Saturday, March 18, 2017

To Book or Not To X Before It’s Full: My First China Domestic Flight

wanting to travel to Wudang Shan

and it got me thinking if

I want to plan and grab the train tickets

because the train tickets were selling fast

To Book or Not To X Not a Single Clue: Travel Blue I

 

then i got the idea to take a flight

yet the tickets for the particular weekend

turned out to be sold off to

because it’s a long weekend for Qingming

To Book or Not To X Finally Some Clue: Travel Blue II

 

so i decided to spent a few nights

at Wuhan before heading to Wudang Shan

in that case

shall proceed to book then

 

have been busy

throughout the week and

finally had time to check yesterday

there were 8 tickets left

at the price i locked down

 

and when opened again

there were 7…6… an finally 5 left

 

done mine via CTrip app

there are two flights available daily

Booking China Domestic Flight via CTrip

 

basically can ignore the rest

i.e. the cheapest tickets are sold

first come first serve basis

Booking China Domestic Flight via CTrip

 

the return flight

don’t mind to take the evening flight

as our connecting flight is at midnight

but it’s better to be safe and

we can still have ample time to

do a bit of last minute “shopping” in Wuhan

Booking China Domestic Flight via CTrip

 

that was what i meant

5 tickets left at this price

the website of the airline

should indicate the same

Booking China Domestic Flight via CTrip

 

final price check

that silly hotel promo code

i.e. rebate of 50 RMB if you book

a hotel worth 500 RMB / per night

which is a booking fee in disguise

Booking China Domestic Flight via CTrip

 

total price to paid

converted into USD

which makes it sounds

really really cheap

Too bad they don’t accept PayPal

Booking China Domestic Flight via CTrip

 

everything looked fine

until the final confirmation

which got me really impressed

 

this was 3:39 PM

when i was entering my payment details

IMG_3592

 

upon submitting the payment form

the payment confirmation email

came in almost immediately

followed by the SMS from my local bank

IMG_3593

 

Followed by booking status

IMG_3596 - Copy

 

this was 1 minutes later

both sets of tickets were ready

and the same itinerary was safely received

in my email as well

IMG_3597

 

the reason why i am so impressed is

they are a third party travel agent

yet the speed is even faster

as compared to direct booking

from airlines, sometimes

 

and as you can see

the interface is perfectly

simple and user-friendly

 

okies i am a happy customer

even if i am made to buy

that stupid hotel codes

and I am planning to

book my hotel with them too