New vacation upcoming and .....................

jacketwatch · August 1, 2018

For the first time in 14 years is on land! Blasphemy you say! ?. Well I’ve always wanted to see China so it’s a week in Beijing then a bullet train to Xian for 4 days after which we fly to Kuala Lumpur for about a week. We fly back to Beijing a day before we leave. One thing I learned about is the crazy price flucuations for biz airfare for UAL and AA. From one day to the next there was a near 50% price drop! UAL was about $8800.00 for two in late March for our Sept. flight. Then a day later it was about $5100.00. AA had a similar drop. I eventually booked UA, our mileage plan for about $5260.00 and a few weeks later it was down to about $4900.00,then skyrocketed again. Anyway I’m happy with what we got. Both flights are NS and leave their respective airports around noon and it’s their Polaris upgrade too.

Jan115 · August 1, 2018

Congratulations on your new trip. It sounds amazing, and it is good to see things from a land perspective now and then!?

Thanks for stopping by - now don’t be a stranger!?

zebra · August 1, 2018

That's a wonderful trip - sounds like you got a great airfare deal too .... win .. win!!!!!

jacketwatch · August 2, 2018

Thank you. I was astounded by the price fluctuations and the lesson here is when you see a good price jump on it. BTW Hainan airlines which per 2018 Skytrax ratings is in the top 10 world wide has very good prices too but this price drop was too good to turn down.

Jason · August 2, 2018

Hey Larry, welcome back!! It's great to see you. Sounds like a great trip, I look forward to seeing you more around here.

jacketwatch · August 2, 2018

OTOH we booked Cathay Dragon for multiple route flights (Xian to LK and KL to Beijing) and even afterwards I checked prices and same to the penny. I do wonder why domestic air seems to vary so much.

zebra · August 2, 2018

Larry we have found this to be true too. We usually fly South African Airways from DC to Johannesburg and then all our internal flights while in South Africa - a total of 8 flights per round trip to SA. Our family over there keep asking us how we can afford to fly SAA for the domestic flights within SA because they are so expensive and they all use Kulula Air. I don't have an answer other than maybe it's because we bundle them all on the same ticket with the long distance international flights.

jacketwatch · August 2, 2018

I was thinking of going there as we’ve never been to Africa. I found SAA very high ORD-CPT but prices for biz less on Expedia for instance. I wonder if the internal flights would be more if you didn’t bundle them with the DC leg.

zebra · August 2, 2018

I am sure they would Larry. We don't fly biz because our SA trips costs an arm and a leg without the airfare aspect. We go on safari to Kruger National Park for 3 weeks and then 3 weeks in Cape Town and surrounds ..... so a 6 week vacay is expensive. We are planning for Sept 2019 at the moment .... we were there in Oct/Nov this past year.