both directions, there's a 90% chance that you'll find flights that work. The thing is, you (OP) will likely need to do a bit of research yourself first. You can do so for free via several *A websites OR you can avail yourself of a paid service such as expertflyer, KVS, or Award Nexus.

In any event, if start down this route and have questions, feel free to pose them here.

I agree with moondog on doing the research.

But one of the things that the OP is running into is the max days for the cheaper fare classes. The fare rules operating from the US to China this summer have a max stay of 30 or 60 days for the cheaper fares (at most, some are lower).

For example, I can book a round trip between ORD and PVG for 2 weeks in the middle of June for around $1000. But when I expand the travel times to incorporate the OP's travel requirements, the fare goes to over $1800!!!!

Since the OP is 6'9", I would try to get as much time on Asiana (OZ). The seat pitch in coach is 34" and their food and service is really good. To get a similar seat pitch on UA or CO would cost $300 - $400 extra (on top of the $1800 base fare).

Thank you guys, that's all really helpful.

I followed up with the idea of purchasing through US Airways using Dividend Miles. Unfortunately, after a half hour on the phone, it appears that all of the US Airways dividend miles seats allotted are already booked on the return leg from Shanghai, for up to a week after the date I planned on returning. That pretty much rules out US Airways then.

I really like the idea of buying miles using bonus percentages and using that as credit towards a ticket, effectively cutting the cost in half.

Are there any other airlines out there that would fly to Shanghai AND currently are running discounted bonus miles promotions?

What sort of research did you do to establish this fact?

I don't know if this qualifies as what you're terming research, but I was on the phone with a US Airways International Flights rep for 30 minutes going through various scheduling scenarios.

According to her, there are no seats available for purchase through Dividend Miles on flights out of Shanghai for the week of August 15th. (There are some available going LAX>PVG, but none PVG>US.)

If there is another source of research to find available seats to US Airways customers by DM purchase coming out of Shanghai the week of August 15th, then I would gladly comb through it.

Again, I don't know it as a definitive "fact" that all those seats are booked, but I don't know enough to go beyond what I was told from US Airways themselves.

Sorry if I seem naive. I really do appreciate any help. I'm not asking anyone to do the work for me, just suggestions on where to look.

My "pound sand" comment was in reference to that very situation; you shouldn't rely on the phone agents at all (well, it's worth a shot, but if they can't produce results after 5 minutes, then hang up the phone and get busy on your computer).

Just as a single test case, I searched PVG-FRA and FRA-IAD on August 14 +5 days... lots of flights, though mostly in business.

If I get some free time (busy week), I will try to do more research for you, but you might want to sign up for one of the short expertflyer memberships yourself.

I can absolutely believe that for this period in August, there are already no mileage seats available TPAC in economy. Tons of vacationing families and university students are headed back to the USA before start of school. And most anybody wanting to use awards, miles, etc. knows to grab early for August. That's why I asked earlier if you had any flexibility on your return to push it a few weeks out into September.

I'm nearly positive that I could find some FRA routings that work in economy (PVG-FRA is wide open, there are a dozen+ flights between FRA and the US, and you can also connect in Europe). But, one often needs to search segment by segment. Technically, US doesn't permit Asia to USA via Europe (which is why some agents won't suggest it), but if you spoon feed them flight numbers (with open seats), they will oblige more often than not.

For business class, availability in August seems pretty good (based on two searches: HND-LAX and BKK-LAX). My first search (PVG-LAX) came up empty, which surprises me in light of the amount of competition on the route; my theory here is that there is a good chance UA will end up delaying its implementation or scrapping it altogether.

Back on topic, I am willing to bet one of those big Paulaner beers that I could find a viable *A award itin in Y between Shanghai and some place in the USA within 5 days of August 14.

Moondog's advice about US Air is spot on. The ability to get business class from the US to China for $1200+ is an opportunity not to be missed. The cash price of a business ticket on that route is many multiples of that, and if you are 6'9" it wil be worth every penny. Most of your classmates will pay more than that for a seat in coach!

Don't listen to a word the US air call center folks say, you need to do your own research on availability and then call them and let them know what you found. Google the "View from the Wing" blog by Gary Leff, as he has an excellent post about how to redeem US awards. I would recommend using awardnexus.com in yin your search ,as the interface is very novice friendly.

I did a token search for your return date and found plenty of availability from Shanghai to the US in biz with a day or so of your request, mostly via Frankfurt

Good luck and safe travels