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China Domestic Airfares



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 13th, 2005, 03:55 PM
Rick
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Default China Domestic Airfares

Can anyone recommend a website that publishes domestic airfares and
schedules within China. Chinese websites, including China Eastern and China
Southern are hopelessly slow or give up errors when queried. I am chiefly
interested in two segments, the first being Kunming - Lijiang return and the
second Kunming - Guilin one way. I understand there is jet service (737) to
Lijiang and there is a daily flight to Guilin from Kunming daily. Would
like to see schedule and prices. Thanks is advance.


rg


  #2  
Old March 13th, 2005, 05:22 PM
Peter Neville-Hadley
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Rick wrote:

Can anyone recommend a website that publishes domestic airfares and
schedules within China.


Where these exist they are incomplete, or out of date, or in Chinese
only, or all of the above (I'm assuming a Chinese site is no good for
you). Where they are in English and aimed at foreigners, and even when
they claim to be offering discounts, in fact they are almost always
charging you much higher prices than you can obtain in China itself--not
unusually double. Almost no one, even if they are booking to fly the
same day, pays the full published rate in China, and slowness aside, the
airline's own sites, which will only give you published prices, are
hopeless.

I am chiefly
interested in two segments, the first being Kunming - Lijiang return and the
second Kunming - Guilin one way. I understand there is jet service (737) to
Lijiang and there is a daily flight to Guilin from Kunming daily. Would
like to see schedule and prices. Thanks is advance.


This from a printed timetable which will change next month:

There are about 15 flights a day each way between Kunming and Lijiang

There are three or four flight a day between Kunming and Guilin.

The last thing you need to or should do is to book before you reach
Kunming. There are endless travel agencies in the main road running into
town from the railway station. Just pop in two or three of those, ask
the price (no English spoken but the timetables are in English/pinyin as
well as characters) and ticket prices will be shown to you using a
calculator. Whatever price you are given, ask for something cheaper
(mime your disappointment, if necessary). You'll have your tickets at a
considerable discount on the prices available from overseas, within 30
minutes or so.

Peter N-H
http://list3.xianzai.com/mailman/listinfo/oriental-list
  #3  
Old March 13th, 2005, 05:36 PM
Miguel Cruz
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Default

Rick wrote:
Can anyone recommend a website that publishes domestic airfares and
schedules within China. Chinese websites, including China Eastern and China
Southern are hopelessly slow or give up errors when queried. I am chiefly
interested in two segments, the first being Kunming - Lijiang return and the
second Kunming - Guilin one way. I understand there is jet service (737) to
Lijiang and there is a daily flight to Guilin from Kunming daily. Would
like to see schedule and prices. Thanks is advance.


It's unlikely you'll be able to get realistic price information from outside
China unless you can read Chinese. Otherwise you'll just get full-fare
prices which are much higher than you'd actually have to pay.

I can see where the schedule info would be useful for planning, but
unfortunately I can't help you there. In your position I would just worry
about it once I got to China and could spend a few minutes with a travel
agent.

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos from 35 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Malaysia, Israel, Palestine, Austria, Thailand
  #4  
Old March 13th, 2005, 09:43 PM
Rick
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Actually, my wife is Chinese and speaks both mandarin and cantonese, so
booking tickets locally at the last minute will not be a problem if chinese
language comprehension is a problem. I was more concerned with booking
ahead, as we will be traveling to this particular area around the first week
of October, which is again is holiday period. As Peter Neville-Hadley
suggested earlier, I have seen advertised prices vary by 100%.

Since my wife can read Chinese, I suppose I could also download and install
a Chinese language pack on my computer, but I have been hesitant to do so.
Perhaps I am over-concerned about downloading a virus or some other
malicious infection. It appears Microsoft is no longer making free language
packs available, and I know of no commercial and reliable products. I am
wondering if there is a reliable site to download a Chinese language pack?
Thanks for responding.

rg



  #5  
Old March 13th, 2005, 10:26 PM
Miguel Cruz
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Rick wrote:
Since my wife can read Chinese, I suppose I could also download and install
a Chinese language pack on my computer, but I have been hesitant to do so.
Perhaps I am over-concerned about downloading a virus or some other
malicious infection. It appears Microsoft is no longer making free language
packs available, and I know of no commercial and reliable products. I am
wondering if there is a reliable site to download a Chinese language pack?


When you try to view a site that contains Chinese characters, Internet
Explorer should automatically offer to download the appropriate display
bundle unless it is already available on your machine. What happens when you
try one of these sites?

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos from 35 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Malaysia, Israel, Palestine, Austria, Thailand
  #6  
Old March 13th, 2005, 11:18 PM
Rick
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I believe there have been occasions that I have seen what you speak about,
but I it was not evident to me the download was from Microsoft. If not, how
can I trust the content not that the proposal is also a valid Microsoft
utility? Thanks.

rg


  #7  
Old March 14th, 2005, 06:57 AM
Miguel Cruz
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Default

Rick wrote:
I believe there have been occasions that I have seen what you speak about,
but I it was not evident to me the download was from Microsoft. If not, how
can I trust the content not that the proposal is also a valid Microsoft
utility? Thanks.


Perhaps you could start by triggering it at a site you find trustworthy.
Maybe the Chinese-language site of an international company like IBM or DHL
or British Airways or something.

Also, I think that at some point in the process it will tell you who has
packaged the bundle it's trying to install. I would think that Microsoft's
software would have some cryptographic mechanism in place for validating
that somethin gdownloaded in fact comes from Microsoft.

But to be honest, things like this are the reasons that I don't personally
use Windows.

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos from 35 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Malaysia, Israel, Palestine, Austria, Thailand
  #8  
Old March 14th, 2005, 06:03 PM
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Default

As I recall, I think that there's a website that is capable of
translating Chinese characters into graphics, making it easy to read
Chinese in a non-Chinese capable browser.

  #9  
Old March 15th, 2005, 02:49 PM
yaofeng
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Default

http://elong.net

  #10  
Old April 2nd, 2005, 01:28 PM
Spehro Pefhany
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Default

On 15 Mar 2005 05:49:51 -0800, the renowned "yaofeng"
wrote:

http://elong.net


I second this recommendation. The prices tracked fairly well
(generally a bit higher) than the best discount prices I was able to
get from local travel agents on a number of flights all over China. I
didn't really bargain, just asked for a few quotes.

BTW, the travel agents charged an additional Y50 per ticket for
something or other, but only for adult tickets.

I'm not sure how it works for airline tickets if you actually want to
buy them, for hotels they just fax the hotel your info and you pay at
the hotel.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
 




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