fare relief?
 

Not ex-ORD.. but reasonable:

Air China is pricing out $689 after taxes and $5 expedia fee for SFO-PVG.. it's their codeshare on the United nonstop. Feb 17-21, no min stay it seems.

as i've probably suggested in the past, i'd be willing to bet you could do just as well on the carrier of your choice (including the same flight with the UA#) for those dates.

I guess it is about time to start working on the visas.

Booked Jerries flight on a nw wbc. Depart sfo Feb 13 arr nrt Feb 14. Are you going to be around mjm?

Depart nrt Feb 17 for pvg and return to sfo Feb 21.

For myself I will book a ticket to nrt and get a nw intra/asia award as that seems the most reasonable way to go.

You certainly have a lot of faith in those "affordable fares with no 6-day-minimum"... as we are seeing with current Asia prices, it's practically nonexistent <$1000 r/t... so, how much are you betting? ;)

United is pricing out something nasty for the same dates & flights.

Should be. Drop me a private e-mail at [email protected] and we can coordinate.

Catch you soon,

Mike

P.S. Was in town briefly to see the 13-10. Here we go!!!

I'm finding the same as izzik. Ex-ORD, UA is still pricing out at $1700 M fares as the best available fare using those dates. I believe ex-SFO was pricing out at $1300+ IIRC. Come on UA!!!! At this point I don't even care if it's the non-stop or not!

how about a round at the go-kart track (assuming i'm in town then, which is pretty hard for to predict, unfortunately)?

to be honest, i don't really have much experience with the 6 day requirement because that doesn't apply to my travel patterns. however, i will say that the tickets i buy have very few restrictions. i fly jl ex-sfo/jfk/lax and i rarely pay more than $700. her number is 714-438-1328 (ask for eriko).

since you're in ny, i suggest you check out some of the bucket shops there. my friend recently purchased jfk-yvr-pvg return with stopovers for $585. i will ask him to send me the agent's phone number and post here.

go-karts sound like fun, actually ....

Do you find prices like these on UA metal? That are upgradeable? Those are the two things I'm looking for and haven't had much success with the flights I've looked at so far. It's looking more and more like I'm going to need some sort of award to get to PVG.

UA is often discounted, especially out of NY and sometimes WAS. however, the cheap fares almost always seem to be q or v (without change penalties though). i bought an h fare (jfk-pvg) for a colleague earlier this year and paid $915.

fwiw, it's not impossible to upgrade from q out of china.

ok ok.. now that someone else has posted that CA-ticketed fares on UA metal won't accrue MP miles.. best to examine other options.

AC has a coach fare for $817 r/t jfk-yvr-pvg 2/17-21.

Westin Shanghai
 

Have just booked Westin using the Starwood Free Weekend promotion. ;)

Sondra and I have booked 3 nights at the Westin (18,29,20) and I expect to cancel one by the end of next week and change it over to a free night with the 5/1 promotion. Going out tonight to spend the night at the EWR Sheraton, then to the Atlanta Sheraton for 4 nights.
I hope to change out another paid night either with another 5/1 from me or from my wife who got the same promo.

Some information on air/hotel
 

Air, please check consolidators. Many of them are based out of chinatown and can be found at your local chinese newspaper. Most of these tickets are not upgradable. Out of NYC, my perferred carriers to PVG are JAL/ANA via NRT, they are about $500/rt.

Hotel, here are some of the rates I ran across, pm me for detail. Shangri-la/1100CNY, Westin/150USD, Okura Garden/720CNY, JW Marriott/780CNY, Renaissance/650CNY, Hua Tin (used to be Sheraton)/580CNY.

I was able to gett a reward ticket on SQ this time. I'll be in Shanghai from 2/5-2/21.

these are pretty good prices

Just a heads up for all you that don't mind sitting in coach: I see that UA has put out an S fare today to PVG. I checked SFO and LAX for some dates in February, and the price is around $750...