yinxzon

Hi all,
I am sorry but I think this may be the best place for my question.
I am looking for a SFO-PVG roundtrip.
There was a hidden gem in Philippine Airlines through ANA but is no longer available for 2024.
It was available last year and was around 90K+500+USD.
I don't see anything coming close to that except for the flight via Asiana Airlines through Lifemiles. However, availability is very very very low, like I think i saw it once throughout the entire 2024 and its gone.
I have also tried ICN-SFO or Tokyo-SFO or TPE-SFO. They all go through Tokyo if you try with ANA and all are waitlist or not available.
Please help with any new ideas? Or keep trying?
Thank you!!

Palal

Are you looking to fly ANA or any star alliance?

Try HKG-SFO and MNL-SFO - both tend to have decent availability.

yinxzon

HKG MNL to SFO (direct right?) through what airline? UA charges a lot of miles for this route. Lifemiles and ANA have very little Business Class availability. ANA had SFO-MNL-PVG RT business for only 95K+500 dollars.

yinxzon

Care to elaborate?

narvik

What are you trying to do, and when? Y or J?

UA has SFO-YVR-PVG in Y for 53100 miles + $5.60 (long leg on AC) for a few days in Jan 2024.

(ADDED; oh, business class...yeah, that might be tough)

moondog

I'd hardly call 90k nh miles plus $500 in order to fly from SFO to PVG via MNL with long layovers a "hidden gem". JL via AA for 60k each way in biz is a good deal, but you might need to tack on TYO-SHA as a separate ticket (not expensive).

yitianjian

Just curious, do you tend to book this via miles or cash? I've noticed cash via ANA/JAL/MU can be very expensive for one way routings especially routing through HND.

Have JAL booked RT to TYO, but looking for the last gap. $450 USD for RT econ ex-TYO seems to be the floor-ish. I suppose there's ULCCs, but lack of luggage hurts for the China return.

moondog

I've been booking SHA-TYO and vv with cash recently because fares have been very low (e..g $170 on MU and under $100 on 9C), but BA points came in handy during covid when $1000+ was the norm.

yinxzon

I dont really agree..
1) Please explain how you obained the AA miles (Is it via BILT? which I dont have)? That is a lot if you just fly AA.
2) You are right 95k on an old business product isn't the best thing since sliced bread, but how much taxes are you paying for the JAL product anyway? You are talking about 120-95=35K difference in miles and the taxes given the taxes on Philippines Airlines is similar to the economy seats you are buying on PVG-HND RT. I would say its a wash. Even if there is a slight edge to JAL I dont have the AA miles.
3) I think if you can score an ANA or Asiana PVG-SFO for 95K+500 USD it would be better option to both 1 and 2, I got the going one after calling a bunch but the return is reallly really hard to find. On the contrary, Philippine Airline was readily available. There is really no availability anywhere else. LifeMiles is pretty good. Problem like ANA/Asiana is availability.
Agreed? Or am I missing something...

moondog

1. Flying from SFO to PVG using Philippine Airlines takes 43 hours, including 4 hours on an A321, and you have to transfer in MNL (I'm hard pressed to think of less desirable places to transit)
2. That 43 hours might be fine if it was 1950 and planes had to stop 5 times when crossing the Pacific Ocean, but as long as 13-18 hour options are abundant, it's a deal breaker for nearly everyone I know
-as much as I dislike MU or UA Y, if the other option was PR business class, I would go for the nonstops 100 times out of 100
3. The taxes I pay on award tickets are reasonable (e.g. $5.60 if on AA/DL/UA metal only, which jumps to around $30 when JL/NH segments are included)

yinxzon

1 and 2) Thats false.
3) So thats pretty good. You are talking about same amount of flight time then. 95K+500ish vs 120K+400ish.

Where is the nonstop??? UA? Thats not 120K RT.
How do you get AA miles? and JAL availability?

moondog

yinxzon

Is this your way of saying its 43 hours? bc thats a difference of 3.5h.

moondog

No. I posted the map to highlight the fact that the MNL routing is ~30% longer than the HND routing. Transit durations are a separate issue.

yinxzon

The trade off is 3.5 hours for availability, however no longer available. I apologize but could you please provide solutions or answers to my questions? At the moment, I find myself without viable alternatives.