[Expired] Crazy prices to Kuala Lumpur: from $316 RT from New York

Late last night, I saw the Secret Flying notification about an airfare sale to Kuala Lumpur and I posted a brief note about it to our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group. I assumed the fare wouldn’t last, but in this morning’s Thrifty Traveler Premium email, I saw that not only is it still alive but there are many other departure cities with great prices — from $316 round trip from New York to Kuala Lumpur. These flights are on United and ANA and include a single connection in Tokyo. That’s a long trip for $316.

Update: Gary Leff at View from the Wing has the details on making this fare even cheaper — from $287 if you return from Bangkok. See his post for more on that.

Lots of availability

These prices are pretty widely available from January through March. Here is an example calendar of January and February from Google Flights:

This one doesn’t require any long/odd connections or a million flights — just two simple flights (New York to Tokyo and then Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur, with short connections each way).

And it won’t require you to book from an unknown entity as this price is widely available from online travel agencies:

Though if you want the lowest prices, you’ll want to find dates with Google Flights and then plug them in at Momondo.com.

According to ITA Matrix, the fare class on those flights is K.

Wheretocredit.com shows K-Class earning 50% in some mileage programs (e.g. Aegean, Copa, Turkish, Virgin Atlantic) and 30% in many other popular star alliance programs (e.g. Air Canada, Avianca, Asiana) or 25% if credited to United. At about 20,000 flown miles round trip, that means you should earn somewhere between 6,600-10,000 redeemable miles depending on where you credit the flight out of New York.

Examples with links to Google Flights

New York

Los Angeles

Boston

Philadelphia

Bottom line

These are great prices for 20,000 flown miles (more or less depending on where you start and stop). I didn’t think they would last, but they did. Remember that the prices above would be a bit lower at Momondo, so you could shop at Google Flights and then go to Momondo to decide whether or not the discount is significant enough to choose one of the smaller agencies there. Click the images above to go to Google Flights and adjust dates as this one is available for several months. Finally, additional cities were listed in the Thrifty Traveler email, so check your preferred point or origin as above is just a sample of what is available.

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