Ctrip
 

So I booked a couple of flights and now when I try and manage the booking the Airline engines China southern and Hainan don't accept or recognise the bookings...

The money is paid and showing on my cc statement - should I be worried?

I usually can't manage my bookings if I did not buy on the airline's website. I assume that China is the same.

This is often the case for online bookings unless you have the PNR/booking references for the operating airlines. Bookings using travel agencies are usually better, but not always.

Why not call Ctrip and ask them for your ticket numbers (which are probably already displayed in your confirmation email)?

In addition to Manage My Booking, there's another page rather well hidden away on the China Southern site for ticket verification.

http://b2c.csair.com/B2C40/modules/b...er.jsp?lang=en

Again, whether it verifies only tickets bought on that site isn't clear, but there's a number listed you can call, with a special number for foreign travellers.

Ctrip issue
 

Had something similar occur last November when I purchased two one ways from Beijing to Shanghai and back. Ultimately, I had to make sure I used the exact wording of the name on my ticket booking to bring it up. As I recall, they added MR to my booking which I did not include when trying to bring it up. I believe there was also a phone number you could call for assistance. Hold times can be aggravating, but worth the peace of mind.

Safe travels.

Hold times? Ctrip?

Ctrip has pretty good customer service, most of the time. There is no reason to bother with the airline.

It depends on what you're buying. For a single domestic flight in a few days, that's probably true.

But if, say, you're buying an international ticket, the sort where you might have to change the return date, then I'd suggest buying direct from the airline. When buying through an online agent, then sometimes any changes have to go through the agent, usually making the process more expensive and more cumbersome. Ditto a flight where you might not use the ticket and want a refund.

I'd still book with Ctrip in this case. They charge an extra 100 RMB in fees but their service and English level will be much better than any of the airlines. They really can get things fixed.

They said bookings are fine and that I can't pre book seats. I'm sure all is well.

I had experience purchasing a CZ ticket from CTrip and was able to use the ticket verification online. I don't think you can manage the booking, but online check-in should be possible, although the last time I tried, you need to have a China-based mobile phone for it to work.

I believe the ability to manage a booking (low level like selecting seats and special meals) is airline-dependent, and for certain airlines it's possible to do so only a certain number of hours before/up to departure. To do so, you'll need the PNR or ticket number at the very least, which should appear on Ctrip after a booking is confirmed and the ticket, issued.

For flight changes and cancellations for tickets bought through agents like Ctrip, airlines will typically refer you to them to do so.

I've used Ctrip for domestic and international plane and train tix, airport transfers (including from overseas airports) and hotel bookings, and can only say that they have pretty excellent customer service. On two occasions when things didn't work out (hotel room booked wasn't available and airport pick up didn't turn up on time), I was given compensation in cash, after simply contacting their customer support number.

Searching train options at Ctrip. Can someone please help me out with the Suzhou dropdown menu options? Which Suzhou is the Jiangsu one?

苏州 or 宿州?

The former.

Depends where you are going or coming from. But normally on these search engines, it doesn't matter which one you choose, they will show all results for all stations. No sure if ctrip is like this though.

Nope, on ctrip you get different results depending on which Suzhou you select.

Else how could you confidently book a ticket 苏州 to 宿州? (Of course, booking that ticket at the station makes for a good test of your Chinese.)

^ Thank you. I magnified my screen and couldn't make out the differences in characters, And then I plugged each into the google translator and got "Suzhou" both times, so that was no help.

I reckon you've got a 50% chance of getting it right

I misread the question . i thought you were asking which train station in Suzhou.
If you need to use Google translate to figure it out, why not just book on an English site?

I'm guessing he used the Chinese site because it is simply better than the English site for train bookings.

No, I was using the English site, and the dropdown options are:

Suzhou (苏州)
Suzhou (宿州)

Exactly written like that - "Suzhou" + the Chinese characters... and I was stumped.

Suzhou (苏州)
Suzhou (宿州)

You'd have to know that the first is the Suzhou in Jiangsu province (the famous one that most visitors would want) and the second is the more obscure Suzhou in Anhui province.

This sort of thing makes ctrip an online sales portal that I don't recommend for visitors located outside China who don't have enough local geographic knowledge (or Chinese character knowledge) to understand the choices in context. As shown here, such a visitor needs help to navigate this correctly. I'd instead recommend using a more overseas-user-friendly site that doesn't have these pitfalls, even if the service fee is slightly higher. www.travelchinaguide.com is reliable, clear, and easy to navigate and provides better assistance if needed.

". . . the fact that ctrip searches are specific for station even in cities with multiple rail stations . . ."

No. Search e.g., "Beijing" to "Shanghai" or "Shanghai" to "Guangzhou." The results are all-stations.

Thanks. Have edited my post above. But I still think that ctrip is not the train booking vehicle of choice for visitors booking from outside China that have no experience.

Ctrip Miles accrual
 

Hey guys, Ctrip appears to have great fares and am looking at booking a flight with them. However, when i go to book there is a banner at the top saying

Upgrade not permitted; not eligible for mileage accumulation.不可加订婴儿票;最晚24小时出票;

Does that really mean this ticket doesn't earn any miles at all? How can this be?

Yes. That's what it means. If you want to earn miles, you need to buy a more expensive ticket.

I'd like to assume that most of us here have developed decent enough commonsense skills to overcome obstacles like this using intuition alone.

Option A
-75 trains per day
-25 minute duration

Option B
-15 trains per day
-4 hour duration

Odd that the Chinese and English on that banner don't match, the Chinese stating you can't add a children's ticket and that the ticket has to be issued 24 hours in advance.

Questions about Ctrip
 

I'm considering buying international RT J tickets for my wife and myself on Ctrip because the prices are about 20-25% cheaper than buying directly through the airline (likely UA). I know this comes with risks. I just want some assessment from anyone who's dealt with Ctrip before regarding how great the risks and hassles be:

1. Basically, we would use miles to travel SFO-PVG, then buy RT on Ctrip PVG-SFO-PVG. We'd travel on the ticketed date for PVG-SFO, then would change the SFO-PVG date later. Any sense of how much of a hassle this would be, dealing with Ctrip rather than the airline (again, likely UA), and what added charges Ctrip would add in addition to any airline rebooking fee and airline fee for additional ticket cost?
2. Same question as #1, except we might want to change to another destination for the return trip. Could be SFO to somewhere else in Asia, or even somewhere else in the world.
3. Any problems getting seat reservations via Ctrip?
4. I read in one thread here of someone's experience not getting any miles on a trip booked via Ctrip, but now can't find the thread. Any experience with this?

FWIW, the reason I'm even considering this crazy plan is that the RT price is cheap enough that if we didn't end up using the return SFO-PVG portion it might be worth it. But of course, if we could get some value out of the return trip it makes it definitely worth it.

Any thoughts or experience with this? Thanks for any help.

I haven't used them, but the reviews online seem generally positive.

I do have a question about how this would affect the visa process (assuming you need one).

SFO-PVG and then
PVG-SFO-PVG

would look like multiple entries, followed by no departure at the end of the 2nd entry.

I use Ctrip for domestic China travel, and so far I have not had problems with them. My trips on CA have always been credited with UA within 1 or 2 days after travel, so I wouldn't worry about UA not crediting miles for UA tickets bought on Ctrip.

I suggest that you read the fare rules carefully. Since it's PVG-SFO-PVG, the rules are likely to be more flexible than SFO-PVG-SFO that most of us are familiar with.

Good question. For our return to PVG on the PVG-SFO-PVG ticket, we'd obtain a separate onward ticket. Or, as I mentioned, I'd explore simply changing the SFO-PVG return to an Asian destination other than PVG, if the rules and the cost of the change permitted it.

I use C trip all the time and have booked many of these cheap biz class fares using C trip where they generally are much cheaper than booking with the airline directly. Their customer service is better than any airline I've interacted with. Top notch in every way. I've never had a problem with these fares or with C trip and I probably run about $50K a year through them with my business and personal travel.

We complain about Ctrip more and more here because its service levels have declined over time, and they have increasingly resorted to trickery (e.g. meaningless insurance that is difficult to opt out of and impossible to use hotel currency bundled with airplane tickets). That having been said, I still MUCH prefer dealing with them than airlines.

Hello all - I have a few questions about ctrip. Saw it mentioned in the CX forum and indeed they offer extremely attractive fares. Quick question is - is there any way to find out the fare class of the ticket prior to purchase? I don't mind buying a consolidator fare that will earn 0 miles, I just want to know that's what I'm buying before I buy it. Also how is their customer service? OK for a foreign English speaker to use? Appreciate it - thanks!

Just curious - how do you find out the fare class? I'm looking at some USA-Europe itineraries and cannot find the fare class listed. I imagine ctrip also sells consolidator fares which are ineligible for mileage accrual.

I rarely care about fare classes, bit when I do, I simply call them.

So right after I posted my question, I played around on the site a bit more and found the online chat option. Asked them there - they said exactly what you did - you have to call to find out the fare class. HOWEVER, they did say that if you call to book a ticket by phone, the fare will be different than what's online! Can't figure out for the life of me why that would be, but hey when you're getting airfares as cheap as they're advertising, can't really ask questions can you? :)

Interesting that fare class doesn't matter to some of you. Here it's the question of earning 0% or 25% vs 100% of flown miles - especially for us mileage accruers/redeemers, makes a world of difference.

Within each airline, the discount level maps to a specific fare class, but is not uniform across Chinese airlines. I can't seem to locate my handy cheat sheet, but in general, full fare economy maps to Y (all airlines), 5% discount maps to B (most airlines), and 10% and 15% the letter code varies but maps to the next two highest fare classes. Usually these do get some sort of mileage accrual in their own and alliance partner FFP's. 20% discount level is on the bubble and also may depend on the specific partner FFP. Any discount higher than that and you can pretty much kiss goodbye any accrual. Premium economy may or may not get you any more mileage than Y fare class. Business and first should be pretty safe for accrual though heavily discounted premium fares might accrue lower.