Okay- I looked around on 3 of the big ticket selling sites, I was hoping to move to Taiwan next summer.
The best price I could find was a one-way ticket from Baltimore to Taipei with a stop in Korea - for $665 US. Its a Monday flight in September.
Does this sound like a good cheap flight or do you think I would do better going through some other people- like a travel agency. Theres one around here thats run by chinese folks and my ex-gf booked through them when we went in 2005.
Are there any good tips for getting cheap flights. Do you think a one way- ticket is best if I am planning on trying to stay in Taiwan for at least over a year?
[quote=“Ian_Alexander”]Okay- I looked around on 3 of the big ticket selling sites, I was hoping to move to Taiwan next summer.
The best price I could find was a one-way ticket from Baltimore to Taipei with a stop in Korea - for $665 US. Its a Monday flight in September.
Does this sound like a good cheap flight or do you think I would do better going through some other people- like a travel agency. Theres one around here thats run by chinese folks and my ex-gf booked through them when we went in 2005.
Are there any good tips for getting cheap flights. Do you think a one way- ticket is best if I am planning on trying to stay in Taiwan for at least over a year?[/quote]
What’s your visa arrangement? If you come in on a landing visa you must have a return flight (dated before the visa expires).
Else why not just contact some travel agencies and ask for a quote? Doesn’t cost you anything …
The last time I was in the States, I found the best deal by phoning up all those consolidators you see in the travel section in the local newspaper. It ended up being from a Chinese-run place in Chinatown.
That being said, $665 is a fairly decent deal. Assuming you don’t need a return ticket for visa reasons, that seems like the way to go.
take a close look at the flight and transit times. It’s really easy to focus on a price saving of $50-100 or something, and put up with a significantly longer overall journey. Also landing time etc.
It’s up to you, but in my experience sometimes paying a fraction more can give you a whole lot more value in the bigger picture.
Most of the direct flights to Taiwan all depart from the west coast of the US/CA: YVR, SEA, LAX, SFO so a cheap domestic flight to one of those airports might work out better rather than booking a whole trip with one carrier.
I was checking tickets from EWR (Newark) to Taipei for late February and came up with a $600 one-way on EVA. (Actually, I think that’s before tax + fees, probably adds an extra $75-100.) However, I’m flying on the last day of the Chinese New Year holiday, so I imagine that price might be higher than usual.
Last March I bought a roundtrip for $850.
Anyway, like Truant said, it might be worth your while to pay a little more to avoid too many layovers or sketchy service. I’ve done Newark-Taipei a dozen times, on four different airlines. For me, the extra money spent on a direct flight far outweighs the annoyance of a four-stop trip (one flight had layovers in Dallas, LA and Seoul).
And yeah, if you don’t know where to start, go to a travel agent. The last few trips I took I started with an agent, but ended up booking myself because I found the same prices online minus commission/fees.