soarer

I have been seeing some cheap fares from LAX to Shanghai or Beijing ,

Are there any cheap flights from there to BKK and Back ?

And would these flights leave from the same Airport ?

I would like to avoid a Chinese Visa if possible ,

Also any discount airlines to Saigon ?

I know some of the discount airlines do not show up on the search engines so thats why I am asking here

Thanks for your ideas

Soarer

EmailKid

Looks like Air Asia starts to fly from PEK in a couple of days, so no change of airport like in Shanghai. And they fly to Vietnam as well.

EmailKid

jiejie

I'm not sure Air Asia is all that brilliant a solution for this. It's true that Air Asia is changing its northern China airport from TSN to PEK shortly. However, the flight from PEK (departure 2 am) will still go to KUL, from whence you'd have to purchase another Air Asia flight to BKK. Check and add up all the costs; often when you do this, Air Asia doesn't come out so cheap, and your savings from a good price to PEK/PVG will get eroded quickly. Air Asia flies from Hangzhou HGH not Shanghai, so you couldn't use this as a Chinese visa-free strategy to get to BKK.

I think you are better off on a mainline. Check out the PVG-BKK fares on SriLankan; they are showing most every day in July and August for about $220 one-way all-in, and that's not bad. They are a decent airline. And going through Shanghai, gives you up to a 48-hour cushion (I'm assuming a US passport) without a Chinese visa. So you could squeak out a quickie stop in Shanghai if you wanted.

Spring Airlines (LCC out of Shanghai) has very low fares to HKG, from whence you might be able to find low cost HKG-BKK fares. But I'd deprioritize this unless you wanted to stop at/see HK, since it adds a layer of ground cost to the flight cost, as well as time.

China to Vietnam has no low cost carrier right now. Air Asia from KUL. And one or two from SIN.

EmailKid

When I did a dummy booking on AirAsia I was able to purchase it as one ticket, though I understand they threat them as two one ways when you fly.

Hm, perhaps my memory is foggy, but could have sworn that someone here in the China forum said you can do XXX-PVG HGH-YYY and use a transit visa. Or perhpas I remember XXX-PEK TSN-YYY ....

Again, you should be able to buy this as a single ticket, though you are right in that it's treated as two separate flights.

I just use miles, as redemption is pretty decent, at least on UA.

EmailKid

moondog

Yes, you can do that within 24 hours, but jiejie was referring to the 48-hour Shanghai exception.

soarer

Hi

thanks for the ideas.....

Maybe this is not the greatest plan if I want to bring baggage , but with flights sometimes around $700 LAX to China I would like to have a plan before I booked the cheap fare ,

And like others have said if you need to do an all day multistop trip to get to BKK or Saigon than it might not be worth it for time / expense .

Off to Bangkok today on United , will read this again when I am in BKK

thanks

EmailKid

Should have plenty of miles then. When I did the transit, I used miles from PEK and PVG to BKK and JKT. Found nonstops to BKK, JKT not so much.

Considering the high price of tickets I thought 20/30 K for coach/Biz was reasonable.

EmailKid