Shanghai, China — Business Class Fares

All fares to Shanghai, China

SEA 10h $3,979 Low Book Search →

LAX 9h $4,529 Typical Book Search →

SFO 9h $4,529 Typical Book Search →

JFK 14h $4,904 Typical Book Search →

SNA 9h 30m $4,911 Typical Book Search →

MIA 15h $5,614 Low Book Search →

DFW 14h $5,940 Typical Book Search →

ORD 14h $6,018 Typical Book Search →

ATL 14h $6,359 Typical Book Search →

BOS 15h $6,361 Low Book Search →

About Shanghai, China

Shanghai is a city that doesn't ask for your attention — it commands it. The Bund's Art Deco skyline facing Pudong's gravity-defying towers is the single most dramatic urban panorama on Earth, and the city backs up that visual audacity with a dining scene that rivals Tokyo, a jazz and cocktail culture rooted in genuine 1930s glamour, and a luxury retail ecosystem that makes Madison Avenue feel quaint. Most visitors scratch the surface with a river cruise and some soup dumplings; the real Shanghai reveals itself in private art vaults, members-only teahouses, and Michelin-starred kitchens hidden inside century-old shikumen lane houses.

6 Experiences Worth Flying Business Class For

1. Dinner at Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet — The World's Most Theatrical Table

This is not a restaurant; it's a ten-seat sensory installation where every course is paired with projected visuals, scents piped through the walls, and a curate...

d soundtrack — and somehow none of it feels gimmicky because the food is genuinely extraordinary. You're picked up from a secret location on the Bund, driven to a hidden kitchen-theater in Pudong, and served twenty-plus courses that redefine what dining can be. Book months in advance, accept the steep price tag, and understand that this is the single most unforgettable meal you will eat this decade.

2

A Private Morning Walk Through the Former French Concession Before the City Wakes

Hire a local architecture historian — not a tour guide — and walk the plane tree-lined streets of the old French Concession between Wukang Road and Fuxing Park at 7 a.m., when the only company is elderly tai chi practitioners and the light filters perfectly through the canopy. Stop at the 1920s Wukang Mansion, duck into hidden lane houses off Yongfu Lu, and finish with a flat white at the impossibly chic Egg café on Yongkang Road. This neighborhood is Shanghai's soul, and most tourists only see it in the midday crush — at dawn, it belongs to you.

3

The Bund After Midnight at the Long Bar Inside the Waldorf Astoria

Everyone photographs the Bund at sunset, which is fine, but the real magic is sipping a 1920s-recipe gin fizz at the restored Long Bar inside the Waldorf Astoria Shanghai on the Bund well after the tour groups have gone to bed. The bar occupies the former Shanghai Club — once the most exclusive gentlemen's club in Asia — and the 34-meter mahogany bar top is original. Grab a seat by the window, watch the Pudong lights reflect off the Huangpu River at 1 a.m., and understand why Shanghai was once called the Paris of the East.

4

Vanishing Shanghai: A Curated Tour of Shikumen Lane Houses Before They're Gone

Shanghai's shikumen — stone-gate lane houses blending European and Chinese architecture — are being demolished at an accelerating pace, and in five years many of the ones still standing will be gone. Skip the sanitized Xintiandi version and arrange a private visit through local preservation groups to Jing'an's backstreet clusters and the Laoximen neighborhood, where families still hang laundry between buildings that predate the Communist revolution. This is urgent, irreplaceable cultural immersion, not a photo op.

5

The Private Art World of Shanghai's West Bund

Forget the tourist-clogged Shanghai Museum (the new East Bund location notwithstanding) and spend an afternoon along the West Bund, where the Long Museum, Yuz Museum, and Tank Shanghai form Asia's most ambitious gallery corridor — all within walking distance of each other along the Huangpu riverfront. Arrange a private docent through your hotel concierge at The Middle House or the Capella Shanghai, then cap the afternoon with cocktails at the members' lounge at start. gallery. Contemporary Chinese art is having its defining moment, and this is ground zero.

6

A Day of Eating That Would Embarrass Most Food Capitals

Start at Fu He Hui, the Michelin-starred vegetarian temple in Changning where Buddhist philosophy meets molecular technique, then pivot to a lunch of crab xiaolongbao at the perpetually underrated Jia Jia Tang Bao on Huanghe Road — yes, it's a hole in the wall, and yes, it's worth it. End the evening at the Chef's Table at 8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana for the best Italian food outside Europe, or go rogue with late-night Sichuan skewers on Shouning Road with a cold Tsingtao. Shanghai's food scene isn't a highlight of the trip — it is the trip.

When to Go Show ↓

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Peak Season

October (especially Golden Week, October 1-7) and April-May

Autumn is Shanghai at its most photogenic — crisp skies, the French Concession plane trees turning gold, and temperatures in the comfortable mid-60s to low 70s Fahrenheit. Spring is equally gorgeous, with mild weather and the city's gardens in full bloom. The catch: Golden Week is a national holiday and Shanghai becomes borderline unnavigable with domestic tourists — hotel rates spike, the Bund is a human traffic jam, and even top restaurants struggle with service. If you must come in October, arrive the second week after Golden Week clears out. April and May are the true sweet spot if you can tolerate the occasional rain.

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Shoulder Season

March, June, September, and November

September and November bookend the peak autumn season beautifully — September is still warm but the summer humidity has broken, and November brings a moody, quieter Shanghai where you can actually get a same-week reservation at Ultraviolet. June is technically the start of the plum rain season (meiyu), which sounds miserable but in practice means atmospheric fog over the Bund and dramatically lower hotel rates at properties like The Peninsula and the Mandarin Oriental Pudong. Pack a good umbrella, embrace the mist, and enjoy having world-class restaurants nearly to yourself.

Plan your trip to Shanghai, China