Ctrip just recently, it seems, has begun accepting foreign plastic for a 2% surcharge. However, the one time I tried (about 2 weeks ago) I wasn't able to get my card to work on their web site.

This topic is like a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

I did a little more research from my end. I called elong from the US (hey, they've got a 1-800 number!) and reached a woman who spoke mediocre English. As best I understood, she said I could buy tickets from them over the phone with my US credit card, but not directly from the website. I asked whether I could get the website prices, and she said yes (hopefully understanding me). I asked when the best fares generally were, and she said 2 weeks in advance (pretty consistent with the experience reported on this board).

Ctrip doesn't have a US telephone number, so I sent them an email with the same questions. I'll post their response (if I get one!).

Poking around both websites, I made some interesting findings. Fares in one direction are often cheaper for some inexplicable reason. Beijing-Shanghai is much cheaper than Shanghai-Beijing. Shanghai-Xian is cheaper than Xian-Shanghai. I wish someone could figure out why. Nonetheless, in my tour of China, I'll plan to travel in the cheaper direction.

As far as WHEN to buy, my website searches suggest a couple of weeks in advance is cheaper than a day or two in advance, but also indicates that SEVERAL weeks in advance can sometimes be the cheapest. If one's plans are relatively firm, can anyone see the downside of buying, say, 2 months in advance? Are flight schedules in China pretty firm that far in advance?

Then the question becomes how much to pay. It looks to me like the system is set up on a "percentage discount" basis. What's the best discount one can usually obtain? 30% seems pretty good; 50% looks difficult, but possible if you plan ahead and are flexible. For instance, the lowest Beijing-Shanghai fares I see on the websites are 450 yuan (reportedly a 50% discount). Is that about the best I could do from a local travel agent?

And then which airline do you fly? Any to avoid? Which ones to prefer?

Finally, if you're transiting to an international flight (in my case at Beijing), how much time should you leave for an inbound or outbound connection? Are nonstop flight times from the US reliable enough to, say, plan on a 2-hour connection (for instance, do wind conditions make the scheduled flight times only an educated guess)? And are Chinese flights reliable enough that it's safe to book a 2-hour return?

Thanks for any further insight anyone can provide.

Hello. I've lurked for many months here on Flyertalk, and finally feel that I have something worthwhile to contribute. My husband & I travelled to China last June with our then 10 & 7 year old daughters. Our trip was strictly for pleasure, and I did all of my own planning, (we did NOT take a tour). I did quite a bit of research, and the following is what we did as a result:

We flew United to Hong Kong from LAX, using FF miles for my husband & I and booking seats for our daughters at a 25% discount. (Children get deals all along the way!)

We stayed in Hong Kong where we stayed for 4 days. While there, we visited a local travel agent & booked flights to Guilin from Shenzhen on the mainland. This saved us a lot of money because we were no longer on an international flight. Shenzhen is easily reached by a 45 minute TurboJet ferry ride. By the way, our children's tickets were 50% off! Please note, the agents want to see your children in person to verify age before selling you these discounted tickets! (Keep this in mind for all flights within China) Our flight was cancelled & we were rebooked on the next flight. (I can't remember which airline since we could be booked on China Southern but board a China Eastern plane.)

While in Guilin, we visited a couple of travel agents, including the one in our hotel (Sheraton). The agent at our hotel offers no real discount...but we took one of their flight schedules with us. The next travel agent offered us a bit of a discount, but I am a bargain hunter by nature. The third travel agent we visited wasn't used to seeing American kids (and my youngest is blonde & blue-eyed no less!), and they were so excited. They offered us a much greater discount, & then kindly directed us to the nearest bank. Guilin is a "small" town with no ATM nearby. I booked flights to our next destination, Xian, and also our flights to Beijing as well. At the airport, we had our first experience of smiling Chinese grabbing our children while holding cameras...yes, our kids are in countless photo albums across China now! And our plane was delayed 1 hour...

To address your concerns, I was in no way worried about getting flights on the dates I wanted, or willing to book my flights ahead...You Will Pay More If You Do! I was concerned about pre-booking hotels. I didn't want to find myself with 2 daughters & our luggage going from hotel to hotel & bargaining. Keep in mind that Chinese hotel rooms accomodate 3 people & not 4, so you will need to book either 2 rooms or a suite at each destination. All of my hotels were booked before the trip.

Travelling to China was my first Asian experience, having previosly travelled mostly to Europe & North America. The most important thing to remember is that you are a visitor in their country and need to adapt to their ways and ideas about travel. As soon as I realized that flights, etc weren't going to operate in the American fashion which I was used to, I was able to go with the flow & chalk delays/cancellations up to my incredible experience.

If I haven't convinced you to wait to purchase your intra-Chinese flights, then check one more place: zuji.com. (I checked there, yoee.com, ctrip & elong. I bettered all of there prices by at least 25% by waiting!)

Have an amazing trip...we did. The people are friendly, and helpful, and the country is incredible. My daughters still talk about China on a daily basis!

Welcome to FT, loves2travel. Nice informative first post. Keep it up!! ^

I tried ctrip about 2 months ago with my USA-issued CC and it didn't work then either. Hopefully they get the capability to start accepting USA-cards, this would be extremely useful and the first site to start offering this would get boatloads of business IMHO.

My Chinese colleauge got 80% off on a PEK-HRB (Harbin) flight a couple days after news broke of the toxic chemical spill on the Songhua River. Seems like so many people wanted to get OUT of Harbin that Air China flew 747s PEK-HRB to get everybody out. Obviously nobody was flying into HRB, he said the 747 was less than 10% full, but the prices sure were low. That's as big of a discount as he'd ever seen he said. Naturally there was no discount whatsoever from HRB-PEK for those wanting out. When I flew to Harbin about 2-3 weeks later I got ~50% discount. Normally 60% is the biggest discount I ever see on the websites, whether travel agents can be cheaper, I don't know.

I personally will stick to Air China from now on. Their birds seem newer (at least in my experience). Also I had a bad experience on my last China Southern flight. On a 2-eingine MD-80/82 they flew the whole flight with one engine out (and no the engine didn't go out mid-flight which would be understandable, the engine started and ended broke as evidenced by a mechanic who got on a ladder and looked specifically at that engine after we landed............and then they proceeded to re-board the flight to take off for the next destination). Needless to say I will never be flying them again when I am in China.

In my experience, the US flights could get there anywhere from an hour early to an hour late if there are no delays in the US. As far as domestic China flights, those things seem to get cancelled all the time, they don't seem to be as reliable as flights in the US. But I would assume if they cancel the flight they will get you on the next flight no problem.

One other thing that my Chinese colleague told me. He said that the way they price airfare in China is that a FULL FARE Economy ticket costs 1 yuan per kilometer in distance traveled. I looked at a few sample city pairs and for the most part this is fairly accurate (maybe +/- 10% in price, with the exception of extremely short flights). The discounts are taken from that full fare. moondog referenced a great thread above where he made a table of sample domestic China airfares. It was very useful if you want a ballpark figure for airfares. BTW moondog, if you ever want a nomination for FT China Forum Moderator, I'd love to put my vote in for you. Your posts are honestly the most helpful posts ever regarding anything relating to China. You are to China what slippahs is to Hawaii, and as far as I am concerned the 2 of you are the most helpful destination-specific FTers around! Keep up the good work and thanks for all the help and insight you've provided over the years!! ^

Amen!

For clarification, when I said we got 50% off the children's tickets, I meant 50% off the reduced rate we paid as adults, and NOT just 50% off of the original ticket price! (We were able to negotiate 25% or more off the rates found at Yoee, Elong, Zuji & Ctrip. The kids were an additional 50% off of the negotiated rate.)

Thanks for that clarification -- it's obviously yet another piece of the ticket-buying riddle if, like me, you're travelling with kids. I haven't yet asked the elongs of the world if they'll discount for kids.

Your experience is obviously useful to me, loves2. But I'm still not 100% sure I want to wait until I get to China to buy all my tickets. For instance, it is apparently possible to get a 50% discount on Beijing-Shanghai flights on the web. I haven't yet heard of anyone doing better than that in person. I'd also note that you had to visit 3 travel agents in Guilin before you were able to get a good discount. That's kind of what I'd like to avoid -- if it's practical to do so. If you buy on the scene, the first agent might be good, but maybe it will take 5 agents -- or no one will have a good discount. While I have no doubt that ticket buying could be an interesting "experience," all things being equal, I'd rather spend the time on vacation doing something else.

What I usually do is to give them my foreign credit card number to ensure the payment and then pay cash on picking up the ticket. They can't accept foreign CC as payment, but they can as security deposit. The card will not be charged.
But I wouldn't be able to tell if they would accept this if someone calls from abroad and speaks english. I even only came to know this week, that their English Website can book domestic flights. That has not been possible before.

iahphx:

the situation is really strange regarding the credit cards !
if ctrip and elong messes around with you, go on www.yoee.com, they have basically the same prices and I have successfully used foreign credit cards on that site as well, never a problem. (apart from the fact that sometimes the cc input pages only show up in chinese and you will have to guess haha)
when it comes to preferences, I usually go with China Southern or Hainan.

Ctrip responded to my email, saying that I could NOT use my foreign credit card on their website, but that I could call them, use the credit card as a guarantee, and then pay cash for the airline tickets in China.

Sure looks like it's difficult to get a definitive answer on this one!

After examining the situation, I have decided NOT to try to make a direct connection to an inbound or outbound int'l flight in Beijing. It just looks too risky to time it (and my US carrier also said they have no obligation to help me if I missed my "legal connection"). So I will have at least a day or two in Beijing to pick up whatever domestic tickets I need.

The question remains whether to book any tickets BEFORE arriving in China. From what I know so far, I'm inclined to do so. It would seem that if I can get a 50% or better discount "in advance" on a flight I want to take I should book it, on the theory that I won't do better at a "local" travel agent. Does that seem like a reasonable strategy?

For instance, there are some Beijing-Shanghai flights as low as 450 yuan on the websites. Is there any realistic chance of doing better than that?

Also, I've noticed that the Shanghai-Xian airfares tend to have very small discounts (like 10 or 20%), even if you book 2 weeks out. I see a couple of flights 2 months out with a 60% discount. Would it be wise to snag such a fare?

And if I "guarantee" a fare with ctrip in advance, once I get to Beijing, if I find a lower fare, can I walk away from my "guarantee"?

Finally, I have to ask the website operators about additional children's discounts. Has anyone been able to snag such a reduction with an online operator?

Thanks for the help.

Your theory presumes that fares are more likely to move up than down during those final two weeks. IME it is more of a random walk situation.


PEK-SHA is always cheap. 450 is a pretty good fare, but not abnormally low.

The only way to guarantee a fare is to complete a transaction.... and once you buy a ticket, you own it. Incidentally, I can't imagine ctrip or any other agent will guarantee anything without taking your money.



BTW, thanks for the kind words. In the event this forum ever needs moderated, I'd be happy to accept the challenge. However, to date, we have usually been pretty good about staying on topic and being well behaved.

I'm trying to go from Beijing to Shenzhen on the morning of April 12th... I land into Beijing at 10pm on April 11th... do you think I'll be able to just show up at the airport and buy my flight? Any idea how much I should expect to pay? On C-trip it looks like there are discounted flights as low as 800rmb, but when I try to book it says the flights are full.

I don't have a hotel in Beijing - i want to stay near the airport that first night, and am looking for the cheapest possible option... any ideas?
Thanks

Buying tickets at the time of the flight is like a gamble. They may be at full rates (1750) or even more discounted than ever. Depending on the booking situation of that flight. Ctrip is a good option. But you better call them. Right now they show a Shenzhen Airlines flight at 8:40 for 700 RMB. The next one at that price is 12:10
China Southern and Air China is 880. It can't be that they are all full.

This is a great thread.

We're hoping to fly PEK-HKG-SHA (we are arriving in China in PEK and leaving China from SHA, so that's why we need a rather odd route instead of just going PEK-SHA-HKG) and it looks like prices for the PEK-HKG segments are ~US$370/$490/$580 for Y/J/F and that HKG-SHA are about $150 less across the board. Are these flights also available for less if purchased in PEK?

Someone mentioned flying to/from Shenzhen if you want to get from PEK/SHA to Hong Kong and taking a 45 minute ferry to get to HKG. There will be 4 of us, and if going this route saves ~US$300/person, then it's well worth considering if it's relatively easy to do. I looked at the TurboJet website and the ferry runs pretty often (and it would certainly be easy to pick flights that match up well with the ferry schedule). How long should we budget to get from Kowloon to the Shenzhen airport? Is this method pretty easy?

Thanks.

Special fares and packages to HK are common, but unlike intra-China fares, most require RT travel (i.e. no open jaw). For example, PEK-HKG return is y1760 right now:

http://www.ctrip.com/supermarket/Fli....asp?dcity=bjs

Plus, Dragon Air has a some nice ongoing promos that let you fly from PEK or SHA to HKG for 2388 (iirc), including two or three nights at a nice hotel, based on double occupancy. But, again, I think open jaws are tough to work (though it would be worth calling).

Given all that, you might want to buy PEK-PVG oneway and a separate PVG-HKG rt.

And, of course you could always do the Shenzhen shuffle (whole process takes around 1.5 hours), but flying into HKG is so much nicer that it warrants a premium over Shenzhen (maybe $50 per person) IMO.