Same city-pair fare disparities based on origin
 

Is it normal for UA to price same city-pairs so differently based on which one you choose as an origin?

A SFO-HKG trip books in W for $850, but HKG-SFO with the same dates or flexible dates books in V for $1700+.

I'm also trying to book an open jaw from SFO->HKG; PVG->SFO, but its coming out to some ridiculous prices. Any tips on how to book this?

Yes, it is normal for fare disparities based on origin, and there can be various reasons for this. UA offers certain fares that are geared toward residents of certain countries that aren't offered to others. If you do a search, there was a recent thread on fares ex-Europe to US often being cheaper than ex-USA, with origins and destinations swapped.

Yea... trying to buy a 1-way SFO->HKG is more than 2x the cost of a SFO-HKG roundtrip... *sigh* booking open jaws are a pain

For international fares, yes. I've never seen it for domestic fares.

Use some of the meta-sites if you're not completely tied to UA, and you can sometimes get decent fares even with weird open jaws. Asiana in particular often has competitive one way fares US-Asia or v/v.

Very common, The difference between USA-Australia & Australia - USA has been huge at times!

If the direction is different, it's not the same city-pair, simple as that. Demand is directional, so pricing should be too.

I'd assumed that all airlines did this

Jeff

Apologies to be stating the obvious, but part of the price discrepancy in the OP's example is the difference in booking classes on the two proposed trips.