Thomas Promise Posted July 31, 2012 Report Share Posted July 31, 2012 Airline prices can jump quickly. I have seen them jump $300 in 4 hours time for the same flight. I have flied out of Cincinnati to Shanghai (PVG) Then made reservations from Shanghai to Nanning. I saved over $500 the ist time and $175 the second by doing this way instead of booking the ticket from Cincy to Naning directly. Check it out. Make sure you have at least 3 hours before departing for the US and for Nanning. Chances are good you are going to be flying out of Hongqiao. If go this route take the Number 1 bus. Cost 30 yuan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb Posted August 1, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 1, 2012 Hello again. I am learning a lot. Thank you to one and all. I am going to print out the present prices of several diffferent scenarios and try to update them on a regular basis and see when the prices dip. Hopefully I will catch it at the right time. Thomas P. are you saying that you are buying the tickets in Nanning on the day that you arrived in Shanghai? Without have made any reservation proir to arriving in China? Does there seem to be seats available all the time? I have never been to Shanghai but I have heard that there are two different airports that one usually deals with. Hongqiao must be for domestic flights. As far as the Mag Lev I am not sure where I came up with that term. We rode it twice on my last trip. One way we had nice comfortable seats. On the way back we actually had a compartment (shared) but I chose to sit in one of the single aisle seats. I am assuming that we soft seats and....? I was asking the people that I was traveling with if the train that we were riding was one of the new fast Chinese trains. Everyone kept telling me no. I figured that we just on a new train. Well when another fast train whizzed by us in the opposite direction I knew that it wasn't just a new train but one of them there new fast train. I guess something got lost in the translations! The train ride was nice. Very Smooth. The train was very clean and nice. Kinda felt like I was on an airplane. Since I am telling train stories. On the last trip to China we took a short train ride to Chonguo which is a little bit southwest of Nanning. Perhaps a 2 or 3 hour ride. It was an interesting ride. It must have been one of those local trains. It was a much older train. Not so clean. Crowded. Seemed to be mostly locals. I don't know exactly why but many of those riders looked different. Different than the people in the Beijing area. They were smaller. In general they were also much more skinnier then the Beijiners. . They also had darker skin. Not sure if that was because of skin tone or sun tans. Or perhaps they were from one of the Chinese minority group. They were friendly and my lao po was chatting up a storm with some of them. During the trip we had several people come thru our car. They were hawkers. They were trying to sell their wares. One guy was selling men belts. Another was selling several different small children toys. And yet another was selling pens and pencils. It was interesting watching and listening to their sale pitches. I didn't understand much of what was said. Just perhaps some of the prices and colors. But every once in a while part of the sales pitch had the word Meiguo in it. My lao po said that the hawkers was saying how popular their items were in the USA. The landscape on the way was interesting in spots. A lot of karst formations. They were not large as the ones in the Guiklin area. Also the landscape was fairly flat with a mixture of some gently rolling hills. I thought the whole ride was interesting and a bit charming. Sorry if I got off track from my original post.. China is such an interesting place. DanB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Promise Posted August 1, 2012 Report Share Posted August 1, 2012 Hi DanB, When you book your flight here in the US you can also book one on Chinese domestic flights. Going to China w/o reservations could become a tough situation. I enclosed a couple of Chinese domestic flight links for you. I hope you can get a good deal. Good luck to you. http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-flights/ http://www.chinahighlights.com/china-flights/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb Posted August 3, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2012 Hello again, Thank you, Thomas for your reply. I just wanted to verify that there wasn't some kind of same day / real low price fares oppurtunities availble. That would have been nice. I know a little about the domestic flights. Not really sure when to buy. It seems as if it similar to the 4-6 week window before traveling by international ticket prices oppurntunities. But I am not sure if it uses the same 4-6 week span or a different span. What I am going to try to do is to get a baseline of both international and domestic flight prices. At least then I will be more in touch with current prices. I could swear that prices around Christmas used to be under $1200. That was traveling from Hartford, Ct. to Nanning. One thing that I definitely have going against me is the time of the year that I want to travel. I will also try to explore partial train or bus travel. The pice will save me some money but I have some issues. Thanks again. Thank you to all who have offer their insights and help. DanB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb Posted August 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2012 Hi! I wanted to edited my last post. I was going add a "PS" to my post but I found that I could not edit my post. Not sure why that is. Anyways. I wanted to post a couple of prices of tickets that I had found on the Interent and in the future I was planning to update them to show if there were any prices changes. Usually in the past I had used ITA software to find general info and prices and then I would normall work thru a Travel agent at Paciasia. Today, I searched with ITA software and then I did searches with Flychina and Cheapoair. I was a little suprise to see a large difference between FlyChina and Cheapoair. There was a different of 300 dollars. I had used Cheapoair because it sounded as if a member had a gotten a very price thru then for travel in October. I used FlyChina because I had used them before and also had heard them being recommended before. I put in the same dates of travel and the same airtports and then I let the software take over. Both travel sites routed me thru the JFK >>LA>>GuangZhou>>Nanning. Cheapoair was priced at $1907 and FlyChina was priiced at $1595. I will try to go back and use some of the other members have mentioned. I willl also continue to check for prices and see if there are any trends that I can pick up on. Thanks for listen. DanB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb Posted October 21, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2012 Hello everyone, I am still looking for tickets for China in December. Most weeks I check two or three times week and I also check two or three sites. As suggested by some I check Cheapo Air, Fly China, Ctrip and ITA. Sometimes I will also check the airlines directly. The prices aren't dropping yet. But sometimes they will jump up a bit. At times the best prices will take me thru Moscow or Turkey. I am not too comfortable taking those particular routes. I am able to travel a week before Chrismas and return around the 20th in January. I will leave from the NYC/Hartford/Boston area and would like to get to Nanning. At this point I am just trying to find a good price to anywhere in China. I check mostly for prices from NYC to Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Beijing, or Shanghai. But I have even looked for flights to Hanoi, Bangkok, Shenzhen, Taipei , Macua. If I can get myself to China. I will get my Lao Po to help me with my travel arrangements in China. Are there any other hubs that I should be looking at? Any other options? As some of you have suggested I will wait for for that window of oppurtunity of 4 - 6 weeks before traveling. The only fear that I have is that I miss that window and get forced to buy at higher prices. Sometimes when I do a random search I get some crazy prices over 2500-3000 dollars. Ouch!! It looks like the only cheaper flights are if I would leave after Christmas but then I would be forced to shorten my trip. Something I really prefer not to do. I wonder do the prices dip (4-6 weeks) because they are adding more flights or are they just opening up previouly reserved blocks of seats. Danb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb Posted November 9, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 9, 2012 Well ,I have been checking the prices and they are not changing much. They are just creeping up. I have been trying to run so many scenarios in that it is starting to drive me crazy. One scenario is going thru Hong Kong onto Guangzhou. I had one that seemed okay but there was only 90 or so minutes between arriving in Hong Kong and leave for Guangzhou ( on a different airline). I am trying to figure out if time wise that is cutting it too close. My baggage should transfer without a problem. But I am trying to figure out if I will have to process thru customs or immigratiion or some other check point that may make me miss my connecting flight.? A couple of things that I am starting to realize. I have to decide quickly for any deals that I do come across. They don't seem to posted that long before they disappear. Also I have to be flexible as far as my travel dates. I can't lock into a specific departure date but rather I should try for a 3 or 4 day window. Also my choice of trying to leave the week before Christmas is probably going to cost me some extra money. Still hoping that i find a deal but I think time is running out. Danb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ama537621 Posted November 9, 2012 Report Share Posted November 9, 2012 You do not have to go thru customs in the Hong Kong airport. Before you get to customs there will be signs for, I forget how they state it but you cannot miss them they are all over the place, about every 75 feet. You go down an escalator, get on the train get off at your terminal no need for security check or immigration. Remember every flight into and out of HKG is international. So there is a lot less hassle when changing airlines or flights. If you do not have a ton of luggage you can avoid the cost of the short flight to Guangzhou. You can always take the ferry to Shekou port, go across the street take the subway to Shenzhen north railway station and get a ticket on the high speed train to Guangzhou. My Fiance now wife met me at the port and we traveled to Guangzhou together, I checked the other day and United had some pretty cheap flights to Hong Kong under 1000 dollars. early DEC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb Posted December 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 16, 2012 Hello Everyone. ama537621, Thank you for your reply. Well I finally got all my tickets for my trip except for my domestic leg in China for the return to the USA. I will do that later in China. I missed the lowest price by about 180 dollars. The price dipped and then quickly went back up. I think a made a couple of mistakes. I did not set my priorities and define well enough what I wanted. I thinked I learned a few things. The prices do vary a fair amount. And the prices will change as we approached our departure date. The odd things is the prices were going up and I decided to lock in the price . Well a week or so ago the price dipped again. The price dipped about 180 dollars lower than what I had locked the price in at. A little consolation was I checked another airlines and their prices was about 600 dollars higher than my tickets. Oh Well. I am relieved that I finally made a decision and have my tickets. I like to wish a Happy Holidays to one and all. I hope everyone enjoy their Holidays. Take care. Danb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fu Lai Posted December 17, 2012 Report Share Posted December 17, 2012 great Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb Posted May 21, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 21, 2013 Hello Everyone, I finally did make it to China. I had a great time and of course I am looking to go back again. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and advice. At time I a might have been a little whiny about things. It just was so frustrating trying to decide on which price I should have accepted. Was the price going to go down or were they going up? Normally I make one trip a year to China but last year I made two. Both times I made stop overs in Beijing. My first trip ( in May) I stayed over in Beijing for a week ($1076). On my second trip ( around Xmas time) I wanted to go get to Nanning as quick as possible ($1726). On both trips I had to buy additional discounted tickets from Beijing to Nanning. Round trip that was an additional $300-350. So my first trip was about S1400 and the second trip was about $2100. In the past I think I had been paying about 1400-1700 at Xmas time. This year I am planning to go at Xmas. I am planning to try to leave a week earlier than normal because the prices seem to be a lot better. About $500 better. And also that I will be able to book the trip as one continuous trip from JFK to Nanning. The problem with leaving a week earlier is that I have to use virtually all my vacation time and sick time that I have available for this year. Another small problem is that we have our contract negotiations vote the Sunday before I would be leaving for China. ( I think I will gamble that we will not vote to go on strike...??). I am not use to making reservation so far in advance. Is that a safe thing to do? I found flights with China Southern and Delta. Thru cheapoair it is listed as $1100 and thru Delta the price is $1258. Both company have better prices than any of the flights that I had last year. The Delta one, it says that the ticket is changeable and refundable. I have a Delta C.C, and I am a member of their FF club. So Is it time for me to buy my tickets for Xmas and with whom should I book it thru? Part of me says to book it thru Delta. The reason being is if there are problems along the way it might be much more easier to deal with an American base company. Has anyone else been left sitting in Nanning waiting for the available next flight because their flight had been cancelled. What do you think? Your thoughts and ideas are greatly appreciated. Thank You. Danb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter68 Posted June 18, 2013 Report Share Posted June 18, 2013 (edited) Using the android app from Hipmunk I have been able to find the best prices to China. Have been able to frop the prices by $800 to $1000 using the app then going through the airlines websites. Edited June 18, 2013 by Hunter68 (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan1984 Posted June 19, 2013 Report Share Posted June 19, 2013 Just yesterday bought a round trip ticket from Beijing to Chicago for $987 - pretty happy with this! Found this United flight on flychina.com, and then went to United's site to book the tickets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsap seui Posted June 19, 2013 Report Share Posted June 19, 2013 Nice deal Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb Posted June 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2013 Wow , Dan, nice price. I wish I could get a price like that but I am coming from the east coast (New York city area) and and traveling to the southern part of China, Nanning. I guess that the extra miles help drive the cost up I booked my flight about 10 days ago. My price is about $1550. I booked my whole flight thru Delta. Lately I was piece mealing my flights. I would book my international flight with one company and book my Chinese domestic flight with another company. I am not so sure how much that was helping me. When are you going to China? I am going during Christmas. That time of the year didn't help me with the prices neither. This is the first time that I have ever booked my flight so earlier in the year. Usually I book my flights around in November. The price might be a bit high but not by much. It is done and I my mind is more at ease. I had tried a lot of different combinations. I checked out hipmonk, cheapoair, flychina, delta, and others flight search sites. Even with different travel sites that offered to find us the "cheapest flights" the prices would vary a lot. I tried different variations such as lengths of stays, different dates, different airlines, different departure and arrival cities, etc. In the end it came down for me to figure out the ball park figure I was willing/wanting to pay for my tickets and the travel dates that I could travel. Next time I will probably try to set my high mark of a price of 1550 and see if I can beat that. Normally I travel around Christmas time which doesn't help with the ticket prices but because of shutdown at work it gives me 8 or 9 extra days off. Happy traveling to all !! Danb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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