Don't understand this comment. US-BKK on UA/NH is priced as a throughfare, not separate segments. If you think US-BKK is expensive, try pricing US-TYO and add TYO-BKK as a separate ticket. US-BKK is like half the price.

They don't need a joint venture to do that. They might need NH's permission, but they don't need a joint venture. All they need to do is to get an agreement that allows UA XXX-BKK fares to be used on TG flights, with an appropriate inventory mapping and agreement for a rate of payment.

The reason that this hasn't happened is that one side or the other isn't particularly interested.

Note that you can book a UA fare to BKK through HKG today. The last leg needs to be on HX or CX There are also so rather curious legal routings, assuming the fare allows enough transfers; for example: SFO-DEN-LAS-LAX-HNL-NRT-KIX-(NH)-HKG-(SQ)-SIN-(SQ)-DPS-(GA)-BKK. :D

It's certainly possible to add TG into that JV, but I don't know why either UA or NH would want to do that.

Codesharing wouldn't be necessary to make the transfer work on a single ticket. Limited antitrust immunity, if not a full JV, would be necessary in order for TG and UA to align their schedules legally, though.

I wouldn't say there is "plenty," -- not this year, anyway -- but it's true that SFO-HKG is already a route that has a fair amount of upgrade space. That doesn't bode well for the success of the second flight.

I don't see that as an option, either. But will note that TG and NH do have a functional relationship. They codeshare and TG uses NH staff at NRT. I can't remember whether NH uses TG staff at BKK.

NH is one of the very best carriers in the world; certainly preferable to TG as a JV partner. Though it would be nice if they were able to codeshare on HKG-BKK so UA could sell discount TG fares.

I've flown SFO-SAN-SFO-PEK-SFO quite a few times. Those $1900 P fares were awesome. Also SFO-SAN-LAX-PEK-LAX-SFO on AA a few times.

I think the trade war is helping with China fares. Although it's sad to see UA pull out of several markets there.

UA is selling J seats on this route.

You can have more than one JVs. The BKK market is not well served by UA.

Then again TG and UA don't even fly to each other's hubs, so not a great start to a JV

IRROPS?

I know, but a BKK-CONUS with NRT transit is often prohibitively expensive. My gut feeling is that NH is very efficient at filling up their planes; much more so than TG on the BKK-TYO/KIX routes.

Price via united.com, the cheapest BKK-CONUS usually comes up with a transfer in PEK or PVG. So, yeah, two separate PNRs has been my solution so far.

It certainly would be nice to do UA SFO-HKG connecting to TG HKG-BKK, all on one ticket, on Star Alliance, particularly now that UA offers 2 SFO-HKG flights a day. I do not plan to fly to HKG and switch to OneWorld. :)

Edited to add: TG offers 5 flights a day, HKG-BKK. :)

If UA codeshared on HKG-BKK, you wouldn't need a TG fare in the first place; you'd be able to use a UA fare. And, they don't need to codeshare to allow you to route a UA fare. All they need to do is to add TG flights to the routing table. They already allow HX or CX flight numbers.

UA seems really upset with TG, though. The SFO-HKT fare is routed by adding a -HKT tag onto the SFO-BKK routing table. Thus, you're allowed to route it via a BKK-HKT flight -- but only on PG (or a UA codeshare, if any existed). The same is true for CNX. If UA's not even willing to give TG domestic business, there's no way that they're going to be moving HKG-BKK fares their way.

I disagree, I have bought many ~$3000 P fares BKK-TYO-CONUS flights this year and last year. Stopover in TYO are extra $100. Probably not as good as previous ex-KUL/CGK $2,500 fares or CTU-US $2,000 fares, but much more economical than ex-HKG or ex-TPE fares.

I wonder if that has to do with TG and all their plating restrictions on their cheaper fares, thus making UA or other carriers unable to add a TG leg without upfaring to a ridiculous price. For example, HKG-BKK, the promotional business fares all have:

Pricing ex-BKK and pricing ex-US are two entirely different markets. Most US-based travelers will never purchase an ex-BKK flight, or an ex-Asia flight at all, for that matter. (I do agree that the OP is mistaken to attribute high fares to anything NH is doing in particular, though).

Not directly, no. I suppose the same business reasons could underlie both decisions, but these restrictions would only apply to people trying to purchase the TG fare -- for example, someone originating in HKG. Generally, someone purchasing a US-BKK fare with partial travel on UA is purchasing a through fare, meaning that they're buying, e.g., a UA SFO-BKK fare, even though UA doesn't serve BKK. Then, the routing rules control which flights apply. The preferred option (from UA's perspective) is obviously SFO-NRT-BKK, but SFO-HKG-BKK, with the last leg on HX or CX, is also legal. They don't need an HX or CX fare that can be plated on 016 to make that last leg possible, because the SFO-BKK fare covers those flights. In other words, UA has an agreement in place with HX and CX to transport UA passengers from HKG to BKK in exchange for some fraction of the airfare.

Sorry, not quite. The discount TG fares HKG-BKK have plating restrictions. UA cannot simply add them to its fare table. That's why I referenced codesharing. TG and UA would have to reach bilateral agreement.

That isn't how it works.

CX also has plating restrictions on its HKG-BKK fares, but if you do a search for YVR-BKK, one of your routing options is YVR-SFO-HKG-BKK, on a P fare with the last leg in CX I class, which is its discount business class. (If you don't believe me, search Oct 10 - Oct 17 and restrict your connections to SFO and HKG).

That's because you're buying a through fare. Plating restrictions on HKG-BKK don't matter at all because you're not buying a HKG-BKK fare. You're buying, in this case, a YVR-BKK fare that can be routed on CX.

In order to know what is legal, you need to check:
1 - the fare rules: for example, UA excludes travel from HKG to BKK on CX on its SFO-BKK fare with an applicability restriction in the fare rules. YVR-BKK has no such restriction.
2 - the routing table: for routed fares -- such as most UA fares ex-USA -- the routing table will specify which cities can be used as a transfer point.
3 - the fare class mapping -- you use this to look up the correct mapping for an OAL's flight number on a UA fare. In this case, UA P fares map to CX I.
4 - the flight inventory.

All UA has to do to add TG connections is to update its routing table and add a fare class mapping. But, they're only going to do that if they've first worked the details out with TG -- how much UA has to pay TG for each connecting passenger.

None of the other things that have been mentioned -- codeshares or plating restrictions or anything else -- make a difference. Those steps are all that would need to be done in order for UA to sell tickets from the US via HKG to transfer to TG on to BKK.

And carriers, which I believe is by marketing carrier, not metal.

Sorry, yes, I meant to add that and got distracted. And, you're correct; it's the marketing carrier. Any flight operation restrictions -- "CX operated by CX" -- would be in the fare rules.

Oh, is that all :p

But seriously, that's kind of the whole point here. The arrangement would require a bilateral agreement. UA's not going to simply start selling throughfares to BKK on TG metal without first reaching an agreement with TG.