Hi!
A friend and I are coming to Taiwan to teach and are looking for the cheapest plane tickets possible. Does anyone here know of any great airlines that I may be overlooking? We’re flying out of Minneapolis, MN late June, and the peak-season tickets I’ve found so far are a little daunting. Also, any advice for a refundable one-way out of Taipei for Visa purposes would be very appreciated.
Thanks!!
[quote=“Tmesis”]Hi!
A friend and I are coming to Taiwan to teach and are looking for the cheapest plane tickets possible. Does anyone here know of any great airlines that I may be overlooking? We’re flying out of Minneapolis, MN late June, and the peak-season tickets I’ve found so far are a little daunting. Also, any advice for a refundable one-way out of Taipei for Visa purposes would be very appreciated.
Thanks!![/quote]
From MSP, your options are limited, due to NW’s stranglehold on the market. Looking in Sabre, I can see that the simplest option is NW MSP-DTW-TPE… availability is awfu, and likely expensivel.
Have you tried going to your local chinatown and inquiring in the travel agencies there? Pick up your local chinese/asian immigrant newspaper and contact travel agencies there. It’s helpful.
For the dates I have to travel, I paid $1220 for my ticket, but it’s on UA, which makes me happy. EVA and China Airlines (nonstops out of SEA, my home) were really expensive, and only Asiana was coming close, price-wise.
[quote]From MSP, your options are limited, due to NW’s stranglehold on the market. Looking in Sabre, I can see that the simplest option is NW MSP-DTW-TPE… availability is awfu, and likely expensivel.
Have you tried going to your local chinatown and inquiring in the travel agencies there? Pick up your local Chinese/Asian immigrant newspaper and contact travel agencies there. It’s helpful.
For the dates I have to travel, I paid $1220 for my ticket, but it’s on UA, which makes me happy. EVA and China Airlines (nonstops out of SEA, my home) were really expensive, and only Asiana was coming close, price-wise.[/quote]
$1200?? Is that round-trip? I found one (UA, too) for $725 one-way and I thought that was bad (but I’m a naive newby, so…). I found bt-store.com/default.asp to be a very good site.
[quote=“Tmesis”][quote]From MSP, your options are limited, due to NW’s stranglehold on the market. Looking in Sabre, I can see that the simplest option is NW MSP-DTW-TPE… availability is awfu, and likely expensivel.
Have you tried going to your local chinatown and inquiring in the travel agencies there? Pick up your local Chinese/Asian immigrant newspaper and contact travel agencies there. It’s helpful.
For the dates I have to travel, I paid $1220 for my ticket, but it’s on UA, which makes me happy. EVA and China Airlines (nonstops out of SEA, my home) were really expensive, and only Asiana was coming close, price-wise.[/quote]
$1200?? Is that round-trip? I found one (UA, too) for $725 one-way and I thought that was bad (but I’m a naive newby, so…). I found bt-store.com/default.asp to be a very good site.[/quote]
1220RT SEA-TPE-HKG-SEA… much more… sorry for the delay… I had finals 
find a cheap flight to San Fran or LA and have something booked from there.
Find a VietNamese travel store for the LA/San Fran leg booking.
Try the following:
Cost Less Travel Bargain Center, 635 Vallejo St., San Francisco
(415) 397-6868
Ask for Ms. Jackie Ho.
I’ve used them for years with great satisfaction.
Information on travel agents appreciated.
However, many web sites only accept credit cards. If a travel agent is ‘out of town’
how does one pay for tickets?
From Minneapolis, try Northwest as that is one of their hubs. They have the best mileage program and the cheapest business class tickets.
Check the Sunday paper for Asian consolidators, or check the yellow pages for what look like auspicious Chinese style names for the Travel agents. They almost always have the cheapest tickets. Do you have a Chinese paper in Minneapolis? Check the Chinatown or even local Chinese restaurants. Find an Asian, they always know the cheapest tickets back home.