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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Trying to add a stopover in BOM but can’t seem to do this without majorly jacking up the price. Anyone able to get this to work?
A shame that you can’t fly ANA with their JV… I thought the whole point of the JV is to be “metal indifferent?”
@Bill you must cross the Pacific on a United flight, you’re only going to be able to stop in North Asia, India is definitely out.
Booked it now I just need to get to bos from den 🙂 but it looks like it was getting fixed right as I was doing it
I’m still seeing it.
Booked two 😀
Just need to get tickets from SFO=>BOS
Gary-
Any preferences on 777 vs 747-400 for UA Global First?
Dumb question: can someone tell me how to book it with a stopover in Tokyo? I’m in boston and can book it, but I can’t get more than a few hours in Tokyo.
Thanks
@postnobills – I have flown the current generation United first class on the 747 but not the 777, my only 777 first class experience is the previous generation seat flown back in 2010 and 2007.
I find the 777 a smoother ride, but the 747 a special aircraft. I don’t have a sense of minor differences in product.
@Roo try using multi-city search (Boston Tokyo, Tokyo Seoul, Seoul Boston)
Use the multi-city booking option. There’s a quick tutorial here:
http://www.theflightdeal.com/2013/07/25/what-is-a-stopover-and-how-to-take-advantage/
happy that: 1) people didn’t complain about you posting this deal and 2) you kept the post insanely brief (for you).
This is great! Could I get a US stop over? I am trying to do BOS-SEL-IAD (stop over) – BOS ?
I tried that and get very high prices.
if i cancel will i get refund on my card or ua credit for future use?
Quick question. I plan on booking this for qualification into Aegean Star Alliance Gold. According to their accrual chart, it is 300% accrual. My question is if I put my Aegean # for the outbound flight (total 8k miles) would that be enough to earn me star alliance gold (I am starting off with 0 points)? If so, I plan to put the return flight on my united account as I mainly use united as my star alliance award partner. Thanks in advance!
is it half refundable after taking the departure?
RE: 747 vs 777
from what I have read, the 747 is a bit cramped in first as it is the nose of the plane and if first cabin gets full the overhead tends to fill up quickly. the 777 having no upper deck has a bit more space for globalfirst passengers. I am doing both to see the difference myself as I have only been GF in a 777.
Booked! THANK YOU GARY! First, first class trip evah!
Is this a mistake fare or a special offer?
@mark – people complained in the Flyertalk thread
@jaz – refund to original form of payment
@Chris sounds like it should be
@mike the rules seem to say so
I found one option that includes Asiana A380 in J for around 2100 total with UA F on 747/777
For those interested in crediting to Aegean, A class earns 300%. BOS-SFO-ICN return would earn a mere 50k there.
Thanks Gary! I was able to book this over Thanksgiving! Sure helps in my quest for PQM’s (and affordable spend) on UA!. –Bret
seems to be dead… hope DOT do not cancel
Fare seems to be gone! Can anyone else confirm?
Just booked 4 tickets: BOS-ORD-NRT-ICN-BOS at 1820.60/pp over Christmas. 6 night stopover in NRT.
Looks like the deal is gone?
Just tried to book on united.com at 11:23 AM central on 6/7/2014. Looks like the deal is gone
Your damn right people are upset Gary! You stole this off of Flyertalk! Let people find this stuff their on their own. You are getting a bad reputation.
1) Seems really screwed up people are complaining about Gary posting the fare. It’s not like the FT forum is some secret community and given how good the deal was UA would have pulled it as soon as they could regardless.
2) Re: crediting to Aegean. Am I understanding correctly that the RT would earn 100k miles? Not familiar with the Aegean program but if I’m reading their award chart correctly a business class award seat btw US & Europe is only 90k–did I just net a free ticket to Europe in J too?
1) Seems really screwed up people are complaining about Gary posting the fare. It’s not like the FT forum is some secret community and given how good the deal was UA would have pulled it as soon as they could regardless.
2) Re: crediting to Aegean. Am I understanding correctly that the RT would earn 100k miles? Not familiar with the Aegean program but if I’m reading their award chart correctly a business class award seat btw US & Europe is only 90k–did I just net a free ticket to Europe in J too?
Trying to book a stopover in NRT using the multi City search option but unable to get it to price out, anyone else having that issue?
@David — 300% miles would be ~ 45000 miles earned.
Yep
thanks to all blogger for killing the deal so fast 🙁
How long do you think we will have to wait to see if they are going to honor it?
@Michael more people benefited from these tickets by posting it, that was my bet in deciding to share the deal.
I did not ‘steal’ anything, Flyertalk still had this after I posted it. If I ‘steal’ someone’s wallet, they don’t have their wallet anymore.
Instead, there’s freely available information on the internet. And I passed along that time-sensitive information. At no charge to readers.
What’s more, I gave credit to where the information was sourced.
I ‘get’ that some people want to keep others in the dark about deals, even when it does not harm them in any way for others to know about the deals. I can’t sign onto that idea.
@Phil – do you really believe this would have been an ongoing offer for you to benefit from (to the exclusion of others) if blogs I hadn’t covered this?
@ Gary – Let people read flyertalk themselves. You are JUST trying to increase web traffic. I agree with the guy on FT who says it is the bloggers that are causing the DOT to change their protection rule. NO – you should have not shared it. You found it on another site and since I KNOW United reads your blog – I thank you for causing it to die.
@Gary – You didn’t find this deal. It would have been nice if you in your opening line said …..’I was browsing FT this morning when I found this deal’
Let me guess….you had no intention of booking this one.
-LeBron James, 2014 NBA runner-up
Of course you should have shared this, Gary. The internet is a free flow of information. Thanks.
Fares lingered before blogs. That’s a fact. ESPECIALLY fares posted on the weekend.
Oh well. I got 2 before the pot got pissed in.
Guys, regardless of whether Gary post it or not, the mistake fare would be gone anyway. For those that are complaining, if you werent trying to get a good deal also, why are you browsing this page anyway.
“You are JUST trying to increase web traffic.”
Good to know that FT doesn’t benefit from web traffic.
@Michael – so now bloggers can’t write about things that are already public (and yes Flyertalk is public)? So they can’t write about things they heard about privately, or any deal that’s discussed in “code” or anything that MIGHT make a deal go away even if it was already posted publicly? F()ck that. If you don’t like it don’t read but don’t waste the comment space complaining, please.
For all you guys complaining, where did you learn about it? A post?
@kokonutz “Fares lingered before blogs. That’s a fact.” And fares lingered after blogs. And ATPCO put in protections against these fares after blogs got going. And… “post hoc ergo propter hoc” doesn’t make for a strong argument. I posted deal fares back in 2003. No one complained then.