Mod, if this thread is be better served in the SkyTeam forum, feel free to move it.

I have been trying to BOOK this itinerary online and not having any success (& plenty frustration). My planned itin is {SIN-NNG (stopover)-LJG(stopover)-SIN}. The multi-city itin found in ITA that is my preference is:

SIN-xKMG-NNG(stopover)-xKMG-LJG(stopover)-xKMG-SIN, all on MU. The small x designates a transit (less than 24 hours).

Another itin involves MU & CZ combined and it is less desireable by routing and by timing.

I went online at MU & CZ and ctrip trying to book this itin to no avail. First ctrip does not like my coming in from SIN. Second, MU & CZ sites won�t be able to find the flights and price them.

Have not tried expedia and other booking sites yet. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Tahnks.

PS: prefer to book in 1 PNR

seems like the best option will be to look for a good price for the legs to/from SIN. CZ and MU will allow one ways at decent enough prices usually.....the other ones are going to be a lot cheaper if booked a few weeks in advance on CTrip or Qunar....it's what i'd do...at these smaller airports switching between airlines and collecting luggage is always quick and efficient...there's no need to worry about it really...

You'll have trouble booking int'l flights on Ctrip...the selection is usually really limited

You should try to pull this off with UA miles (10k each way).

Thanks for the heads-up. I guess my last resort is to book with separate tickets (at least for the to/from SIN part). Hope I could do that on MU or CZ web site.
Your advice of waiting till closer to departure date to book in order to get better pricing is right. That's has been my own experience as well.

Have never used qunar. Looks like it does not have English web pages.

That certainly can be an option, if *A carriers flies these cities. Have not looked into that yet.

Silk Air does SIN-KMG. You'd need to buy separate tickets in order to get to Lijiang, but I'm pretty sure that SIN-KMG is far costlier than whatever value you place upon 10k UA miles.

Why can't you use CZ/MU's websites? Is it because you are trying to use the English versions? Because the Chinese ones seem to work fine, though I haven't tried the English one yet...

I have tried both web sites, in English. Don't have a clue using Chinese version.
It did not work for me. MU site takes in the multi-city itin ok. Once I pick the first flight, error occurs immediately.
CZ routing is longer and different, and fares are higher than MU.
I have not tried to do it one segment at a time (last resort), & the fare would be much higher.

I still don't understand why you are so dead set about flying with CZ/MU, in light of the fact that Star Alliance options are better and plentiful (you might not be able to use *A on all sectors, but presumably can on the expensive ones). I'm assuming that this trip will set you back $600+ in Y. For that same $600, you could buy enough US miles to take down the Star Alliance flights in biz (send your company/client the invoice; this practice is increasingly kosher), and still have enough money left over to buy the non *A flights you require. (I'm also assuming that UA/US miles can be used to book Silk Air flights... not 100% sure about this.)

In any case, if you must go the CZ/MU route, I'd be happy to help you in your quest, though my online booking experiences to date are similar to yours. Have you tried Expedia yet?

moondog,
Thanks for chiming in. I put your quotes in BLUE, and my reply in BLACK.

moondog: "I still don't understand why you are so dead set about flying with CZ/MU, "

allet2travel: Sorry if I appear to be stubborn. Strictly looking at ITA search engine output, MU serves me better than CZ (and *A) in terms of routing, timing and fares (difficulty getting it ticketed notwithstanding). From SIN-NNG via CAN. It gets me in NNG early afternoon, perfect! NNG-LJG via KMG. Total trip time 3h20m, perfect! LJG-SIN via KMG with 12h55min layover during the day, perfect! This allows me to tour the city. The total fare is $712.40 USD in coach (X, K & Y). I can, if possible shuffle the credits to my DL account."

moondog: "in light of the fact that Star Alliance options are better and plentiful (you might not be able to use *A on all sectors, but presumably can on the expensive ones)."

allset2travel: "You may be seeing something that I don�t and miss. So welcome to enlighten me. On ITA, I only see CA, as far as *A. I see from SIN-NNG, it tries to route me thru PEK (5+h layover) or elsewhere, lengthen the trip drastically. From NNG-LJG, it routes me thru CTU (almost 6h layover). The last segment LJG-SIN, it routes me to CTU with 9+h layover. Total fare =$1,104.80"

moondog: "I'm assuming that this trip will set you back $600+ in Y. For that same $600, you could buy enough US miles to take down the Star Alliance flights in biz (send your company/client the invoice; this practice is increasingly kosher), and still have enough money left over to buy the non *A flights you require. (I'm also assuming that UA/US miles can be used to book Silk Air flights... not 100% sure about this.)"

allset2travel: "This trip is all out of my own pocket, for a mission trip plus a bit of pleasure trip combined. I do plan to earn miles instead of burning them this time."

moondog: "In any case, if you must go the CZ/MU route, I'd be happy to help you in your quest, though my online booking experiences to date are similar to yours. Have you tried Expedia yet?"

I have tried expedia. The search engine cranks out different flights combinations (compared to ITA) even though I plugged in almost exact departure times. Hit the �SEARCH�, here is what returns, �We're Sorry; We Had A Problem With Your Selected Flights�
I do appreciate your offer to assist. So far MU comes out ahead in terms of personal preference. I would be extremely grateful I you come out with a way to book this online. Last resort, my next stop may be my friendly TA (have not used one for ages), I still have some time though.

Thanks again, moondog. ^

I'm going to assume for whatever reason, using miles isn't possible.

Resign yourself to the fact that if you want this all on one PNR, you are not going to be able to do it by yourself online and get it to come out right. If you can find a Chinese-reading friend, you can try getting them to help you navigate the Chinese version of the website. Failing that, either go to or call (good luck!) the office of MU or CZ and get staff to help put this together. Or go to a travel agent and have them sort it out. Remember that if you want to earn miles, the heavily discounted booking classes may not earn you anything for Delta Skymiles--you will need to tell whatever agent helps you that you have minimum booking class requirements; otherwise they will set you up on price alone. So decide what's more important in advance: price or earning miles.

If you are willing to deal with more than one PNR, you might have a shot at doing it yourself online. In which case it would be logical to have the international SIN-China-SIN part booked separate from the intra-China legs. And you may need to use separate airlines and separate booking sites to optimize pricing. You can also try open-jaws SIN-NNG and LIJ-SIN and see if that helps you out...however, my suspicion is that online efforts will produce some weird connections and lousy timing and not necessarily have all possible options. Or try a straight SIN-KMG-SIN. Chinese segments can be done on ctrip, elong, travelzen but you'll probably need to book segment by segment.

If you go the travel agent route, this is likely going to be best done with a Singapore-based travel agent. One you might try (can also play around with their online functions yourself before calling for assistance) is MISA: www.airfares.com.sg.

Why not call MU or CZ? Their English speaking agents are quite good.

What I have found is trying to get multiple flights on one PNR is usually more expensive then booking separate legs when buying intra-china tickets .

For example I wanted to go from JHG to PVG. It was much cheaper to buy two separate tickets one from JHG to KMG and another from KMG to PVG, then one ticket JHG to PVG.
I had to pick up my luggage at KMG and lug it, for about 800 RMB/ ticket I'll do it all day long. Nope, they would not check my luggage thru to PVG even both tickets were on MU and showed agent my tickets.

If the total price is around $700+ USD, then I'd gladly pay. *A miles are already purposed for other travel. That said, whatever miles that I could earn out of that, it would be just fine. Am aware of deep discount fares propably earn little.


One PNR will be preferred. Not the end of world to do separate tickets. Your suggestion is well taken. Thanks. I do often used ctrip, and sometime elong. Have yet to try travelzen. May come to that.


Thanks for this link. Registered online, and did a brief dummy search. Went pass flight search, all the way to plug in pax details. So far so good. Did not plug in cc yet, but I think it may work all the way to eticket. Did notice for my multi-city itin, the search engine groups the flights into options (each option has ALL my segments). This makes picking individual segment not possible. I think I may have to live with it. The itin pricing matches that of ITA.

Anyhow, so far, MISA looks very promising. Much more user-friendly than the Chinese sites. I presume you have done biz with them?

Thanks again! ^

Not personally but multiple Singapore-based friends have given me recommendations for MISA and swear by them. You might want to post a generic question on the Singapore subforum asking about people's experiences with MISA and also for any other SG-based reliable agents. Zuji.com.sg (travelocity subsidiary) I've never been impressed with. I know what you mean about the auto-grouping of options and no segment-by-segment selection ability, but that may just be MISA's functional website programming. If you want a different combo of flight segments, try using the phone number (if not in SG, can you Skype them?) and see if an agent can build the flights you want and come up with similar pricing.