From our experience, it is almost always cheaper to book China domestic flights
within China than outside China. So it is advised to use a local travel agent
located in China to book your China domestic flights, or at least use Chinese
flight booking websites like ctrip or elong. Do a typical search for flights
between Beijing to Shanghai using big travel sites in the U.S. like travelocity
or expedia or orbitz and compare the price with those come up using ctrip, you
will see the difference. Besides the fact that ctrip may charge fee for using
foreign credit card, it is as convenient as it can be and online payment in
China has
been improved greatly over the last several years.
If you can, use a local
travel agent to book it for you if the booking fee is reasonable. At any given
time, ticket price for any given flight will not vary too much across all
booking agents. Actually there is practically no difference with the only
difference being booking fee. The more importance factor is
timing. This is how it works. If you book months in advance, chances are, you can only get the full price tickets with no discount. The airline business in China is highly regulated. Most ticket prices
are fixed for all the airlines by the CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of
China). Basically, the price is proportional to the distance of the two airport - the same way as the fixed price for railway system in China.
However, most airlines will give discount based on the fixed price. But discount
price table will not be determined until several months before travel time. That is, if you book, say, 6 months before you travel, it is for sure that you can only get the list price - the highest price
possible.
That is not to say, the later the better. The risk to book it last minute
is that you may not be able to get a ticket. And for travelers coming from far
away, booking ahead helps to give a peace of mind. So you make the judgment.
Generally speaking, because Chinese domestic flights occupancy rate is not very
high (with the exception of high season, popular destination) and people just
don't plan ahead too much in China, it is more common to book air tickets
relatively close to the travel date, and hence better deals.
Please don't worry about one-way tickets being more expensive than roundtrip
either. China's domestic flights' one-trip ticket is half the price of a
roundtrip ticket.
So you want to book early, but not too early.
A good rule of thumb may be to book 3-4 weeks before the travel date.
However travelers assume full responsibilities for availability of tickets. AccessTibet only acts as your agent.
And please be kindly advised that we don't book international flights for our
customers. It is generally cheaper and more choices available to book
international flights from one's home country.
For further enquiry please feel free
to mail us:
enquiry@AccessTibet.com |
