Hello,
I’ve read the post on “travel agent”, but would like to know if anyone had used Internet for buying their ticket and if yes, which one is the best one in terms of price, choice, service and availability for a departure from Taipei (so I guess Taiwan based vendor).
Thanks
Try http://www.eztravel.com.tw we’ve used them many times, low cost, helpful friendly staff. Wife done everything in Chinese so not sure about their English language abilities.
I don’t know about the best place to buy tickets, but I recently bought from http://www.unitedairlines.com and got a pretty decent price. Try all the major airlines; Eva air, China airlines (although I’ve heard quite a few horror stories about them), Japan airlines, Korean airlines, aircanada (if you’re flying to Canada). If you don’t mind searching around a few sights you can find good prices without using an agent.
Eva Airlines seems pretty good.
they seem to be competitive as far as rates are concerned. also, have a lot of flights.
I’ve been able to find some really good deals through Kayak, which is a search engine that will search the entire web (both individual airlines, like United or Cathay Pacific, as well as larger travel sites, like expedia and orbitz) for the lowest price. You don’t book your tickets through Kayak . They only search and locate the best places to buy them. Check it out…
Danimal is correct.
Kayak is a kickass site. I got an amazing deal using that site.
I also checked out http://www.eztravel.com.tw but my usual travel agent actually gave me a slightly better deal. Be aware that prices on this website do NOT include airport and insurance taxes. On a trip just within SE Asia, these can amount to at least another NT$1300. I’m not knocking them; it’s just something to check on before you give the go ahead.
Most websites are only any good if you’re traveling to North America or Europe, by the way. If you’re from South Africa or perhaps more unusual places in Europe, websites (including Kayak mentioned above) are practically useless. eg. I just did a search on Kayak for tickets to Cape Town and the price offered was MORE THAN DOUBLE what I pay my agent.
In this regard, http://www.eztravel.com.tw has an advantage over other websites in that it is specifically Taiwan-based. If Taiwan is included in your itinerary, it’ll probably have a good deal or close-to-best deal.
mod… this thread should be merged with the travel agent thread…
Well, I tried extravel, and all their good deals were gone. Ended up paying more and getting an extra transfer - with 2 small kids in tow.
Eztravel.com.tw? Come on, what about the big boys? What about. . .
and so forth?
Does anyone have any preference regarding such non-Taiwan websites, for example if I were looking to purchase a domestic US airline ticket and maybe getting a rental car and hotel at the same time? I realize I may need to use my US visa card, instead of my Taiwan one, to make the purchase, but that’s fine. Which site is best?
Edit: I guess it doesn’t much matter if Kayak.com searches all of those sites. I guess I’ll check with kayak.
Many of those sites only sell round trip tickets that originate in the USA. (And of course, one-way tickets are more expensive than round trip). Prices on those sites can sometimes differ widely. Some have features like searching nearby airports (Orbitz) or a 3-day span (though again some of these features are only for US routes). The airline web sites often make it deliberately difficult to search for the best deal, forcing you to re-enter your trip again and again as you search morning, afternoon, and evening. I am looking forward to trying kayak.
I’ve been searching on kayak for the past hour for US domestic flights, rental car and hotel and I’m sold on it. It comes up with hundreds of results and the cheapest are very cheap. Why use one service (travelocity, cheapseats, orbitz, etc) when you can use kayak, which includes all of them? Thanks danimal.
One we forgot: hotwire.com/ Though they say… “We don’t offer fares for flights originating outside the United States.”
If you look at the list of airlines Hotwire uses (and cross-reference it with airsafe.com) you can generally guess which carrier they’ll put you on. You can also try using the Hotwire price to estimate a good price to bid at Priceline. I used them once and they put me on Northwest (to US west coast).
A couple of the larger sites, like Expedia and Orbitz, will not sell you a ticket unless you have a US BASED credit card. That means your billing address for the card must be in the US.
I’ve had very positive experiences with southwest.com and delta.com for tickets within the US. These days, the prices you find on the airlines’ own sites are typically very competitive.
Kayak sounds interesting. I’ll look into them for sure.
A question about EZ Travel: I was going through their website and found a decent deal, but when I registered, they told me that I needed a Taiwanese ID#. I ended up saying screw it and going EVA’s site. Nonetheless I was wondering if it’s still possible to use EZ Travel with an ARC number and a non-Taiwanese credit card.
Yes, you can. I’ve done it with my ARC. You can also send the money to them via ATM. I have been pleased with the results from eztravel, but sometimes you have to do a little reserach (i.e. that cheap ticket to Bangkok on Alitalia is actually operated by China Airlines and arrives at 2:30 in the morning). I like the way you can size up all of the airlines and prices on one Web pae. It helps that one of their kiosks is not far from my office, so if there are any problems, I can speak to a person.