LAX to TPE - Book now or wait
 

Hello all,
This is my first post here. I travel at least twice a year, surely not as frequent as many members here.

This coming June my sister will be graduating in Taipei, TW. She went to school there on a full scholarship, and my parents and (other) sister will be attending.

I'm helping them find tickets as affordable as possible of course. The dates are roughly June 4 - 22 (+-3 days).

So far the best I've seen is Air China, at $960 per ticket with layover in Beijing (LAX - PEK - TPE). I've playing around with the dates but so far that is the lowest. If I go into July, prices only go up.

Would you suggest to purchase at $960~?

Moderator Note
 

Bumping this post as it was delayed in the moderation queue. Thanks for your patience.

End of June is the beginning of student migration home to China and Taiwan for the summer. High season ticket pricing for flying from one side of the Pacific to the other.

The pricing looks fair to me. This year prices have been higher than previous years.

I would try very hard to avoid PEK on this routing, lots of delays there and particularly since Air China is not exactly a great experience. There's ANA routing via NRT June 5-23 for $1088. ANA is better than Air China and NRT better than PEK and more reliable for schedules. Maybe look into Chinatown consolidators and see if they have anything reasonable for nonstops LAX-TPE on EVA or China Airlines. IMO, it would be worth paying a reasonable per ticket premium to go direct and avoid a connection at all. If they are flying from ORD (per your profile location), then try to fly ORD-Asia without connecting in the USA (especially LAX) unless you get the deal of the century.

Since that's high season, you don't want to wait too long, but I'd keep digging until first week of April then pull the trigger, see if any "spring sales" appear which might at least drop the outbound fare class a bit.

Oh, and Welcome to FlyerTalk. Don't be shy about posting.

That looks like the price for a connection. However, you can get something similar with United or ANA, connecting in Tokyo. I'd highly recommend that versus connecting in Beijing.

Also, are your parents Taiwanese/Chinese (more specifically, do they read Chinese)? My parents make the voyage every few years and mom typically goes to a Chinese travel agency. My parents have frequently purchased their tickets to Taiwan via consolidators that advertise in the Chinese-language newspapers and are located in Chinese neighborhoods (i.e, San Gabriel Valley). These often offer better deals.

All that said, it is high season and that fare doesn't seem out of line. I doubt it'll come down in price.

Personally given the air traffic delays in flights to China, would avoid it like the plague. The non-stops via CAL and Eva are the most convenient but June is high season....I would book asap. Call a local chinese TA and/or consolidator for best pricing.

Just checked itasoftware.com and found a fare of $931-936 RT LAX-TPE on United connecting to ANA through Narita (Tokyo). Depart June 2,3 or 4 and return 18 days later. I would strongly encourage you to use itasoftware.com to do your fare searches. You can not book your flight through them though.