Anyone with experience from YOEE.com or Chinese E-tickets
 

I have made some reservations for domestic air tickets on http://www.english.yoee.com

They have charged my credit card but I have not yet recieved any E-tickets by email.

When I emailed them about this they said that I don't need any printable E-ticket and that I only have to show my passport at the airport check in.

Is this true? Does anyone have similar experiences when making reservations through yoee.com?

I have used them in the past and this is what I can recall. You do not receive your e-tickets over email, it is just in the system and you go to the e-ticket desk for the airline you are flying at the airport with your passport. I would suggest printing out a copy of your itinerary from their "my trips" section of the website, and having this with you. As long as your ticket is listed as "issued" you are okay. I also felt the process was a bit confusing at first but it worked just fine.

AandT is right on the money. I recently used Yoee.com to buy tickets for my May china trip on five different flights and it worked beautifully. Just print out a copy of the itinerary from My Trips and then when you get to the airport go to that airlines e-ticket desk and collect your ticket, and then head over to the regular ticketing desk. its not really an e-ticket the way we consider it in the U.S., but still better than having to pay extra for the paper ticket to be shipped to you from China!

how does the pricing on yoee compare to buying from a TA in china?

It has been my experience that everyone seems to have the same prices in China. TA's, online agents, airline booking counters, etc. There seems to be an amount of seats for each discount level of fare and everyone has acces to it. Once the discount is gone from one site or location it is gone from the others too. I have tried checking several different sources before and always have been given the same price. This is despite the fact that here in China there are always people on the street handing out cards with different booking agents numbers and advertising great discount rates. When calling them though they never seem to have a better discount than everyone else. This has been my experience, so I suggest just booking tickets online.

This has been my experience ~80% of the time. In the remaining ~20%, prices vary by channel. A good example of this is HU between SHA and PEK. HU's flights tend to be the least popular due to a variety of reasons, but their fares often match the rest of the field. However, if you walk into one of their ticket offices, you might find yourself pleasently surprised. Also, in the past, local agents have had access to more inventory than agents in other cities; this is less often the case these days.

Hi - I have a few more questions about booking domestic flights in China that I was hoping someone could answer.

1) Which of ctrip, elong, and yoee (and any other sites that ppl can suggest) allow booking intrachina flights using credit cards from the US? From past threads, I'm pretty sure yoee does, but am not sure if the other 2 do and if any of them have an additional surcharge for using international credit cards

2) Out of the above sites that allow international credit cards, does anyone recommend one over the other or does it not really matter? I've found that they all have similar fares

3) It appears that most of the tickets I'm looking to purchase have a 5% of the fare cancellation fee. I'm planning to purchase discounted tickets and if the fare goes down even more, cancel the ticket and repurchase it - does anyone see anything wrong with this? Is it easy to cancel?

4) Has anyone seen discounted Xian->Guiyang tickets? I haven't found any discounts for any date so I plan on just purchasing them now

yoee & elong; both charge 5% for that service. ime elong is deceptive and consitently charges more than other agents.

i've been pretty impressed with yoee, but you should able to shave at least 1% off by dealing with a local ta that accepts credit cards (and can put a ticket in your hand within 5 minutes).

don't waste your time

no clue, but i see no reason to purchase now. if you are still so inclined, at least attempt to purchase on the airline sites themselves. if they do take your credit card, they'll be less likely to nail you for the 5% (unlike hole in the wall travel agents, air china is a little more inclined to play by visa's rules).

Moondog answered your questions pretty well, but I will add in my two cents as well...


I have used yoee. I tried to use elong when I was in the states a few months ago and they said they could not take my credit card online. I think they could have done it if I faxed my card to them but I did not have fax access at the time. Yoee is all online, and I believe ctrip just set it up for all online purchase as well. There is a surcharge, that is charged by the payment service used. Yoee had 2 or 3 options you could choose for services. The one I choose, the Agriculture Bank, had a 4% charge. The other option was 5%.


They have all the same fares as far as I can tell. I personally have used Yoee several times and been happy with them. I have not tried the others so I can not really say. I have used elong from within China, paying cash on delivery, so I can not say on their e-ticket service from overseas.

I agree with moondog- don't bother. It is probably more hassle than it is worth. That being said, it may be possible to do, but there is no telling just to what degree of hassle involved.

If there is no discount there is no harm in waiting. In cases like this where there is only one airline serving the route it is much harder to get a discount. With limited flights though you may want to purchase, if you are worried about the flight selling out. Usually on these one airline routes they do not even offer discounts at the last minute. That has been my experience anyways.

I'll have 1 week to visit Shanghai and Beijing Nov 12-19. From Shanghai, I'll take the night train to Beijing for a couple of days then fly back to Shanghai to take a flight to Saigon.
Should I buy the one-way ticket PEK-PVG in advance from the US or should I wait until I get there and buy it when I arrive in Shanghai? Any idea how much is the one-way fare PEK-PVG?
Thank you!

i suggest you buy it in beijing. full fare is y1140; discount fares run all the way down to y300 or so; a y50 tax and y60 fuel surcharge gets added on to all tickets. as long as i'm talking numbers, a top birth on the train costs y478 and a bottom birth costs y499. there are also deluxe soft sleepers available that cost more, but i've never bought one on that route so i'm not sure about the pricing.

moondog,
My flight will arrive PVG at 7:30pm. Is it possible to buy the PEK-PVG ticket at the Shanghai airport? Do you know what time the ticket counter will be close? Hope Air China will still have discount tickets available at that time.

sure, you could do that, but i think you should wait until you get to beijing because buying tix is as easy as: 1) making a phone call and leaving cash with your concierge; or 2) walking into any travel agency.

although less and less true, agents at the origin city often have access to more discounted inventory than agents in other cities. in china, discounts seem to bottom out at around the 3 day window (there are exceptions to this rule, of course).

also, have you considered flying directly from pek to sgn. i know there are flights, and i would guess that the cost is no more than $250. so, once you back out the cost of your pek-sha leg, you're looking at a ~$150 penalty for ditching your pvg-sgn ticket, assuming you can't refund/change it.

Thanks moondog! I'll arrive Beijing (night Z train from Shanghai) in the morning of Nov 16. I'll have to fly back to PVG in the evening of Nov 18 to take the midnight flight PVG-SGN (via SIN). I'll stay at Holiday Inn Downtown Beijing (is it a good location?), so I'll ask the concierge to book the air ticket for me. It's not too late to get the ticket at that time, right?

I need a couple of tickets BJS-XIY on 9/1 and back on 9/2. When I look at ctrip, I already see several discounted prices below the list of 1050 OW, some as low 830. When I look at yoee, all I see is the 1050 list price. When as we get closer (when I will buy) is it reasonable to assume that the discounted prices that yoee and ctrip have will be about the same?