OT - Travel to China

[chinadave2001]

This was on MSNBC.COM today:

 

 

 

A mind-boggling Beijing bargain

 

The price of week-long Beijing vacation slips another C-note to a mere $499, air and hotel included

 

By Reid Bramblett

ARTHUR FROMMER'S BUDGET TRAVEL

 

Aug. 6 — Precisely one month ago, I wrote an article about package deals to Beijing and marveled, stupefied, that the long-since over SARS crisis to the spring had pushed prices all the way down to the historic low of $599. What a difference a month makes.

 

THESE DAYS, if you’re paying six hundred bucks for a Beijing fling, you’re being ripped off. That’s because the price of roundtrip airfare plus five nights’ lodging, and breakfast, in the Best Western (www.bestwestern.com; how funny is that: a Best Western in the Far East?) has sunk to $499 for Nov-Mar flights from Seattle or San Francisco. The rest of the country tops off between $529 and $799; there’s a full list of departure cities below.

 

The source of these amazing fares? Two fab travel resources: our old friends at the Internet-only vacation packager Go_Today.com (www.go-today.com) and the good folks of at Virgin Vacations (www.virginvacations.com). These guys are basically drinking from the same font of travel bargains on this one, so the details are precisely the same for both companies, from the hotel choice (a Best Western) right down to the fine print (like the Wednesday-only departures).

Additional hotel nights run just $46 per person (all prices are per-person based on double occupancy), and might just be worth it to give yourself ample time to explore China’s massive, rich capital city. After all, you need a full day just for the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square (heck, you need half the day just to walk across the endless Cartesian expanse of the Tiananmen Square), another day to head north and visit a section or two of the Great Wall of China, and a third to tour the fabulous Summer Palace.

Be sure to rent a bike for one whole day, if only to get a feel for how the 13.8 million locals usually get around on two wheels. This will also make it easier to explore the alleys and courtyards of the traditional hutong neighborhoods that survive amidst Beijing’s booming modernization and shape-shifting skyline of skyscrapers.

 

FINE PRINT AND PRICES

The only real catch I suppose is that you can’t pick the day to start your vacation, as all departures are on Wednesdays. But that’s such a small price to pay for guaranteeing such a small price to pay. You even have all the way to Sept 15 to make your booking. Here are the prices from various U.S. gateway cities:

 

$499—San Francisco, Seattle

$529—Los Angeles, Honolulu, New York (JFK)

$649—Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Charlotte, Columbus, Cincinnati, Washington, Denver, Dallas-Ft Worth, Detroit, Washington Dulles, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Orlando, Miami, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Oakland, Ontario, Portland (OR), Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham, San Diego, San Jose, Orange County, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, St. Louis, Tampa

$799—Allentown, Albuquerque, Aspen, Wilkes-Barre, Kalamazoo, Hartford, Birmingham, Billings, Bloomington, Nashville, Boise, Burlington, Buffalo, Bozeman, Columbia (SC), Akron-Canton, Charlottesville, Charleston (SC), Cedar Rapids, Colorado Springs, Charleston (WV), Dayton, Des Moines, Fresno, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Sioux Falls, Fort Wayne, Spokane, Green Bay, Grand Rapids, Greensboro, Greenville (SC), White Plains, Wichita, Indianapolis, Jackson Hole, Jacksonville 9FL), Lansing, Las Vegas, Lexington, Lincoln, Memphis, Medford, Manchester, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Monterey, Madison, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Norfolk (VA), West Palm Beach, Peoria, Pasco, Palm Springs, Providence, Portland (ME), Rapid City, Richmond, Roanoke, Rochester, San Antonio, Savannah, Southbend, Louisville, Springfield (MO or IL), Syracuse, Tulsa, or Knoxville.

Of course, there are some extra costs. Taxes, security charges, airport fees, and the like total around $89, and you’ll have to go about securing a visa to visit China, which recently got more expensive and more difficult as part of a world-wide backlash to the United States’ strict new visa policies and high fees.

 

A China visa now costs $50, and the rub is that you can no longer apply for one by mail. Instead, either you have to go in person to a Chinese consulate—which only exists in Washington D.C, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Houston—or you get a friend, relative, or a travel agent to do it for you. For more details, log on the the Chinese Embassy’s Web site at www.china-embassy.org/eng/index.html.

By the way, word on the street is that the same price will soon apply to Go-Today.com’s five-night Hong Kong package on Nov-Mar departures, with a city tour throw in to sweeten the deal. Stay tuned.

 

Copyright © 2003 Newsweek Budget Travel, Inc.

[PJ]

Don,

 

Where were you 3 months ago when I was looking for a processing service?!

 

Incidentally, I ended up using PassportsPlus http://www.passportsplus.com/

 

It worked well. More expensive though.

 

P.J.

[robhon]

Wow! I just looked at the consulate site and saw they've jacked up the cost of Chinese visas for US citizens. A multi-entry visa used to be, I think it was $60, now it's $100.

 

I know in San Francisco you can mail your application directly to the consulate and skip the service altogether. Here's the site.

 

http://sf.chinaconsulatesf.org/visa/eng/vi...isa1tourist.htm

[wolf]

donahso, you are right. The Chinese embassy will not do mail visa's anymore. I called the embassy in LA an they gave me someone to do it for me. Double entry, 6 months was $ 95.00 and he did it really fast. I got it two months ago good till Nov.

[robhon]

I'm kind of lucky on this issue. I just go down to the consulate in SF.

 

I was thinking my parents just mailed their's directly to the consulate when they came over for our wedding but they must of used a service as well. (my bad)

[robhon]

Jeez, I'm missing things left and right here... Now I see the part about May1, 2003.