There’s a $730 – $815 fare from Chicago to Shanghai with United that is matching the American sale. We thought it was more interesting to show you how you can leverage the stopovers available with the fare to visit more places for a little bit more money.

This works the same way as the San Francisco – Shanghai with Hong Kong and Tokyo multi-day stopover post from over the weekend.

We recommend that you read our guides first to understand the steps we took to search and book this:

• Beginner’s Guide on How to Use Matrix by ITA Software
• How to Read Airfare Rules and Use It to Your Advantage
• How to Take Advantage of a Stopover
• How to book a quasi-complex ticket

Shanghai Fare Rules:

Valid for travel until December 10th or January 7th, 2015 – April 30th, 2015Two stopovers permitted at $100 each. One in each direction, none in Guam

General Steps:

• Search for availability on a standard Chicago to Shanghai roundtrip.
• Then search for a stopover in one direction — once that’s found, then do the stopover in the other direction if you want both. In all instances, the itinerary needs to look like this: Chicago – 1st stopover city – Shanghai – 2nd stopover city – Chicago
• Then see if its bookable.

How to Search:

If you want more detail info, refer to the San Francisco – Shanghai with Hong Kong and Tokyo multi-day stopover post. But here’s our screenshot using multi-city after we found availability for travel from November 11th – 20th for travel from Chicago and Shanghai

ITA Search screen using multi-city:

Search result:

How to Price:

So let’s price it. Using tips from How to book a quasi-complex ticket, we used Hipmunk and its multi-city search to see if it would price properly:

Hipmunk search criteria:

Hipmunk search result:

 

Hipmunk will redirect to United.com to book:

Elite Qualifying Dollars:

• $793.21

Mileage:

United will be revenue based mileage earning starting March 1st, 2015. Miles will be earn base on elite qualifying dollars multiple by 5 as base level earning and up to 11 for 1K level members. We will be showing the 2015 base mileage earning for all United fares going forward to show how negative the changes are for a majority of United flyers.

• 2014: 15,971 miles or 5.7 cents per mile. You will earn 14,632 miles when crediting to United. The segment between Hong Kong and Shanghai can be credited to British Airways or Cathay Pacific at 25% earning or 191 miles.
• March 1st, 2015:  3,966 miles or a difference of 10,666 miles.

Conclusion:

• With two stopovers, this should price at $914. Anything more than that, then it isn’t pricing it correctly and you should play around with different dates.
• Stopovers are trial and error. It is very manual, so it isn’t scalable for us to help with your particular itinerary

 Background Information:

China:

• Visa: US Citizens – required prior to arrival. $140. Other nationals, check the TIMATIC Visa Database
• Currency: Chinese Yuan Renminbi (CNY) – $1USD = 6.08 CNY
• How to Visit Shanghai or Beijing for Up to 72 Hours without a Visa

Hong Kong:

• Visa: US Citizens – Not required. Other nationals, check the TIMATIC Visa Database
• Currency: Hong Kong Dollar (HKD). $1USD = 7.8 HKD

Japan:

• Visa: US Citizens – Not required. Other nationals, check the TIMATIC Visa Database
• Currency: Japanese Yen (JYP) $1USD = 108.66 JPY

Tips for saving when using credit cards at international destinations:

• No Foreign Transaction Fee Credit Cards to save on international purchases
• Don’t get hit with Dynamic Currency Conversion
• Get your taxes refunded when shopping
• How to Avoid International Data Roaming Charges

For more of the latest cheap Chicago Flight Deals:

• Go to the The Chicago Flight Deals page

* The Flight Deal will receive a commission if you use the accommodation or car rental affiliate links to make a booking or apply and is approved for a credit card using our link above. Thank you for your continuing support.

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