on elong for those days, I am seeing 1070+180 in Taxes for Y, and 1790 for Y+ (pek-kwl) it is a 40% off sale.

Then on the KWL-HKG 900RMB+280RMB in taxes on dragonair or 1040+289 on Cathay....so elong has some better pricing for sure.

I don't know about the retreat, but yes would highly recommend getting a driver in Beijing, some good sources here, I regret not doing it and trying to go it alone on my trip, the rain and taxi 'silent strikes' are really quite bad getting stranded out in the city!