rabilancia

Background: Our son is returning to Denver in August from South Korea after finishing a 2-year U.S. Army assignment there. The Army has booked him on UA ICN-SFO-DEN in coach. I would like to make that trip with him while simultaneously ticking off a bucket list item--circumnavigating the globe. The simple itinerary I found was an outbound DEN-MUC-ICN on LH returning with him on UA ICN-SFO-DEN (note: 2 different Star Alliance carriers).

Here's the catch: my aging body would prefer Business Class on the outbound with LH's Premium Economy as a backup. Try as I might, I cannot find a way to book this mixed-class/mixed-airline itinerary without booking two separate excessively high priced one-way tickets on the two different airlines.

Here's what I tried to do:
1. Upgrade my son. Not possible as he's on a government contract fare.
2. Book at United.com. Not possible as United.com can't find the MUC-ICN leg, and even then there's no apparent way to mix classes.
3. Book a RTW ticket at StarAlliance.com. Not possible as a 10-day minimum trip is required.
4. Research at Google Flights. RT itinerary does not find the UA flights after selecting the LH flights.

I've run out of ideas. Any other suggestions that anyone here can share to obtain a reasonably priced face would be GREATLY appreciated! I'm not locked into any outbound routing--I just want to get to ICN from DEN by flying east. (I'm posting in this forum because DEN is a UA hub and I currently hold MileagePlus Gold status.)

Thanks in advance (BTW, my wife is sure that I'm crazy for even thinking about doing this)....

findark

How did you find this itinerary? If you can price it on ITA Matrix, you should be able to book by phone with UA, assuming that the fare components may be plated on United stock. Almost all LH Group intercontinental fares permit this, so I don't see an issue.

jsloan

The only way you're likely to get this to price sensibly is as an award ticket. You can try doing it as a multi-city search, DEN-MUC / MUC-ICN / ICN-DEN; then United.com might see the MUC-ICN leg.

hookthem

You should be able to pay around $8k in business (on one ticket) if you get an agent that will manually create the itinerary for you with a researched fare class/basis. If that isn't "sensible", consider a normal round-trip DEN-MUC in business is around $6k. Perhaps your parameters are a bit different (longer stay, different travel dates) -- but I can tell you that you shouldn't expect much cheaper!

I'm guessing that your best bet is booking an award ticket.

jsloan

So, to follow up on this. There's some kind of combinability rule in place that's disallowing all of the discount fares. You need a B fare in coach ($2900 each way), and you need a C fare in business ($5800 each way).

I don't see anything obvious in the fare rules. There's an LH discount business class fare that claims to be allowed in combination with any other fare, but I can't get ITA to price it. Many discount UA fares require combination with other UA fares, but even when using a UA fare for the outbound leg, they don't seem to price.

However, I do have an option for you. For about $3120, you can fly DEN-MUC-BOM (or DEN-ORD-ZRH-BOM) in business, provided you use UA codeshare flight numbers, and you can then return ICN-SFO-DEN in coach. To get from BOM to ICN, you've got quite a few options, including a two-stop Thai itinerary for about $1000, or using 55K MileagePlus miles; intra-Asia business class availability is usually pretty good.

You have to do the flight from BOM-ICN on a separate ticket, though, so give yourself at least a day each in Mumbai and Seoul to guard against missed connections.

PS: The EWR-BOM nonstop is considered trans-Atlantic, but I'm thinking the options that change planes in Europe are more in line with your goal.

mecabq

A very minor contribution to the discussion:

Would it be possible to circumvent the 10-day minimum by adding a dummy segment at the end, i.e., doing DEN-MUC-ICN-SFO-DEN-XXX with the DEN-XXX leg in the future? Of course, you could just not fly it or, better yet, use the last segment to get essentially a free one-way ticket somewhere in the U.S.

If you have to start and end at the same airport (I don't think so), you could book COS-DEN-MUC-ICN-SFO-DEN-COS. (If you can't connect at the same airport twice on one RTW ticket, then you could connect at ORD on the outbound instead.) Start your trip in COS, schedule the DEN-COS segment for some time in the future and don't take it or use at some point. This assumes you have an easy way to drive to and from COS.

Sorry, it's been awhile since I researched RTW scenarios.

rabilancia

Unfortunately, I did not find it as a complete itinerary. I pieced it together from two separate one-way searches.

Your suggestion is what I began thinking about after I posted. I found out that I can get the outbound for 80,000 miles and the return with another 80,000. It may be the most economical.

Yes, looks that way.

That too might work!

Good advice. If I don't do it the award ticket way, this is another good option.

Thank you all for some really great tips, ideas and suggestions!

zombietooth

Does anyone know if there is a way to book the following?

ATL-IAH in Y, IAH-NRT in P, RT?
P is available for ~4.8K for my dates (IAH-NRT rt), but with the domestic F portion, it books into Z and that is just too expensive for such a short flight (~1.6K more) and on an ERJ-175.

mduell

If the fares are combinable, pick economy instead of first on the domestic segments on UA.sux.

StuckinITH

I had that happen on two of my trips to Asia this year, Polaris Business was about $3,500 for a RT P fare from ORD. If I wanted to book the whole trip to Asia departing from my city on a CR2, UA wanted about $7,000 for a RT Z fare. I ended up having to book separate award flights for one of the trips and take the bus for the other one. Either choice was not very relaxing. However, the other option was to book Economy and play the roulette for the upgrade to Polaris which also is not very relaxing.

jsloan

zombietooth

Yeah, I tried every possible way I know and the fares are not combinable on .bomb. I haven't tried calling the 1K line though, but I think the result would be the same.

jsloan

zombietooth

Thanks for the input. I am probably going to use a mixed award/revenue itinerary to save the 1,600 bucks.

I know that you're an expert on these things, so I was wondering what your best advice for the time frame to buy the P-fare is? I think I remember you saying that buying more than 3 months out won't make a difference, but I don't know if I recall that correctly.

Also, right now I am only finding P-fares from IAH for next year, are there other hubs with P-fares avail?

Thanks!

jsloan

There's no hard and fast rule. In general, UA offers its best prices at some point between 100 days and 14 days before travel. (It's obviously not in UA's best interest to make this too predictable. ). The current IAH-NRT P fare has a 50-day advance purchase requirement, so you'd definitely want to book no later than 50 days prior to travel.

There's actually a P fare published for ATL-TYO -- but, sadly, it's only good for November 13 - 30 or December 15-31. Due to ATL's position as a DL hub, it would not be uncommon to see UA run a sale on ATL-TYO traffic at any time; keep an eye on the Premium Fare Deals forum.

How long is your trip? UA currently has an ATL-BJS (Beijing) P fare that prices out at about $4350 all-in for Monday-Thursday travel. Normally, I don't recommend adding a transfer in China -- and for some reason I'm having trouble pricing this out unless I add a second stop at PVG, which is all kinds of bad -- but if you have the flexibility and don't mind spending a day or two in Beijing, it could be an option. It does require a 10-day minimum stay, though, so it's not going to be helpful for shorter trips.

To answer your question in full, UA has a plethora of P fares published on LAX-NRT (starting at about $3600 all-in with 21-day advance purchase and a Saturday night stay), along with IAD and DEN ($4800 or so, 50-day AP).

So, in short, my advice is that if the Beijing thing appeals to you, and you can find a sensible schedule, I'd go ahead and book that, as it could disappear at any time. Otherwise, I'd probably monitor things for a while, looking for an ATL fare sale that simplifies your trip, with the intent of finalizing things 2-3 months prior to travel if nothing else has come up. That said, there's always the risk that the fares you see today will be gone tomorrow.

All of these fares are non-refundable and have a $450 change fee, so if you'd like to lock something in, you can continue to watch for a sale and then spend the $450 to re-ticket; you'd get a travel credit for the rest.

Hope this helps.