I would not assume that, but I would certainly adopt the "wait and see," approach.

Thank you, moondog. I will wait and follow the action.

Is it likely that a late afternoon/early evening flight on a Saturday to BJS from XIY will come down in price?

Also, from reading the forum, it appears that on arrival at the airport, I need to go to an 'exchange desk' and show them my eticket receipt, and they will give me a 'piece of paper' to take to the check in counter?
If so, where is the 'exchange desk' and how do I identify it? Is there a separate exchange desk for each airline? Right now it appears that China Eastern has the earliest flight out and the latest flight back, so the odds are good we will be on it.
Thanks
Ed

Assuming you end up getting an eticket, you'd want to go to your airline's eticket desk; these are fairly easy to identify. Then you'd proceed to check-in. China Eastern is probably the easiest carrier to use in this respect because its eticket desk is right next to its check-in counters (Area Q, iirc), which are at the front of the terminal near the street. Air China isn't quite as straight-forward, but I have confidence that you could navigate their protocols as well.

If you wind up ordering paper tickets, they will be held at a separate will call desk or at your travel agent's counter (ctrip, elong, and yoee all have counters at PEK tmk). Incidentally, if trying to pay with your credit card drives you crazy, you can always order tickets over the phone and pay upon pick-up.

Based on a quick glance at fares for this Friday, I'd say that odds are fares will drop a bit between now and then, but your guess is as good as mine.

Oh, in the absence of amazing fares, I would wait til you get to Xi'an to buy your tickets back.

Elong all the way...
 

I'm based in Guangzhou and do a minimum of 4 domestic flights a week and use my US-based credit card entirely on Elong.com to book tickets.

Mind you im very suprised that other users find the same rate on Ctrip or other sites for flights and hotels. In my experience, Elong always has better rates.

Also customer service at Elong is far far superior to that of Ctrip. I originally used to use Ctrip but then they burned me over a date change in domestic F on Air China. I had to depart a day earlier than planned and being a full fare F ticket i called up Ctrip and asked them to change the date of the reservation accordingly and they said it was no problem and to go to the Ctrip desk upon reaching the airport to get it changed. Well the Ctrip lady had no clue and insisted that i had to buy a new ticket, went to Air China who also had no clue and said that the agent must change the ticket for me. Long story short, the Elong desk was right next to Ctrip and they man there came over and took control of the situation by taking me to the Air China duty manager and changing my reservation. Been loyal to Elong ever since and they haven't failed me yet....

I just tried booking an E-ticket on Air China from PVG-XIY from Elong, but when I go to pay, they force me to pay for the ticket on delivery with no option to pay via a US-based credit card. When I picked the flights from the first screen, I chose E-ticket, but when I went to pay, there is only a deliver option. Has anyone else ever bought e-tickets successfully using a US credit card on elong?

I have been looking at C-trip before running into this post, and although I didn't complete the transaction, it seemed they let me purchase with a US credit card, but they seem to have the price wrong since they didn't account for the new fuel surcharges as of 9/1/06 which have me a little worried about ctrip's credibility. Also, I've read people don't trust giving ctrip their credit card numbers.

Thanks in advance for any help

Well, it looks like Ctrip only takes Chinese credit cards. I thought I did read that somewhere. Anyway, does anyone else have successful stories booking intr-china tickets on elong.com with a US credit card?

just call ctrip and tell them you will pay for the ticket when you arrive in shanghai. they will issue the ticket for you and hold it at their counter so you can pay with cash or credit card.

Thanks for the advice. However, where is the ctrip-counter in Pudong? In their online page before purchasing, there is an option for pickup, but they list it as in the Arrivals hall between gates 6 & 7? What are these gates? I was planning on arriving in Shanghai, and picking those tickets up before heading to the city.

I'm am guessing they meant "doors" 6 & 7, but I am not sure because I have never used their ticket window there. Why not just call them and ask them?

Ctrip counter is located at between gates 6 & 7 in PVG airport lounge, if you need to pick up the ticket at PVG, cash is not acceptable, you have to pay by China based creidt card. There is remarkable sign of gate #, easy to find.

Add: if you pick up the ticket any place in down town, cash is available.

Pek - Pvg
 

Hi y'all...

I am traveling to PEK on 9/13 and I needed to get to PVG on 9/16. I used a Chinese discounter to book my one-way ticket, and I was able to use a US credit card to do so. The discounter I used was ticket.9588.com. I was able to book the same flight as my colleagues, for about $50 less than what they got thru Expedia.

When I originally got my confirmation e-mail, it didn't have any info listed on it...so I sent an e-mail to [email protected], asking for a complete copy of my confirmation --- which I promptly received. ^

Great Site!
 

Thanks for the pointer. I just booked my PVG-XIY trip through them and they take US credit cards! (with a 5% fee) I also asked them to email me the receipt and the itinerary as I'm a little nervous about E-tickets for domestic Chinese flights. I'm thinking I'll need that receipt to be able to go to the checkin line for my flight.

Used Yoee.com to buy two tickets on MU PEK-XIY-PEK, out this Friday AM, back on Saturday PM. Outbound the discount from coach (1050Y) was 45% and 55% on the return (This was substantially better than what CTrip was offering, for the same flights). Still waiting for a confirmation email, but will go to the MU eticket counter on arrival in PEK Wednesday to make sure everything is OK. The website is a little 'funky'.

Well, the eticket system works, sort of. We arrived at PEK at 525 AM a fe minutes ago after a 25 minute cab ride from the St. Regis. On arrival at the China Eastern Check in couter, there were two eticket machines, with a big "Wellcome, please insert you passport" on them in English. Unfortunately, both werre broken and we were directed to the regualry check in lines. To my surprise, the guy handling it found the reservation and quickly printed boarding passses. I will say that we passed the Air China check in counters where there were 3 working eticket machines and a live personn next to each.

We have made it as far as the Priority Pass Air China lounge, which is not bad. I am about to try the pumpkin congeee

my walk-up experience yesterday
 

The following isn't really newsworthy, but I am posting just to underscore the point that walk-ups are doable.

I was hanging out with two of my colleagues in Xidan today, while one was seriously contemplating forking over y900,000 for a special telephone number (we can start a new thread about that, if you like) when I got a call to get to SH asap for a 9p meeting.

I asked Mr. Hu (who we had already hired for the day) to take me to the airport, but he took me to the Xidan airport bus stop instead because he had a more imporant engagement at 6.

Anyway, I boared a 5:10 bus and made it to the airport at 5:46, in spite of ugly traffic on the second ring.

I called ctrip when I was on the bus, but they offered no love. However, they did point me towards Shanghai Airlines, which had a 6:30 flight.

I then bought a qi-zhe ticket (30% discount) for a whopping y940, checked in, and got on the plane. Amazingly, it was on time on all fronts, in spite of the double bus gate scenario.

The taxi line at Hongqiao was fierce so I did the McDonlad's trick and made it out of there in a matter of minutes. What's more, I got to the restaurant before everyone else (8:50).

The moral to this tale is that there's no point obsessing about booking weeks in advance because you can stilll get there. While it's true that I probably paid too much for my ticket, all was well in the end. I spent an extra $40 to take a flight that was actually on time (I asked before handing over my money). To me, that was money well spent since the alternative would have been sitting around the airport for 3 hours to fly to PVG.