A low open-jaw fare between Los Angeles or San Francisco to Beijing or Shanghai with return from Hong Kong caught my attention this morning when I saw fares in mid-$400s on American, Delta and United for a multi-city open-jaw ticket. The deal is fly from LAX or SFO to Beijing or Shanghai on the outbound or inbound flights and Hong Kong to LAX or SFO in the other direction.
Lowest priced flights itineraries look to be a flight to Beijing PEK and return from Hong Kong as the second airport location on an open jaw multi-city ticket.
The routing works like this: Los Angeles or San Francisco to Beijing, fly Beijing to Hong Kong on a separate sub-$100 one-way ticket and return to California from Hong Kong. This allows two separate stays in Beijing (or Shanghai) and a trip to Hong Kong on one low cost open jaw ticket priced from $441 to $493 with the major airline of your alliance choice and one inexpensive one-way flight on a separate ticket flying a Chinese airline between Beijing and Hong Kong for under $100.
Estimate $160 to $200 if you choose a different routing like SFO-HKG-PEK-SFO since the ticket price is higher to fly HKG-PEK compared to PEK-HKG one way. Flights between HKG and Shanghai PVG are priced around $160 to $180. Airline travel between Beijing and Shanghai is fairly fixed at $180 each way.
Open Jaw Ticket Prices compared to Round trip airfare
California to Hong Kong HKG, Beijing PEK and Shanghai PVG:
Feb-April 2016
Los Angeles LAX to Beijing PEK round trip:
- $543 Hainan/Alaska Airlines (Via Seattle)
- $561 American (via DFW or ORD)
- $582 Delta (via Seattle)
- $591 United (via SFO).
Los Angeles LAX to Shanghai PVG round trip:
- $546 American (nonstop)
- $546 Delta (nonstop)
- $601 United (nonstop).
Los Angeles LAX to Hong Kong HKG round trip:
- $576 Delta (via Seattle)
- $684 American (via Tokyo NRT with Cathay Pacific NRT-HKG flights)
- $601 United (nonstop).
San Francisco SFO to Beijing PEK round trip:
- $556 American (via DFW or ORD)
- $578 United (nonstop)
- $593 Delta (from SJC via Seattle).
San Francisco SFO to Shanghai PVG round trip:
- $535 United (nonstop).
- $546 Delta (nonstop)
- $556 American (via LAX)
San Francisco SFO to Hong Kong HKG round trip:
- $576 Delta (via Seattle)
- $601 United (nonstop).
- $759 American (via Tokyo NRT with Cathay Pacific NRT-HKG flights)
The deal is a multi-city ticket from San Francisco to Beijing with open-jaw return from Hong Kong to San Francisco prices far lower than any of these round trip tickets to one city.
Multi-City Open-Jaw airfare:
United Airlines
$440.86 United Airlines ticket
Los Angeles LAX – Beijing PEK / Hong Kong – Los Angeles LAX
Tuesday March 8 – Saturday March 19
Return flight from Hong Kong includes China Eastern flight segment to Shanghai PVG for United flight back to Los Angeles. China Eastern is not a United Mileage Plus miles earning airline partner. China Eastern is a SkyTeam Alliance member and Delta Air Lines partner.
American Airlines
San Francisco – Beijing / Hong Kong – San Francisco
- $493 American Airlines SFO-ORD-PEK/Japan Airlines HKG – Tokyo HND – San Francisco (30% redeemable miles and 50% EQM for JL coded flights).
- $581 United Airlines (nonstop flights)
- $596 Delta Airlines SFO-SEA-PEK / HKG – SEA- SFO
$492.86 American Airlines and Japan Airlines
Tuesday April 5 – Monday April 18
SFO-ORD-PEK = 8,425 flight miles on American.
HKG-HND-SFO = 6,965 miles on Japan Airlines earning 30% redeemable miles, (2,090 AAdvantage miles) and 50% EQM (3,482 AAdvantage EQM).
$493 AA Ticket SFO-ORD-PEK/HKG-HND-SFO total miles earned = 10,514 redeemable AAdvantage base miles and 11,907 EQM.
These low cost open-jaw tickets for American, Delta and United flyers appear to be available for many dates in March and April.
Filling the Open-Jaw flight gap
To fill in the open-jaw segment from Beijing to Hong Kong is as low as $82 to $90 for a one way flight with DragonAir.
$82.00 Beijing – Hong Kong one way, Tuesday April 12
The deal here is the opportunity to visit both Beijing and Hong Kong for $575 round trip for multiple days in each city for almost $200 less than the cost of an American Airlines round trip ticket to Hong Kong alone.
Delta Airlines
$451.56 Los Angeles LAX – Hong Kong / Beijing PEK – Los Angeles LAX
Tuesday April 12 – Tuesday April 19 (via Seattle)
Delta base fare = $361.00 for 5x miles.
One-way ticket flying SkyTeam Alliance partner China Southern Airlines from HKG to Beijing PEK is about $150 to $175 during these dates making the total ticket price around $600 to $625 for Beijing and Hong Kong visits.
Loyalty Traveler curated Airfare Deals and Google Flights and Kayak Explore tutorials.
