I am hoping to book a nonstop flight from Beijing to Lijiang. None such flight comes up on ctrip, elong, et al, but I read about it in an article online - it is a morning flight on Deer Air and the article mentions Beijing Good Friend Travel Agency. Does anyone know how I can purchase a ticket once in Beijing - can any agency sell it or do I have to go somewhere in particular? Thanks!

Through a bit of creative Googling, I was able to find the travel agency's web site:

http://www.cnctrip.com/service/agenc...es.asp?id=2929

Assuming the flights are still on offer (questionable since summer is over), since they are technically charters, I think that travel agency may well be the only booking channel.

The morning MU flight isn't a horrible option though because it only spends 45 minutes in Kunming. On the other hand, I've never once seen it discounted. If you don't mind the hassels associated with connecting (i.e. you'll likely have to check-in a second time), you should be able to knock up to 40% off the fare.

For example:

direct flight
PEK-LIJ: 2410 + 130 = 2540 ($339)

mannually constructed connection
PEK-KMG: 910+130
KMG-LIJ: 410+100
=1550 ($207)


That's a 39% price difference. However, it's worth noting that I picked the two cheapest flights on a random day in order to pull off the connection case. If you want a nice connection, you'll probably have to pay an extra 100 or so for each segment, but that's still $100 cheaper than the direct flight.

Poletene_Pam, there are two daily flights between Beijing and Lijiang. One is operated by China Eastern (this one has a short stopover in Kunming, but they use the same flight number for the entire Beijing-Kunming-Lijiang journey), the other one is operated by Hainan Airlines' sub-company Deer Air (used to be an all-business jet company called Deer Jet, but also operate scheduled passenger flights now).

Full timetable is available at http://www.feeyo.com/flight_en_resul...rg=pek&dst=ljg. Full Economy Class fare is 2410 yuan (excluding taxes and levies), it is very rare to get any discount on these flights.

For the China Eastern flight, you can normally book at any TA, good online ticket portals or China Eastern's sales or booking office. As for the Deer Air flight, my understanding is that only limited TAs (under some sort of approval by Hainan Airlines) and some Hainan Airlines sales or booking office can actually make bookings on their flights.

Also sometimes seats are booked out several months in advance for Beijing-Lijiang flights, so don't be surprised if you cannot get any of the dates you prefer.

Hopefully this helps.

How strange, I could have sworn I responded earlier, oh well maybe I hit preview but not submit? In any case, thanks to both of you for the advice. I suppose I'll go for the Kunming stopover and buy both legs separately - I checked prices online and given my desired times I will in fact save a bit. I wasn't able to read the agency's website, wo bu hui shuo putonghua (sadly one of the few phrases i know!) but thanks

Another option instead of looking for direct flights or short layovers, is to stopover somewhere in-between, and just make the stopover city part of your vacation travel. For example, a couple of years ago, I did PEK to Chengdu on CAAC, and then bought a ticket for Chengdu nonstop to Lijiang from a TA. Flexible travel and and a few days in Chengdu made it possible for me to get a discount on Yunnan Airlines' full-fare price from Chengdu to Lijiang.

I'm not saying Chengdu is as nice as Lijiang, but maybe it or another city would be a good stopover option.

This morning, I spent ten minutes on the phone (first call was to the travel agency referenced above, then Hainan Airlines, then 4 more numbers) toward the end of solving the mystery at hand; here's the scoop:

8441 3156; they can definitely sell tickets on Deer Air to Lijiang. Moreover, the lady that answered the phone told me that 40% discounts are available most days. That's 1410 + 130, which is really quite reasonable; plus the nonstop is two hours faster than the MU direct flight.

But do you want to fly with anything associated with Hainan Airways?

To save 2+ hours and the reduce the possibility of something going awry by 50%? Absolutely!

Furthermore, during my conversation with the HU lady this morning, I got the feeling that the two companies have very little to do with one another (aside from the fact that both are part of the HNA Group.... along with 100s of other business units).

Bowgie - good advice re strategically stopping over. I did try to structure my itinerary that way, agonized over logistics actually, but it didn't work out for this flight given my limited timeframe. But great idea for future reference!

Moondog... you ROCK!

What's wrong with Hainan Air? I thought they were considered one of the better ones.

-uncomfortable planes (many of which are single class and densely packed)
-unreliable schedules (relative to their competitors, even; I've always felt this was the main reason that people are so keen to avoid them)
-really bad ground services
-inconsistent onboard service (not a big deal for me)