Hello,

I wanted to know what you guys believe is the best method for booking international travel. A friend of mine says he'll go travel agency office after travel agency office bartering with each until he gets a price he feels is reasonable. Another friend says he uses the internet. e.g. www.ctrip.com, www.elong.com. Lastly, a friend's parents (who love to travel) suggested I just get referenced to a reliable travel agent (they offered their agent, but they have a larger budget than I and often go on rather pricey, extensive(+2 week trips). I wanted to know what you all believe is the best method. I like to have a vacation planned 1-1.5 months in advance, but I am also interested in last minute specials (or any great specials/deals for that matter) that are too good to pass up. I am a student who is going to be in Shanghai for 6 months and hope to see a lot of Asia at a budget-friendly price (I do not need 3-5 star hotels/tours of the city, just airfare and a respectable hotel to stay in for a few (2-4) nights). If anybody knows of some good, reliable travel agencies and their contact information, I would appreciate it!

Thank you,

Nick

Can you tell me have you found the travel agency?If you want to book hotels in china, I can give you some information.

hi,
I think if you want to buy the airplane ticket.you just call the airplane company directly.If you through ctrip or elong,they are still much more expensive than the original price because of the agent fee.About the hotel,I think you can choose the chain hotels (http://www.shibohotel.cn/lianmen.asp?hotelid=3).They are cheaper and clean.If you book on internet earlier ,you will get cheaper price.

Shanghai is an amazing city.you will have fun here.

I imagine it depends on where you're going and what sort of trip/vaca you envision. We've used a travel agent for some trips (e.g. when parents came to China) and booked others ourselves.

I stumpled across www.hoteltravel.com and like what I see so far, but haven't tried it yet, one more option for you. Maybe someone here can offer an opinion on it.

shuyu289 wrote:hi,
I think if you want to buy the airplane ticket.you just call the airplane company directly.If you through ctrip or elong,they are still much more expensive than the original price because of the agent fee.About the hotel,I think you can choose the chain hotels (http://www.shibohotel.cn/lianmen.asp?hotelid=3).They are cheaper and clean.If you book on internet earlier ,you will get cheaper price.

Shanghai is an amazing city.you will have fun here.

Not true. ctrip and elong ticket prices are not more expensive than the airlines. It is not as simple as airline price+commission=agent price. Agents get deep discounts, and furthermore in most cases air ticket prices are issued by a centralized office, not by each airline individually.

Cylon wrote:

shuyu289 wrote:hi,
I think if you want to buy the airplane ticket.you just call the airplane company directly.If you through ctrip or elong,they are still much more expensive than the original price because of the agent fee.About the hotel,I think you can choose the chain hotels (http://www.shibohotel.cn/lianmen.asp?hotelid=3).They are cheaper and clean.If you book on internet earlier ,you will get cheaper price.

Shanghai is an amazing city.you will have fun here.

Not true. ctrip and elong ticket prices are not more expensive than the airlines. It is not as simple as airline price+commission=agent price. Agents get deep discounts, and furthermore in most cases air ticket prices are issued by a centralized office, not by each airline individually.

maybe you are right. But last time i bought a ticket for a trip.I asked many agencies. the ctrip is 500yuan more expensive than Xunge365.But The Xunge is also 600yuan more expensive than the shanghai airline.That is my true experience.I just give some suggestions.

Local I use Ctrip
Fir international Ctrip sucks, now I bought great ticket to USA at Expedia.com

I use Ctrip for domestic travel and they are usually discounted verses the airlines.
For international travel I use two travel agencies.
elitetor@sh163.net
Christine@classictravel.net.cn
In order of preference.

shuyu289 wrote:maybe you are right. But last time i bought a ticket for a trip.I asked many agencies. the ctrip is 500yuan more expensive than Xunge365.But The Xunge is also 600yuan more expensive than the shanghai airline.That is my true experience.I just give some suggestions.

The ticket was for international or domestic flight?

Cylon wrote:

shuyu289 wrote:maybe you are right. But last time i bought a ticket for a trip.I asked many agencies. the ctrip is 500yuan more expensive than Xunge365.But The Xunge is also 600yuan more expensive than the shanghai airline.That is my true experience.I just give some suggestions.

The ticket was for international or domestic flight?

International.

ok, for international ctrip and elong are expensive indeed. But if you search well you can find travel agents who can give you better prices than the airlines.

Thanks for all the quick replies everyone!

I have yet to find a travel agency, but is it easy to find an office in Shanghai? It looks as though everyone has varying opinions on how to book local/international travel, thus I guess I will have to see which works best for me (and hopefully be able to pass on advice myself!)

Thank you,

Nick

Easy!!!!

Just give Helen Gong a call at Crescent Travel on 6272 7199 or 1350 1932 456 or email her at helengong2008@gmail.com.

I used to email about ten agents to see what deal I could get and she always came back with the best. Mind you, she was always the last to reply but definitely the best!!

I use her for domestic and international and have referred her to others who have been happy.

Adrienne
http://www.shanghaiprops.com

Thanks Adrienne!

I will be sure to give her a call!

nrkr - i'm also a student who will be studying in SH for 6 months. where are you staying?

btw, you may want to check out www.bt-store.com, i found round-trip tickets from US-China for $760. not sure how good it is for domestic flights though...

hAllo !

(\__/)
(=’.'=)
E[:]|||||[:]З
(”)_(”)

Kind of a stupid question, but does elong.com issue standard e-tickets like in the US? Book it, get an email, print it out (or not), show up to airport with passport, swipe it, and you pop up on the screen and get checked-in? For reference this would be a China Eastern flight to HK.

For international flights with US based airlines it is wise to check directly with the airlines as more and more of the US airlines gurantee to have the lowest price for online purchases.

Furthermore, you need to ask them about any vacation packages or airfare/hotel combinations at your destinations even if you plan to throw away the hotel voucher and stay with friends or family. The reason for this, as crazy as it sounds is that airlines are now offering package deals that are less than the price of the flight alone. So if you just buy the flight, it will cost you more than buying their package.

This is just another tool to put in your arsenal of how to possible save additional money on an international flight.

Stay away from all those internet sites. I use a local travel agent for the past 8 years, always get advice on the best deals. No web site can do that for you.

Andreas wrote:Stay away from all those internet sites. I use a local travel agent for the past 8 years, always get advice on the best deals. No web site can do that for you.

Sorry I don't agree. I book all of my flights directly with United Airlines and taking the total I paid them last year divided by the number of trips averaged just over $1200 per round trip between Shanghai and the US East coast in Business Class. This year I expect that average to go up a couple of hundred $. Show me a travel agent anywhere in the world that can beat that with legal tickets and I will switch immediately.

I am using Helen Gong, same travel agent that Adrienne recommended. Never got a better deal. She uses the so called 'green book'. Contains deals that the airlines are not supposed to, and never will give you directly. Recently flew to Joburg via HK round trip for RMB 5,500. And not with some crappy local airline but with Cathay.

International...sidestep.com looks at all agencies

For local domestic travel try http://www.kuxun.cn/ - a web platform that grabs the cheapest local tix prices. Downside is it is all Chinese and booking requires a few more clicks than you would expect.
For HK / Macau try 51088518 (For info they have 800rmb + tax for SH-HK wkend plane tix for Feb/Mar). I think only available in Chinese.

Renovator wrote:I book all of my flights directly with United Airlines and taking the total I paid them last year divided by the number of trips averaged just over $1200 per round trip between Shanghai and the US East coast in Business Class.

can u give us more details?

for instance, i'm going to vegas in may (PVG->LAS). united airlines nor any other airline is offering business class tix for anywhere near $1,200. and vegas isnt even on the east coast. even for a one-way tix u cant get it for $1,200, never mind a round-trip.

thus, inquiring minds wanna know! please share your secret.

8lrr8 wrote:

Renovator wrote:I book all of my flights directly with United Airlines and taking the total I paid them last year divided by the number of trips averaged just over $1200 per round trip between Shanghai and the US East coast in Business Class.

can u give us more details?

for instance, i'm going to vegas in may (PVG->LAS). united airlines nor any other airline is offering business class tix for anywhere near $1,200. and vegas isnt even on the east coast. even for a one-way tix u cant get it for $1,200, never mind a round-trip.

thus, inquiring minds wanna know! please share your secret.

Every 4 weeks I go to China for 2 weeks and I buy my tickets directly from UA using a UA branded visa card. That card gives me double miles on the purchase price of any of their tickets. Then I purchase coach round trip tickets and upgrade them to business class with miles which uses 30,000 miles each way from my mileage account. These are purchased a few months in advance to make sure that I can get the upgrade.

For each round trip ticket purchased directly through UA, they give me double bonus miles and sometimes even a promotional triple miles. The trip is about 16,000 miles round trip so I will get at least 16,000 bonus miles each time I fly, a minimun of 32,000 posted to my mileage acount between the trip miles plus the bonus miles. A full award ticket is 60,000 miles in coach, 90,000 miles in Business and 120,000 miles in first class. This means that every 2 paid trips, they give me sufficient miles for an award round trip in coach, or every 3 trips an award ticket in Business or every 4 trips an award ticket in First Class.

Award tickets in Business class have been hard to come by since the upgrade to lie down seats so I took an award ticket in First class this trip as I never fly coach.

UA gives you 6 free 1 class systemwide upgrades when you fly over 100,000 paid miles per year with them and 8 free one class upgrades when you fly over 150,000 paid miles per year with them. By using these systemwide upgrades, my mileage account quickly grows to over 1 million miles as I am not consuming upgrade miles for those trips. That is why I can alternate between First Class and Business class on an award ticket when Business class award tickets are hard to get. There are some restrictions such as not flying on a weekend on a paid ticket and need to be flexible by 1-2 days on travel dates to make sure an upgrade is available.

If your mind still inquires, I can spend another paragraph or 2 going through the mechanics of the $ and how all this works out to about $1200 per trip in business/first class.

It is only possible to get all of these perks by dealing directly with UA. Some of these perks are available some of the time through agents, and agents have other perks available as well but in the long run, I can not beat going directly to UA for my tickets. UA also guarantees that I will always get their lowest fare.

They set the rules, I just use the perks they offer.

^ it appears u're able to get the (avg) price per business class tix down to ~$1,200 due your extensive traveling schedule. unf. not everyone can travel as often as u can and hence get the same prices as u do.

8lrr8 wrote:^ it appears u're able to get the (avg) price per business class tix down to ~$1,200 due your extensive traveling schedule. unf. not everyone can travel as often as u can and hence get the same prices as u do.

There are other ways to get cheaper tickets if that is important for you such as using a credit card that gets you miles based on the amount you spend.

You are right though that in my case it is mostly based on the number of flights and the distance I fly on each trip coupled with loyalty to one airline and/or its partners. Also need to give up a little flexibility by purchasing multiple tickets in advance and not always able to travel on the exact date I want. Works for me.

Most US airlines guarrantee their own website prices is as low as any.
Expedia , Travelocity adds another 5 USD handling fee.

It is pretty tough to find lower prices online. Some agents can "book" you into tour group slots and beat these prices.

This is NOT true for most other airlines, their own websites or phone order prices can be beaten by online travel booking sites or travel agents.