round-trip from china to usa

[L-F-J]

hi everyone,

for those of you who live in china and have gone home for the holidays... or others who may know.. i'd like to ask what the best and least expensive company to use might be. western ones like orbits, priceline, etc. are on the steep end, i think. are there any legit chinese ones that might be cheaper?

any that you have used and would recommend?

thanks!

[Brian US]

Prices are very steep right now, so I don't think there is anyway around it. A family friend is a pilot and helps me with standby tickets. She found that for the last two weeks all of the flights have been overbooked by at least 10%. She said she has never seen it like this and I couldn't get a flight until February 2nd.

Depending on what city you need to go, I don't think Chinese carriers would take you far. Your best bet is probably going with the websites you already use and play around with the dates. Making stops in Korea/Japan or West/East coast of US wouldn't hurt.

*Just quickly pulled a flight out of Orbitz leaving January 26th and coming back February 25th for $1,063 + $95 taxes & fees = $1,158 USD per person. I am pretty sure you want to avoid weekends and Chinese New Year for cheapest tickets. The flight goes from Beijing to Shanghai and then to Chicago. Coming back you go to LA and then to Beijing.

I didn't play around with dates, but seems you already tried the site.

Edited January 24, 2010 at 05:45 AM by Brian US

[skylee]

I've used ctrip a few times and it was quite good - price reasonable, reliable and responsive to complaint.

You could also try zuji. It is reliable, though the prices are not always the best prices.

But for air tickets you always have to shop around. In fact my experience is that it is vey often cheaper to buy tickets direct on the airlines' websites. Also, different websites of the same airlines may offer different prices. A few months ago I needed an Alitalia ticket and it was cheaper on Alitalia's USA site than on its Italy site. Sorry if I've gone off the topic.

[Prodigal Son]

Did you buy international tickets on ctrip.com? I'd be interested to hear how that went - I was under the impression that they only booked domestic tickets on their site.

[Gibbs]

try www.kayak.com I got a ticket from the east coast of US to LA to Beijing for under $600USD

[Brian US]

try www.kayak.com I got a ticket from the east coast of US to LA to Beijing for under $600USD

Is that a one way ticket or round trip? I would be shocked if round trip was that cheap, but I did find that site helpful. I just selected the days I plan to travel and the price was just over $900 for round trip with fees.

[jbradfor]

For finding fares, I recommend ITA (login as guest if asked). I've found it has the most complete flight information and accurate fares. Part of the interface is a bit kludgy (e.g. entering the date), part is sheer brilliance (e.g. the graphical view). However, they do not actually sell tickets there, you need to go somewhere else for that (e.g. the airline's website), but it's great for finding which flight you want.

[zhxlier]

If you fly from China to US, use a Chinese agent. If you fly from US to China, use a US based agent. Unless domestic travel, travel agents have better prices on international flights. Travelsuperlink.com and iFlyChina.net has lists of agents. I'm not affiliated with them.