It is not every day that you can fly to China in Business Class for less than $2500, but this year, Hainan Airlines is offering incredibly low rates to and from Changsha to celebrate their new Changsha – Los Angeles route. The new route operates twice a week (Monday and Thursday in each direction) with brand new 787s, and nearly every flight as at least 1 discounted seat available for $1358 round trip or an Economy class seat for $586 return! Color me red with excitment, I decided just this week to jump on this deal!
I personally have never flown Hainan Airlines, not even when I lived in China, however they are China’s ONLY 5-star airline, which leaves me very hopeful that their service is above their Chinese counterparts, which are primarly 3-star airlines! In the past, I highly enjoyed China Southern’s A380 in business class, but other China Southern flights have been far from memorable. Yet on the bright side, every other long haul 5 star Airline I’ve flown from Malaysia Airlines A380 to Cathay Pacific to Qatar Airways has been great, so my hopes are high! Therefore, when I found this deal to China, I jumped on the opportunity to try out Hainan Airline, especially knowing that Hainan and Alaska Airlines are partners and I would earn thousands of elite and redeemable miles for an incredibly low cost!
Hainan Airlines is one of Alaska’s 14 Elite Qualify Airline Partners, which means I can earn Alaska Airline Miles when flying the airline and I can even earn MVP bonus miles! The ticket I booked to China with Hainan is ticketed in “R” class which per the Alaska Airline Mileage plan page earns 100% elite qualify bonus miles, on top of the 125% redeemable miles I’ll earn for being Alaska Airline MVP Gold 75k! This means this 7,005 mile flight should earn me 14,010 base miles, 14,010 class of service bonus miles, and 17,512 Elite Bonus Miles for a grand total of 28,020 Elite qualify miles and 45,532 redeemable miles! A heck of a bargain for only $1378! Even for non-elites, 28,020 miles is 4.9 cents per mile, a steal for business class!
I am excited to fly Hainan 787 at the end of January, even if the business class is 2x2x2, similar to my LAN 787 business class experience and not on par with American Airlines 787 business class. After all, it means that I have flown all of the world’s 5-star airlines! Plus looking at my seat map, it appears as if the cabins will be empty or not even ½ full as the new route is not yet as popular as Hainan has hoped for. Or better yet, this is just Hanian’s way of offering flights to interior China to build a larger presence in North America, regardless of loses as Hainan hopes to build brand awareness and suffers under the archaic one route, one airline rule…but that’s a whole different blog in the writing!
Cheers to cheap fares! And if you too want to take advantage of this promotion know that the fare sale goes till April 30, and currently there are still tickets available for nearly every Thursday departure from LAX at the low low prices mentioned above in business class and nearly every day in economy, even when you have to connect via Seattle and Beijing! Also note, Changsha now offers 72 hours visa free connections if continuing on to a 3rd country!
