Curiosity question only here, since there are other options available to me... I'm wondering if there's been a semi-recent change to the UA open-jaw rules, or some other rule change that would have only affected UA itins to Asia?
About once a year, I have to do a trip to Asia that includes a stop in KUL. Since UA has always made it virtually impossible to book reasonably-priced itineraries including KUL directly through them, I usually buy a TPAC ticket to SIN or HKG, and then a separate ticket on a local carrier from there.
Because of the length of this trip each year, I usually add a few vacation days in at the end, and have built up a fun habit of going somewhere that I can get a cheap (compared to flying from the USA) one-way ticket on MH or SQ (or sometimes an Asian budget carrier). I try to do it as a one-way, and then fly home from the nearest UA gateway on an open-jaw, so I don't have to kill time and money going BACK to SIN/HKG/whatever before flying home.
In the past, I've done a ton of regional cities, but have also done destinations further afield like SYD, ROR (island hopper), and even DEL and LON on "pseudo" RTW itineraries.
This year, however, I can't seem to find any valid OJ on UA outside of SE Asia, that doesn't price all of my legs into the Y or B bucket. As a result, perfectly "normal" OJ itineraries that price out to about $1600 on SQ, NH, LH (and AA, CX, ...) are pricing out well above $5k on UA.
Is this the new "normal" for OJ Int'l itins, or is there a reason why UA forces everything to B+ while the Int'l airlines don't care??
About once a year, I have to do a trip to Asia that includes a stop in KUL. Since UA has always made it virtually impossible to book reasonably-priced itineraries including KUL directly through them, I usually buy a TPAC ticket to SIN or HKG, and then a separate ticket on a local carrier from there.
Because of the length of this trip each year, I usually add a few vacation days in at the end, and have built up a fun habit of going somewhere that I can get a cheap (compared to flying from the USA) one-way ticket on MH or SQ (or sometimes an Asian budget carrier). I try to do it as a one-way, and then fly home from the nearest UA gateway on an open-jaw, so I don't have to kill time and money going BACK to SIN/HKG/whatever before flying home.
In the past, I've done a ton of regional cities, but have also done destinations further afield like SYD, ROR (island hopper), and even DEL and LON on "pseudo" RTW itineraries.
This year, however, I can't seem to find any valid OJ on UA outside of SE Asia, that doesn't price all of my legs into the Y or B bucket. As a result, perfectly "normal" OJ itineraries that price out to about $1600 on SQ, NH, LH (and AA, CX, ...) are pricing out well above $5k on UA.
Is this the new "normal" for OJ Int'l itins, or is there a reason why UA forces everything to B+ while the Int'l airlines don't care??