HI,

I'm travelling home to Sunny old S.A. in Febuary and need to find a travel agent to arrange my flight through. Someone suggested to me that I should fly to Shenzhen and then take a train to HOng KOng and fly from there, I'm not sure that this would save me much money, but can anyone tell me about a travel agent that arranged their flight back home - preferably a direct flight to Cape Town?

thanks a lot!

www.ctrip.com

call 800-820-6666

almost always the best prices and their english is pretty good.

you can fly via dubai or via HK. Not sure if there is a direct flight yet... any way the 2 step flights usually will be cheaper. Both Dubai and HK airports are nice enough that they serve as a break in your flight time for a coffee etc. I dont mind at all.

try to book at least 1 mth in advance for better prices, I guess even earlier if you are looking to fly during holiday periods

HI, Thanks rob, the Chinese new years don't usually have an effect on flights to S.a. but I'll be booking as soon as possible. I have a CTrip account, but I wasn't sure if they were good for international flights or not. Have you flown to South Africa from Shanghai? If so, how much did you pay for your ticket.

thanks.

oh man... I just threw those tickets away last week... decided to be more strict with what I could leave in my top desk drawer.

um... if I had to guess I think they were about 5500 rmb each, then I procrastinated for a couple of days and they went up to about 6500 rmb. *&%#$%!!!

Am sure you could do better than me.

After fishing on this site and others below is a list of agencies I put together. You can just email out the same request to everyone and see who comes back cheapest.

The popular ones given on this site tend to be the very professional made for expats agencies so I dont recommend them myself as they are more expensive. After all the research and hassle I usually end up with Ctrip anyway. Also recommend golden holidays website (https://wftc3.e-travel.com/pl/goldenhol ... l_only.htm ) to check prices online and you can also book online (which you cant do with Ctrip yet in the english section of their site, but I guess you know that already if you are a member). It is surprisingly smooth and sensible. Amazingly they also charge you what you are quoted online. The follow up after booking online is a bit painful as their english sucks and they are based in beijing... but they did try and I have used them before with success. they charge you 20rmb to courier your tickets to your door from beijing.

Heres the list:

hongye.zhu@sistravel.com.cn

mafel_wang@hotmail.com or can call me at 13818135987.

Martin.Botz@TheLastFrontiers.com.cn

Room 508, 5F Minyuan Century City
1199 Fuxing Rd
(also ground floor of Gubei Carrefour)
Tel: 021 5465 8800
Email:

Crescent Travel Agency
Suite 1010, Shen Shi Mansion
511 Wei Hai Road
62727199 / 62728633 or call Helen Gong on 135 0193 2456
email: crestrip@sh163.net

Shanghai Golden Swallow Aviation Service Company
jinyanaviation@hotmail.com
Contact: MS. Stella Song
Phone: 62492683, 62492686

emma@fnetravel.com

luxury@classictravel.net.cn

https://wftc3.e-travel.com/pl/goldenhol ... l_only.htm
(http://www.goldenholiday.com/)

topbeaty@hotmail.com

caixia2004@hotmail.com

pianozy@hotmail.com

selinazhouyl@hotmail.com

STA Travel, Shanghai
Suite 305 No.158 Han Zhong Road, Shanghai
上海市汉中路158号汉中广场3楼305室
邮编(Postal code)：200070 电话(Tel) ：+86 21 63532683 / 63532684 传真(Fax) ：+86 21 63532698
E-Mail:enquiries.sha@statravel.com.cn
周一~周五(Mondays ~Fridays)09:00am~06:00pm周六(Saturdays)10:30am~03:30pm

pixelpunter wrote:HI, Thanks rob, the Chinese new years don't usually have an effect on flights to S.a. but I'll be booking as soon as possible.

dont be to ignorant... in 3 year experience, any flight out of this country would be heavily booked. People dont go to SA but they take the same connecting flight like you, via HK, via Spore, via Dubai... wherever you name it...

pixelpunter wrote:Someone suggested to me that I should fly to Shenzhen and then take a train to HOng KOng and fly from there, I'm not sure that this would save me much money

This can work OK if you do it by ferry. Shenzhen airport is right beside Fuyong ferry terminal - a couple of minutes away on a free shuttle bus. There aren't many ferries each day but if they fit your schedule it can work out well. One of the ferries runs direct to HK airport. I've only used the service into Kowloon though. It costs something like 100 RMB.

Kiwi wrote:

pixelpunter wrote:Someone suggested to me that I should fly to Shenzhen and then take a train to HOng KOng and fly from there, I'm not sure that this would save me much money

This can work OK if you do it by ferry. Shenzhen airport is right beside Fuyong ferry terminal - a couple of minutes away on a free shuttle bus. There aren't many ferries each day but if they fit your schedule it can work out well. One of the ferries runs direct to HK airport. I've only used the service into Kowloon though. It costs something like 100 RMB.

I used to do this when flights to shenzhen were about 690 rmb but these days its rare to get discounts like that any more... so at 1200 rmb you may as well save yourself the hassle and fly direct to HK for about 1600 rmb. Or in this case since HK is not the end destination just look at flights costs from the agents. Some direct flights can work out cheaper than non direct flights.