Budget Travel - 500,000 Free Seats on Air Asia

I know Air Asia doesn't have the best track record, but I personally had no problems when I flew them BKK-PNH-BKK.

500,000 Free Seats
Booking Period
18 April 2007 - 20 April 2007

Travel Period
1 Oct 2007 - 29 Mar 2008
Check availability (http://www.airasia.com/site/en/page.jsp?reference=500kfs)

I'm guessing that the link will work on the 18th...

It should be warned: Air Asia, Tiger Airways and possibly other Asian LCCs are so into airline-imposed fees and surcharges that fare sales are becoming meaningless. Even if you're familiar with the actual taxes, the real fare you see will be quite a bit more than what you think you'll see, with the money to the airline coming from the hidden surcharges rather than the fare. (Tiger won't even itemize the surcharges!)

Also, in addition to paying for the food/drinks like everyone expects to do, you have 15kg on the checked bags rather than 20kg like just about every other airline. That's a very frugal allowance if on a long holiday, and it's mainly there to get $20-25 more from those who trip it. It's not like they're flying prop planes.

Overall it'll likely still be cheaper than Malaysia Airlines or Thai, but not to the degree you might expect from the ads. It just shows that, absent government intervention, airline marketing will gravitate toward bait-and-switch tactics. Self-regulation won't work.

Please continue to follow this thread in the FT Budget Travel Forum
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Modertor

Booked BKK-HAN in November, two one-way tickets for THB1450 each, THB2900 total, or about US$87. For two.

Also booked CNX-BKK in December, two one-way tickets for THB642 each, THB1284 total, or about US$39. Again, for two.

Yes, it's AirAsia, but these are like bus ticket prices! I only wish they flew in and out of Laos.

Made a few reservations as well. Thanks, OP!

It looks like availability is a lot tighter than during previous sales, but then again, they were "giving away" much more seats then.

Do they really plan to honor those seats?

I woudn'y like to here later that it was a "mistake" and the real number was 50 seats.

Do they really plan to honor those seats?

I woudn'y like to here later that it was a "mistake" and the real number was 50 seats.

This isn't a mistake fare - it's part of their marketing strategy. They've done this before ("free" seats, plus fees) and will likely do so again. As noted above, the seats aren't really free - but they're about as close as you can get, and can be a great deal, especially for one-way/point-to-point fares. I would be careful booking on AirAsia when connecting to an onward flight, though - they will neither interline nor protect passengers in case of delays/irregular ops.

- Michael

They will honor them. Lots of folks buy tickets becasue they are cheep and then never fly due to schedule... then they resell at higher price the day of the flight and keep the taxes etc.

They offered 500,000 seats at 0 fare, but did not sell anywhere near that. They offer a limited number of zero fare seats on each flight during the six month travel period. As it happened, I was on early, and the two seats I wanted on each of two flights were available and I booked them.

The next person to look at those flights probably saw THB399 seats, and maybe said, "Hey, that's still pretty cheap! I'll take them!" I did a dummy rebook 10 minutes after buying my THB0 (plus fees) seats, and that's what I saw for availability.

There are also plenty of flights nobody wanted and they reverted to the regular price after the 48 hour sale period. But it's a safe bet that the website got extra activity for the sale period and they sold many regular fare seats along with the zero fares.

They have 2 of these 'free seats campaign' per year. For 2007 their first free seats campaign was during Jan when they offered 1 millions free seats for travel from Apr 07 - Sep 07. The second campaign is what we discussed in this topic in Apr - 500,000 free seats for travel from Oct 2007 - Mar 2008. No block out date, all based on first come first serve basis.

From KUL their free seats is 'W' fare, you still have to pay for taxes, fuel surcharge & admin fees but it's still a lot cheaper than full service carriers.
From KUL, destinations like Macau, Hanoi, Denpasar & Chiang Mai would be the first few being snapped up. They allocated about 10 seats per flight as the 'W' class free seats.

By July this year all flights originate from KUL will be fully operated by the brand new A320 (they've order 150 + 50 options direct from Airbus). These A320 will slowly being introduced into Thai AirAsia & Indonesia AirAsia fleet replacing all those leased B733.