Damn expensive air fares during Chinese New Years man!
It’s 40,500 NT for a round trip ticket from Taipei to LA on China Airlines or Eva. :loco:
The cheapest is 31,000 NT with Singapore airlines but you had to book that like 4 months in advance and they are booked solid.
Cathay is about 37,500 NT but you have to stop over in Hong Kong.
Crap! :fume:
…mumbling to oneself.
ok, rant over.
CNY AF are outrageous! They always have been. It’s even worse if you’re married with kids, can you imagine spending 160,000NT for a trip to LA? :fume:
Welcome to reality, kellohitty. I just got a so-called bargain for my flight to N.Ireland over “Western” New Year. Only 37,000. :fume:
I feel your pain kellohitty, I feel it 
CNY tickets originating out of Taipei back to North America need to be booked 4 months in advance. Another trick is to see if you can book your CNY tickets from a different Asian city. For example we booked from KL to NYC for NTD 26,500. Flying TPE-KUL was cheap too. But it’s all in the timing. Sometimes you can fly Jetstarasia to Singapore and get cheaper flights back to North America. Not a lot of carriers through TPE so your choices are limited.
Oh, and get to know a good travel agent. My travel agents are offering cheap CNY packages from Taipei to Bangkok for example.
My record is NT$71,000 economy to London (Cathay) at Christmas. NT$26,000 CNY to Shanghai economy wasn’t bad either. I paid
I just paid for my tickets Taipei>Frankfurt>Edinburgh>Frankfurt>Taipei. on the 13th. NT$38,000. Feck.
There’s no lights on the Christmas tree, mother, they’re burning Big Louie tonight…
Well, that’s not quite true, you don’t acutally commit to it until you pay.
But yes, this is a major issue. My travel agent (Sean at Interlink, happy to recommend him) says a lot of people book as many as 6-7 trips for the same date and then pick the best value once the prices are revealed. This means a lot of seats become available 2-3 weeks before CNY, but of course nobody dares to leave it that late, rather book more than one trip way ahead, just in case.
So, it’s a biiiig vicious circle…
$32,000 Taipei-S’pore-London. On The day before Christmas eve. Flying with Singapore Airlines. Booked in…er…October.
Betty at Champion Travel 2561-6250.
L.
…still muttering to myself. :fume:
[quote=“sandman”]I just paid for my tickets Taipei>Frankfurt>Edinburgh>Frankfurt>Taipei. on the 13th. NT$38,000. Feck.
There’s no lights on the Christmas tree, mother, they’re burning Big Louie tonight…[/quote]
NT$38,000 to Edinburrah? Billy bargain. S’only 655 quid. You must be a Tight Scots Git. 
Well, that’s not quite true, you don’t acutally commit to it until you pay.[/quote]
Aha! But for many of those tickets you have to issue the ticket at a certain time and the ticket must be paid for before it is issued. Been there. Then you have to dump it because it’s pay full fare or none at all. Singapore Airlines actually wanted me to pay and have a ticket issued with the seats on a waiting list once, which is paying for the ticket but having no seats. How about that?
[quote=“Balazs”]But yes, this is a major issue. My travel agent (Sean at Interlink, happy to recommend him) says a lot of people book as many as 6-7 trips for the same date and then pick the best value once the prices are revealed. This means a lot of seats become available 2-3 weeks before CNY, but of course nobody dares to leave it that late, rather book more than one trip way ahead, just in case.
So, it’s a biiiig vicious circle…[/quote]
That’s what I’m doing this year. To hell with this booking everywhere I can think of and cancelling the others at the last minute. Other people I know have bought tickets two days before CNY for less than I paid by booking in June. :fume:
[quote=“Miranda”]Aha! But for many of those tickets you have to issue the ticket at a certain time and the ticket must be paid for before it is issued. Been there. Then you have to dump it because it’s pay full fare or none at all. Singapore Airlines actually wanted me to pay and have a ticket issued with the seats on a waiting list once, which is paying for the ticket but having no seats. How about that?
[/quote]
Never heard of something like that. Ridiculous. Or, rather, sorrowful.
Unfortunately, airlines will not publish their prices earlier unless people quit booking dozens of trips “just in case”, and people won’t quit this unless they know the prices sooner. Easy to predict the situation will not change in the near future…