flyerbaby19

I'm trying to help a friend purchase a ticket. I told him about this website and some of the things I've learned in the last few days. So I've tried this ITA thing, but when trying to buy the below ticket, but when I price it out online, I keep getting a way higher price (>40k). I'm searching multi city on united.com We've both searched and can't figure this out. We've tried different times of the day too since we're in different time zones. Any suggestions?

PEK-SFO
SFO-SNA
YVR-PEK



Itinerary details

Itinerary
Beijing (PEK) to San Francisco (SFO) — Fri, Jun 23
United 889
Dep: 12:00 pm
Arr: 8:55 am
11h 55m
Boeing 747
Business (D)

San Francisco (SFO) to Santa Ana (SNA) — Fri, Jun 30

United 348
Dep: 11:10 am
Arr: 12:49 pm
1h 39m
Airbus A320
Economy (S)

Vancouver (YVR) to San Francisco (SFO) — Sun, Jul 16

United 618
Dep: 6:00 am
Arr: 8:17 am
2h 17m
Boeing 737
First (P)

San Francisco (SFO) to Beijing (PEK) — Sun, Jul 16

United 888
Dep: 11:30 am
Arr: 2:40 pm
12h 10m
Boeing 747
Business (P)

Cost per passenger (including taxes & fees)
CN¥36,954.00
Total cost for 1 passenger
CN¥36,954.00
How to buy this ticket
Tickets cannot be purchased directly from ITA Software.
Provide this information to a travel agent to help them match the fares found.
Make sure to provide the exact booking and fare codes shown.
Fare for 1 adult
Fare 1: Carrier UA DFW5ZEC3 BJS to SFO (rules)
Passenger type ADT, round trip fare, booking code D
Covers PEK-SFO (Business)
CN¥23,580.00
Fare 2: Carrier UA SAA2AKEN SFO to SNA (rules)
Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code S
Covers SFO-SNA (Economy)
CN¥700.00
Fare 3: Carrier UA PFW73CC2 YVR to BJS (rules)
Passenger type ADT, round trip fare, booking code P
Covers YVR-SFO (First), SFO-PEK (Business)
CN¥9,482.00
China Airport Fee (CN)
CN¥90.00
USDA APHIS Fee (XA)
CN¥56.00
US Immigration Fee (XY)
CN¥98.00
US Customs Fee (YC)
CN¥76.00
UA YQ surcharge (YQ)
CN¥2,260.00
US International Arrival Tax (US)
CN¥125.00
US September 11th Security Fee (AY)
CN¥78.00
Vancouver Airport Improvement Fee (SQ)
CN¥104.00
Canadian Goods and Services Tax (XG)
CN¥6.00
Canadian Air Travelers Security Charge (CA)
CN¥135.00
US International Departure Tax (US)
CN¥125.00
US Passenger Facility Charge (XF)
CN¥31.00
Subtotal per passenger
CN¥36,954.00
Number of passengers
x1
Subtotal For 1 adult
CN¥36,954.00

• This ticket is non-refundable.
• Changes to this ticket will incur a penalty fee.

Fare Construction (can be useful to travel agents)
BJS UA SFO 3414.16DFW5ZEC3 UA SNA 101.40SAA2AKEN /-YVR UA X/SFO UA BJS Q11.15 1361.75PFW73CC2 NUC 4888.46 END ROE 6.90652 XT 90CN 76YC 98XY 56XA 250US 78AY 135CA 104SQ 6XG 2260YQ 31XF SFO4.50

Total Airfare & Taxes
CN¥36,954.00

WineCountryUA

This is a complicated open jaw (between countries) with stopover, probably going to need to do this with a phone agent.

emcampbe

Your seeing >40000 CNY, or USD?

Just a guess, but mine is the ITA fare is based off a Chinese point of sale, while looking this up on UA.com, you are using the US site, which is a US point of sale. Airlines segment in many ways, including sometimes offering different fares from different sales areas.

Id either go into a more detailed search on ITA to determine the point of sale (it may default to departure city, not sure), and if it's not the US, that's likely your issue. You can verify by changing the point of sale to using a US one. Another option is to select the China website when you get to Ua.com, and perform the search, then see if thefare matches. Now, unless you have a card with a Chinese billing address, you won't be able to purchase it through UA.com at the Chinese point of sale price, but it could at least tell you if this is the issue. Like I said, cannot tell for sure based on your post, but sounds plausible that's the issue. If so, you should be able to purchase through a Chinese OTA - likely with a US card.

findark

Sanity check - are you having ITA validate inventory? I cannot price the journey in your original post either, including on ITA.

16-Jul YVR :: UA618 SFO UA888 :: PEK is F9 A0 J9 C0 D0 Z0 P0 (US POS)
16-Jul YVR :: UA618 SFO UA888 :: PEK is F9 A9 J9 C9 D9 Z9 P0 (China POS)

ed. I can price it from both BJS and SFO as

16-Jul YVR :: AC560 SFO UA888 :: PEK

but not

16-Jul YVR :: UA8477 SFO UA888 :: PEK

The former is not available as a choice on ua.com but an agent might book it if you feed them flight numbers.

jsloan

I agree. I don't see P inventory on the return flight either, and I get CNY43,000+ for the price with a Chinese POS. Searching with a US POS, ITA inserts a fare break at SFO (S-UP from YVR to SFO; Z from SFO to PEK).

OP: Even if availability does pop back up at the lower fare, you will not be able to get Chinese-origin pricing from united.com without a Chinese-issued credit card. A Chinese-based travel agent will be able to get the price, once it appears again. Not sure where you're located, except that at least one of you is outside China or you'd be in the same time zone.

WorldLux

Probably easier (and cheaper) to buy TPAC and domestic separately than buying all-in-one. Looking only for PEK-YVR/SFO/SNA returns on your dates, you get AC for around 22.000 CNY (The savings could allow you to buy domestic + overnight stays to make sure that you make your connection and still have a little left to spend on your trip).

Bookwithmatrix fails to price your itinerary at 37.000CNY (priceline quotes 7.000$).

Having checked Matrix, you could get the same trip on KE/AS/AC for about 27.000CNY in C and F (on AS). Short layovers in ICN. Certainly worth the extra stop.

Here's that itiniary: https://www.google.com/flights/?gl=f...PEK1KE853;sc=b

I left the SFO-SNA bit out as it would add over 350$ to the fare. You'll probably find cheaper if booked on a separate ticket. The same flight on a separate ticket is about 150$. Given that you won't immediately continue from SFO, the risk shouldn't be too big.

sinoflyer

This is actually not a complicated open jaw -- just PEK-SNA and YVR-PEK. The high total fare stems from the D/S split for PEK-x/SFO-SNA. The fact that SFO-SNA has priced out in S indicates that it is not the problem. Instead, it's the PEK-SFO segment. YVR-PEK is already in P, which is what you want.

You might need to look for an alternative routing/code share/date, etc. for PEK-SNA.

WineCountryUA

OP is also looking for a 7-day stopover in SFO on the way to SNA, so the routing seems fixed.

sinoflyer

Oops. I saw that both PEK-SFO and SFO-SNA are on Friday, and that they do make a valid connection, so I overlooked that one is for 6/23 and the other 6/30.

Regardless, SFO-SNA is priced in S, as it ideally should be, so the problem is still PEK-SFO. There doesn't appear to be any alternate PEK-SFO itineraries with P available on 6/23. This might be because it is the beginning of the summer peak. This looks like a tough situation, because the P fare above requires roundtrip/circle trip/open jaw, and cannot be purchased as a one-way. Perhaps OP should hold off from buying the ticket for now? Given the circumstances, UA just might open more P for sale sooner or later.

flyerbaby19

I'm super confused...still kind of new at all this. Do these facts matter?

When I search on ITA, If I do 3 segments
PEK-SFO (business)
SFO-SNA (economy)
YVR-PEK (business)
I get over 40,000

When I search as 4 segments
PEK-SFO (business)
SFO-SNA (cheapest avail --> economy)
YVR-SFO (cheapest avail --> business)
SFO-PEK (business)
That's how I get the 36,000 price

All of it is POS in China

emcampbe

What fare class is showing when you search the return as YVR-PEK vs. by segment as YVR-SFO and SFO-PEK?

id guess potentially its a married segment thing - UA has P available on the two segments individually, but not on the O-D.

My guess is UAs site is pricing the two segments together (as if you asked for YVR-PEK), even when requesting it separately. It used to not do this well, it was often the case where you could get different pricing (sometimes better, sometimes worse) by looking for, say CMH-ORD-SFO vs. CMH-SFO. These days, it seems to check the married segment availability better and gives the price based on that.

findark

I'm a little confused.. are you doing all of your searching on ITA Matrix? Is there some way I'm not aware of to do a mixed-cabin itinerary (without forcing booking codes and/or fares onto segments)?

Oh. Good point. I can price the itinerary shown by the OP on ua.com using the good ol' divorced segments trick.

Comes out to CNY 36954.00