United has a ~$1700 fare valid through the end of schedule between Boston and Seoul that allows travel across the Pacific in their 3-cabin United Global First product.
The fare also appears to be available from Hartford, Connecticut and Burlington, Vermont. Perhaps there are other cities, please share if you find them.
This deal is no longer available. Read on to see what you missed!
It is cancellable and refundable, and should allow a Tokyo stopover as well. Plus routing via Chicago or Washington Dulles should be possible. More complex routings and a stopover will marginally bump the price.
This is a fantastic discounted fare that I would not expect to last.
Here’s a sample itinerary:
Availability is wide open.
Key rules:
- The fare applies to first and business class service.
- Travel is permitted Monday through Thursday for the transpacific segment. You cannot fly across the Pacific on Friday/Saturday/Sunday and get this fare.
- The transpacific flight has to be on United. If you fly between Japan and South Korea as part of the itinerary, that travel but be on either United or Asiana (no ANA flights). Asiana flight segments incur a $400 surcharge.
- 14 day advance purchase required
- 2 stopovers are permitted (1 each direction) for $100 each
- 5 transfers permitted in each direction – 2 in the US and 3 in Asia
- There’s no minimum stay or seasonality.
- There are no change or cancel fees. These tickets are refundable.
This fare earns 250% of flown miles in redeemable miles, and 150% flown miles towards elite qualification (of course United’s revenue-based qualification rules also apply).
A 100,000 mile elite flyer on United would easily earn over 50,000 redeemable miles for this trip (given their 100% mileage-earning bonus) — nearly covering the cost of the ticket in value.
While I expect that this deal will be honored, and indeed covered by DOT rules which currently should require it to be, I still would wait a few days after booking to make additional (and especially non-refundable) plans.
And I say that even though at times the accommodation that has been made when an airline has chosen to renege on a special sale has been to allow only those booked for immediate travel to actually do so. My advice is to book this — tickets ae refundable — and wait for things to sort themselves out.
(HT: Flyertalk ‘Good Deal Premium Fares’ thread)
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@Rp some of the people complaining actually learned about the deal here..!
Gary, did you book this fare for yourself (and/or your clients) before or after you posted this blog entry?
Where on FT was this deal supposedly posted? I saw nothing of it on the United forum there.
@John S – see my link to Flyertalk at the bottom of the post
@kokonutz I posted this and then shared the link with some folks by email for anyone interested.
Glad BOS is my home airport; I was able to book this fare for two.
This makes me super happy since I was planning on doing PVG in a W fare and use a GPU around the same time of year, and that would have been about the same price and no PQM bonus.
BUT Gary, did you book this fare for yourself (and/or your clients) BEFORE or AFTER you posted this blog entry?
BUT Michael. I don’t really care what Gary did before or after posting. The deal was public. It lasted a long time.
That’s fine BUT David G – I was not talking to you. Have a nice life.
Good job. Way to retroactively give credit to FT and kill the deal.
Thanks so much Gary! This is why this blog is the best.
The 747 has 12 seats in GF 4 along each side and 2 middle rows.
e.g., Used in LAX-SYD
The first set at the nose are VERY private yet close.
The 777 is 4 across each row used in WAS-LHR for 2 rows and the 773s for 3 rows (I think of it as 772 as 2 rows F and 773 for 3 rows F)
LH used to have the business class at the front and the 1st row was very quiet, although a bit bumpy of take off.
A great deal regardless, but will not help MQDs at 1700 for 50k EQMs, although I am at 25k EQMs and 9500 MQDs, so might help for once
sorry ~40k EQMs and 54k RDMs
Gary – thank you for posting. I didn’t buy but found this interesting.
I arrived to the part late…but thanks for posting. It is appreciated.
Gary, thanks! Purchased 4 tickets for december. Worked great. Good job in helping a lot of people!!!
@Michael I explained above what I did. I wrote this entry and then I called attention to it, sending the link to the post to people I know that I thought would be interested. And to be clear, regards “and/or your clients” I do not book any paid travel for clients. I consult only on awards. I’ve been invited to affiliate with agencies, Virtuoso has reached out to me.. but I stick to miles and points. I am not a travel agent.
Thank you for posting this. As someone who reads the relevant flyertalk only occasionally, I would not have hit the 2 hour window on this deal had it not been for your blog.
To folks who think I shouldn’t have posted this understand that it was not going to last long either way.
To those who think I had some unique role in bringing attention to it, it was posted on Flyertalk and the widely-read The Flight Deal as well (if you don’t read TFD, you should).
For everyone who appreciated the heads up, I’m genuinely glad to have been able to help out.
To everyone, no matter what side of that argument you’re on, thanks for reading and sharing your perspective.
Gary
Gary, did you personally take advantage of this fare?
If so, did you book your ticket before or after you posted this blog post?
The reason I ask is obvious: if you booked THEN posted you must have known that you were at least contributing to killing the deal.
@kokonutz I’ve been very clear above. I wrote about this before I issued any tickets for anyone even though I knew that this – like any 90% off sale — won’t last long.
That’s why I said above, “I wrote this entry and then I called attention to it, sending the link to the post to people I know that I thought would be interested.”
When I saw the deal, I tested it out, pulled up the fare, played around with it, read through the fare rules, wrote the post. And then went about trying to help as many people as I could take advantage of the flash sale.
Thanks for the post. I live in Richmond & my wife’s family is in Nagasaki. We generally us FFMs to fly to Ja
Sorry, using an iPhone to write this. But booked 2 tickets & will use miles to fly from ICN to FUK and get a cheap flight to BOS. Awesome!
Well although I am NOT happy that you blogged about it, I can say that I am appreciative that you are man enough to post everyone’s comments and not erase them – and in turn I think it leads to a healthy discussion. One of the other bloggers leaves them in the ‘awaiting moderation section’ and deletes things that call him out. So for that I say thanks.
But I do believe that your blog helped bring the demise of the fare sooner than it would have. Saturday morning and it dies in less than two hours. I just shake my head.
People are always going to get on their FT high horse. I found a mistake fare before it was posted to FT, posted about it on a blogger’s Facebook page, yet people attacked him for stealing it off FT when he sent out an e-mail.
I am pretty sure airlines monitor FT much more than bloggers pages for mistake fares.
Thank you for re-posting. I for one don’t care who found the deal originally and appreciate it when the word is spread widely
Soooo…did you buy any of these or not?
Will we be seein. Any trip reports on your blog?
Are you allowed to fly on United?
All the major blog sites about FF besides yours did NOT post the deal. Before I ever sign up for a CC, I always make sure to use the affiliate link of high value offering FF blog. I rotate all my favorite ones. Your blog was due be up soon. After this, I will not use your link to apply for my next churn.
Was it worth it for an extra bump in traffic in return for forfeited affiliate money?
@kokonutz – I did not buy any for myself. I didn’t have a great need for this fare considering other competing travels. I certainly could have bought and flown these tickets had I wanted to.
Thanks for answering directly.
Obviously, I’m disappointed in your decision to abet the death of this deal by posting about it. As the emcee of the Freddie Awards you must know that your blog is widely read by industry insiders. And those insiders clearly acted more quickly than they have in the past on this fare…maybe because you posted about it. Maybe not.
But I know you want to help your readers. I know you want to gain clicks and eyes. And maybe you may have no use for this fare, making it easy fodder for a post. But others do. Folks on the US west coast mostly missed out on this opportunity because it was killed by noon EDT on a Saturday. Even if you were only 1% of the reason the deal was killed (and given your prominence with industry insiders I suspect it was much more), you 1% screwed all those folks.
That’s working against, rather than for, the frequent flyer community. JMHO and YMMV.
Gary – I have to ask one last question while all of this is coming out. Are you allowed to fly UA – if I may ask? I am curious because IF you are not, then I think you need to let that be known to your readers. Not trying to put you on the spot, but Lucky was banned from United and switched to AA about the same time that you did. And I do not read his blog any longer because it obviously has a slant to it.
Thanks for answering directly. I will step down off my soap box at this point in time.
I’m happy Gary posted this. I don’t have the time to read FT with the same frequency as I check my blog feeds. I would have missed this deal otherwise.
Gary,
Thanks for posting the deal. I did not partake as it did not suit my travel plans but I think you should be commended for letting us know about it.
Gary, thank you for sharing this. I greatly appreciate your help calling attention to posts I might otherwise overlook on FT, MP, and the plethora of other good sources you cite. Keep up the good work.
I’m an avid Flyertalker but do not check the MR thread as often as I do blog posts to my RSS and FB/Twitter. Were it not for this blog I would never have seen it nor taken advantage. Thank you!!!
Gary, keep it up, FT these days is full of a bunch of negative & self-interested trolls who want to keep everything to themselves and can’t see any irony when they accuse you of self interest. Negativity is such an unappealing trait!
@Michael “Are you allowed to fly UA – if I may ask? I am curious because IF you are not, then I think you need to let that be known to your readers.”
What the…?!
As I wrote in my comment above, “I certainly could have bought and flown these tickets had I wanted to.”
I have never been banned from any airline. Sheesh. And it’s amazing the narratives people construct about others that they have no direct knowledge of… just sayin’. 😉
@kokonutz – this deal wasn’t long for this world, if it was somehow shortened by my blog (vs The Flight Deal, or Flyertalk) then it was by a short window of a few hours, during which time a separate new audience got the opportunity to book these tickets. That’s working for the frequent flyer community, and you can ask yourself who then is working against.. 😉
“@kokonutz – this deal wasn’t long for this world, if it was somehow shortened by my blog (vs The Flight Deal, or Flyertalk) then it was by a short window of a few hours”
Thank you for conceding that you may have shortened the deal by posting about it. You have done a great job of increasing your profile in the points and miles space: TV spots, quotes in papers, interviews in magazines, emceeing the Freddies.
Your brand awareness is clearly high with frequency execs. Kudos for that.
But please try to bear in mind that with great power comes great responsibility. Those execs are on your RSS/facebook/twitter too.
You proactively brought this deal *directly* to to the eyes of UA execs on a Saturday morning.
Think about that.
Looking for advice on my ICN-PVG rt:
United doesn’t seem to let me book Asiana as a 016 ticket, so I can’t earn PQM/PQD on this 2 hour flight. Options that I see:
– Economy: Shanghai / China Eastern / China Southern: $350
– Economy: Asiana / Korean: $500
– Business: Shanghai / China Eastern / China Southern: $530
– Business: Asiana / Korean: $750
– First: Korean: $1200
– Business: Asiana: 45,000 UA miles rt
– Unknown options on transfers of Chase UR or AEXP MR points
On a 2 hour flight, I don’t see Korean F being worth it. I’m leaning toward Asiana either cash or miles, since they are *A, but are the Chinese options worth considering?
@kokonutz “Thank you for conceding that you may have shortened the deal by posting about it. ”
There’s zero evidence of this.
And I didn’t suggest otherwise. In fact, in pointing out that it was on both Flyertalk and on the Flight Deal first, I’m underscoring just that.
You know that darned well. Over the 13 years we’ve known each other, I’ve learned you have the most selective and disingenous reading possible of the statements made and positions held of people with which you disagree. You’re a fun guy, but not always a fair one 😉
@kokonutz – Please answer me one question:
What have you done for this community?
What has Gary done in so many areas? Enough said.
Do you really think this deal would last days and days? This self-righteous, “only in it for my own benefit” attitude from FT types are such a PITA!
If by ‘disingenuous’ you mean the dictionary definition of pretending to know less about a matter than I actually do, then you are spot on.
I’ve known you a long time too. So I know that deep down inside you know that putting this deal in front of the UA execs who follow your feeds contributed to its demise whether you are willing to concede that point or not. And I get why you did it: help your readers out and at the same time get clicks and eyeballs and cha-ching. I just hope you do carefully weigh the cost/benefit of posting stuff like this when you are so widely followed by airline and hotel employees. That’s all. No hard feelings (especially since I got 2 tix before you posted your blog entry). And next time I see you at Northside Social I’ll even buy you a cup of joe. 🙂
@Stephan: no doubt, Gary has given a great deal to the frequent flyer community. Far more than me! Then again, he’s also made a great deal of money doing so. For me it’s a lifestyle/hobby. For him it’s a business. So of course our calculus in our approach to things like this are different. If I was king of the internet, stuff like this would be kept far away from he eyes of airline employees, not delivered to their in-boxes. Alas, I am not.
@kokonutz “If by ‘disingenuous’ you mean the dictionary definition of pretending to know less about a matter than I actually do, then you are spot on.”
See there you go again. By disingenuous I mean representing others’ positions differently than what you know they are. Misrepresenting them. That disappoints me. I’d respect you more if you represented the strongest version of an argument you disagree with, instead of straw en.
“I know that deep down inside you know that putting this deal in front of the UA execs who follow your feeds contributed to its demise whether you are willing to concede that point or not. ”
Neither you nor I have any idea if that’s true. What I do know is that this wasn’t going to last more than a few hours, and it was already on its way to demise considering booking volume from Flyertalk and other places it was mentioned. In that case it makes all the sense in the world to share this great sale before the door shut closed and no one could get in on it any longer.
“And I get why you did it: help your readers out and at the same time get clicks and eyeballs and cha-ching. ”
Actually you would be surprised by what does — and does not — generate traffic. A $1700 fare to Seoul garners fewer clicks (more comments, sure, but fewer page views and attracts fewer readers) than a post about free Starbucks stars. By a lot. Don’t presume to talk motives here…
There’s plenty of things I don’t share, as I’ve written, either because it’s something shared with me on the understanding that I don’t or because I think it will shut down a deal such that fewer rather than more people will benefit. On the whole i’m actually quite conservative about this. But something that won’t last but a few hours anyway I will share and feel good about doing so.