Flights to China

[Liebkuchen]

Recently went to travel agent to check prices of a changable ticket for an August departure. From Scotland. Was quoted about £650 to Beijing via Emirates. Would be over £1000 to Chengdu :blink:

Is there any way to get a better deal? For luggage/sanity reasons I really don't want to have to get to London overland. Can anyone recommend a cheaper airline that will get me there in one piece? Or a good Chinese specialist travel agency in the UK?

The above quote might be the straw that breaks the Chengdu dream...Am already reconsidering Jinan as its only a cheap train journey from Beijing.

Should add that I've never booked anything other than an online set date flight so this is all new to me. Apologies if I'm missing something obvious.

[abcdefg]

Recently went to travel agent to check prices of a changable ticket for an August departure...Is there any way to get a better deal?

Try pricing some with fixed dates that only allow changes with a penalty. Fully flexible tickets are always prohibitively expensive, from anywhere to anywhere.

Additional advice: Check multiple China "gateway" cities, not just Beijing. (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai for starters.)

[fanglu]

For Beijing to Chengdu buy the ticket yourself online. Try Ctrip or Elong. One way tickets seem to be available for 720rmb.

For the international flights have you looked online? For example Zuji (an Australian travel site) has Edinburgh-Beijing tickets for less than AU$800 (around £500).

In terms of flexibility, most tickets are changeable (with a penalty), just check the conditions before you buy it.

[imron]

For reference, a hard sleeper train ticket from Beijing to Chengdu is about 400-500 RMB depending on the train, which basically works out to about £40-50. Soft sleepers cost from 600-1000 RMB. Total journey time ranges from 16-31 hours (also depending on the train). See here for more info (in Chinese).

[anonymoose]

Even if you want to fly from Beijing to Chengdu, it will almost certainly be cheaper than the difference between your two quotes.

The cost of a flight can vary quite a lot from day to day, but if you are lucky, you may be able to get one for under 100 pounds.

[Liebkuchen]

Thanks guys. I'd found much cheaper set date flights on expedia where i've booked before but didn't have a clue how to find a changable ticket, or whether these were - with a supplement.

How is the train to Chendu/long distance in general with heavy luggage? I've done 6 hours by train in the uk- 11 by bus to london but i was ready to murder by then.

I'm off to follow up your leads straight away!

[lovelife]

The russian aeroflot normally gives one of the best quotes, i bought mine with them, not sure if they do scotland thou,or changeable dates for that matter.try and check how much it would cost you to get 2 one ways. can save some hassle.

[xianhua]

The russian aeroflot normally gives one of the best quotes

This in due to the fact that, in my experience, the staff are less than helpful, the times unpunctual, and the changeover in Moscow Sheremtyevo airport is akin to re-visting an airport straight from 1973 (but with 2011 prices for food).

[imron]

How is the train to Chendu/long distance in general with heavy luggage?

An adventure not necessarily for the faint of heart But if it was the difference between going to the school you wanted versus somewhere else... well, that's something I guess you'll need to decide.

[skylee]

Aeroflot is usually among the airlines that offer the cheapest tickets. I have never flown with them. Would be very interested in hearing how its service is.

Emirates is quite a good choice (if you can manage to lower the transit time to a reasonable level).

[jbradfor]

August is 4-5 months out -- does that seem a bit too early to people to start buying tickets? In the past it seems that 2-3 months out was better, but things change.

There is a fun and useful web site http://www.yapta.com/ that lets you enter flight details, and every day (or more) it will check the fare for you and email you if they are lower. It can be fun to watch, but I actually found it useful once last year on a flight to Japan, when the fares were just bouncing around like crazy.

I assume you searched a wide range of dates? There are websites that let you check an entire month at once.

My current favorite web site for finding tickets is http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ . You can not actually buy tickets from them, which on one hand is a pain, but on the other hand lets them include more airlines, even those that don't let you buy tickets except directly through them. [it's how I found out about SkyEurope two years ago, which saved us over USD 1000 two years ago.]

If you don't know about it already, this Europe-based company http://www.skyscanner.com/ also includes fares from travel agents and consolidators, which can be cheaper.

[lovelife]

Im flying at the end of august. bought a one way to shanghai with aeroflot a month ago and paid 270 pounds. just looked at the prices yesterday and same ticket was 350.

on the same note, sometimes you can get a better deal if you wait for the last minute offers!

[imron]

For example Zuji (an Australian travel site)

Huzzah for Zuji. Just bought a round-trip Melbourne-Beijing ticket for later this year for AUD$776. That's about half the price I paid for a flight at roughly the same time last year!

Granted it's Air China, which is not the best carrier, but it's a direct flight so it'll be more slightly more bearable.

[skylee]

yes, zuji is quite useful, but I have not used it for .... since 2007.

Now I usually use Mobissimo, which is useful in giving me a sense of the price range and the schedule. But in fact I usually buy directly from the airlines, which seem to be the cheapest. As far as I can remember I have bought direct from Qatar, Emirates, KLM, Virgin Atlantic, BA and Alitalia, which I found were the cheapest at the time of purchase.

[imron]

Just checked now, and the same flight is currently listed as US$950 on Mobissimo, and AUD$930 on the Air China site. Another site I've had good experience with in the past (jetabroad) has prices in the similar range. Interestingly, the Mobissimo price listed Zuji Australia as the provider

One thing I really liked about Zuji is that if you specifiy you are flexible with dates you get a nice matrix spanning a week each side for outgoing and return flights, allowing you to see which day/date has the cheapest flight for the time you are looking at (it even conveniently highlights them for you). It does have the rather annoying habit however of increasing this price by about $50 between previewing the available flights in the matrix (which it says are all-inclusive prices), and choosing to book that flight.

[skylee]

Perhaps it performs better for flights to places in Asia? I think it is quite useless for european destinations, especially for domestic flights.

[imron]

Quite possibly. I'm sure it also helps that it's an Australian site and my flight originates/returns there.