Can't book Canada-Asia flight unless you have a Canadian address credit card
 

Using Google Flight and found some descent P fare from our neighbor up north to Asia. After entered payment info, UA.bomb rejected the purchase since I don't have a Canadian base credit card. Price doubled for the same flights after you change the residency to USA.

Looks like I will have to fly AC for the same price and $0 toward 2016 PQD. This maybe the end of my 1K status..... :(

Different airfare prices based on point of sale country is nothing new. That UA is finally enforcing some restrictions on it is.

The correct title of this is that you cannot purchase a Canada-Asia flight for the CAD $ price if you have a US address.

There are probably ways around it using travel agencies, but may be a hassle.

There is an option to change the country of billing at the bottom of the Advanced Search page, so you can choose, and still book your flight. As mentioned above, the price will change, sometimes significantly, sometimes not. No way to predict, even different fare classes might behave differently in the same markets (called Point of Sale (POS))

Can't book Canada-Asia flight unless you have a Canadian address credit card
 

UA will change point of sale and adjust the price you pay based on what that is in the new country by credit card billing address. Most airlines don't determine POS this way, but UA does. There are countless number of threads that have this exact same complaint (this may get merged into one of them).

Your choices are to use a Canadian credit card if you have one, or as also mentioned, use a Canadian travel agency (Travelocity.ca or Expedia.ca may let you book these with a US card. Or to do what you did - book with another carrier.

And there are carriers which sell AAA-BBB-AAA at a different price point than BBB-AAA-BBB. Different markets = different pricing. It's called price discrimination. Or, "why can I purchase products from my home country for mess when I travel abroad?"

Correct. For example, if you search for tickets on CM or AV using the US websites, you will typically not have access to the discount inventory that's available through the Panama/Colombia websites.

THANK YOU!!!!

Not new at all.

I faced exactly this scenario last summer.

Google Flights showed a great option for combined AC/UA itinerary originating in CA and then it jumped to UA site for booking. Could not book with my c/c on UA site.

At times I've had success getting these booked through a travel agent, requesting 016 stock, but at the AC prices. At other times, this was not successful. YMMV as always.

I believe that includes virtually every carrier for intercontinental flights.

Not new at all. It's been happening for at least two years, and probably longer (two years is just the farthest back that I've had reason to check with multiple billing addresses).

If using a travel agent, that agent would need to have their GDS registered in Canada to generate the same fare - a US TA could not price it out the same way if the fare is specifically restricted (not all are, but I don't know about this specific fare).

The suggestion about expedia.ca or travelocity.ca is probably the best option.