My Aus issued amex card seams to be slightly special,
My bank lets me specify any address in the world as a alternative address and if I use this with the UA site it works 100% to let me pick any country I want

I was looking at some cheap k fares HKG-EWR on the USA-English version of United website. When I select the China-English version of website to get the fares in CNY there is no K fare available any more and the price is now double. I have a dual currency USD/CNY credit card so I don't mind either but what will happen if I enter my Chinese credit number to pay for the fare on the USA-English version of the website. I remember last time I did this it detected my card was from China and forced me to do the transaction in CNY.

I thought the country you select only determined the currency of the billing, not the fare class availability? I read the fares rules for KLNCJA6U and I didn't see anything about that would make a payment in CNY not eligible for this fare.

I want to know what will happen if I try to pay the fare in USD from the USA-English version website with my Chinese credit card? Will the website force me to pay in CNY (I remember this happened to me last time). If so, will it just convert the fare from USD to CNY and keep the K class or will it make me buy the higher fare class?

I'm not ready to buy ticket yet, just checking the fare options. Otherwise I would just try it and see what happens.

You are correct, it is what happened to you last time; the billing address of the credit card is the key. You need to select the country of billing address. If it's a Chinese card and you choose USA and US$ it simply reverts back to China and CNY.

Added: You need to select appropriate country where it asks: "Country associated with your billing address", and here's the skinny:
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...ssCountry.aspx

They must have changed something recently as I too see the same thing as of a week ago or so. HUGE price/fare class difference between EWR-PEK-EWR in U$ and PEK-EWR-PEK in CNY. It used to be about the same in the past.

Point of sale restriction. Very common.

Those are completely different fares. Originating in the US vs. originating in China. If they were previously "the same" (which I doubt) it was just a coincidence.

My way around this is to call UA and purchase the ticket over the phone.

I will add that the Delta website does not have these similar country restrictions.

I'm checking the exact same routing, HKG-EWR-HKG just changing the version of the website. It's not a case of originating in the US vs originating in China.

If I select the US site and then try to buy the ticket with my Chinese credit card, I know that it will force me to pay the fare in CNY but I want to know whether it will just convert that K fare from USD to CNY or force me to buy the higher fare class.

Well I decided to try it to see what will happen. Probably would have had to take advantage of the 24 hour cancellation policy if it had worked. It didn't work. After I entered all the payment info I got this message.

Error

We�re sorry, but united.com was unable to complete your request. Please try later or contact united.com Support in the U.S. and Canada at 1-888-491-6573; the U.K., phone 0800 028 5003; elsewhere use the local phone number.

It looks like you can also use Paypal so I guess I can just choose PayPal and use my credit card via Paypal.

That's really strange. I wonder why they don't want Chinese people buying the k fare on that route.

I tried choosing a few other countries to see what would happen. If I choose Canada then I get the cheap k fare in CDN. If I choose Hong Kong then I get the expensive L fare in HKD. If I choose UK then I get the expensive L fare in GBP.

This must be a mistake on the website. Surely United is not pricing fares based on which country issued your credit card. To be clear, I am talking about the exact same flights, only changing the country selection at the top of the page. In that selection page the instruction is "Please select your location or where you receive credit card billing statements to see pricing in your local currency."

Is it correct that certain fare classes are not supposed to be available in certain currencies? For example the HKG-EWR k fare is only available in USD and CDN? If you want to pay in another currency then you need to buy an L fare for double the price?

Yes, point of sale restrictions are extremely common. Not just UA, but by pretty much every international carrier. It's just a fact of life.

It's not a mistake. What is different about UA vs. other carriers is how they enact these POS restrictions. Most carriers simply base it on your departure location on their own websites, so if you are departing the US, you get the US point of sale and are departing, say, Israel, you get the Israel price, and can use a card from any country allowed. UA bases it on CC billing country. You don't have to like the policy, but it certainly isn't a mistake, it's the way they choose to enforce it. With other carriers, the difference is you don't see it since it is strictly based on departure city. You will see it on an OTA though. Try booking intra-Asia (at least ex-India) to wherever on Thais website (even try the US site). It will price in INR, and give you a discount fare - same with Cleaetrip or other Indian OTAs. Try the same flights on Orbitz or another US OTA, and you'll see only full Y fares which will be about double the price. And that's because Thai typically offers only full fare from a US point-of-sale.

I suggest you also go onto BAs website and try booking, say, Madrid-EWR while selecting the US website. When you submit the search, the results will come from their Spanish website, price in Euros, and be bookable with a US card. Try that with UA, search will be from the US site, but price will update based on the country your card is billed to.

Essentially, yes, on this route, right now, you can buy the same flights cheaper using a US or Canadian credit card then a Chinese one, apparently. Tomorrow, the fares may be available for China. Or maybe not.

If you want to buy the US-based fare with a foreign card, the only way to do it will be with a travel agency. Orbits, Travelocity, Expedia, etc. will have the US-based fares, and will likely allow you to use a foreign credit card.

Interesting. I always thought point of sale rules were only based on the departure city. I've always compared the fares in USD and CNY to see what is better to pay in based on the exchange rate. The small differences I saw before was always due to exchange rate fluctuations. It's the first time I saw different fare classes offered.

Anyway, I think I can just choose Paypal and use my Chinese card to pay in USD through Paypal. Or even Western Union is an option on the website.

That comment was not directed at yours. It was responding to a comment that fares PEK-EWR-PEK and EWR-PEK-EWR were "the same." They are not. They are completely different fares based on point of origination.

Your issue is a very simple one: UA doesn't want to sell the discount fares to consumers in China. It's called a "point of sale restriction" and it is common throughout the airline industry.

Paypal didn't work either. The transaction in PayPal was successful and I got the SMS from my bank that my card was charged but when I went back to United they asked for my address associated with my Paypal account. When I entered the Chinese address I got that error message again then 5 minutes later another SMS from my bank that the charge was returned.

In the end I just used my Chinese credit card again except I entered a US address instead of my real billing address and it worked fine. The payment was accepted and I got my confirmation email already. Actually I have done this many times before. I don't think payment processors have the ability to actually check the address on record for Chinese issued credit cards. Maybe because the address is only in Chinese, there is no address written in English to check against. I remember doing the same thing with Google Wallet because they didn't have China in the list of countries to choose.

As far as I know, United currently has three different ways to control prices in an international markets:

• Depending on your origin city, you will see a completely different fare table.
• Depending on your sales city, you may not be able to use certain fares (this will be visible in the fare rules, usually Category 15). This is also where plating restrictions are which prevent partner airlines from ticketing certain discount fares.
• Depending on your sales city, you will see different inventory on the same flights.

I believe you are seeing #3. Interesting to see that there are some workarounds for selecting a beneficial sales city.

I buy a lot of tickets ex-LHR and have often seen different fare class availability on sectors like LHR-EWR depending on whether the sales city is LON or NYC. I often see inventory like Q9 V9 W0 in one country and Q9 V9 W9 in the other country (for the same flights with the same overall journey - no married segment issues).

The pricing algorithm was definitely changed in the last few weeks (maybe Feb 1?). Pricing and availability oddities, whereas it normally is quite comparable.
It fortunately seems somewhat stabilized again now.....just booked two more PEK-EWR-PEK returns that more reflect the "old system". Maybe they were trying something out, or there was a glitch? Not sure.

EDIT: I don't mean the "same", I mean "about the same". Difference between $1000 and $800 for a return ticket is "about the same" (to me), i.e. it won't influence my purchasing decision.
Not having lower class buckets available at all, and having price differences of double, etc. is NOT about the same (to me).

Fares are dynamic and change all the time. Any changes you see don't necessarily reflect a strategy change overall, but one of the current fares that were available, at the time. Sometimes, the fares available in China may be cheaper than the ones from a US POS for the same flights, other times, the opposite, other times, they may be the same.

Fares that are or become available are based on a ton of factors - FTers combined probably couldn't even guess them all.

Trying to book a round trip biz class fare Brussels to NYC.

When I clcik pay it takes me to the flight search page. This happens whether i'm logged in or doing it in incognito mode and whether I select my country as USA or UK. FYI i have legitimate address in both countries, my CC is registered in USA.

I'm finding the fares through google flights