lw2117

Mu husband and I have a flight booked to Hong Kong in late December. We'd like to visit Beijing as well while we are there. Does anyone know how feasible it is to get from Hong Kong to Beijing? And where we would go about pricing airfare? Current estimates from Cathay are over $600 per person...

LucyHo

Dragonair has flights from Hong Kong to Beijing and travel agents in Hong Kong have prices cheaper than 600 dollars U.S

rkkwan

There are frequent flights from HKG to PEK on Dragonair, Air China and China Southern. [Cathay Pacific only flies there 3 times a week, expanding to twice daily over the next year or so.] The best way to book is through a travel agent in Hong Kong, and expect to pay about $250 for the roundtrip.

You really don't have to book in advance here, but if you want, try contact some travel agents in Hong Kong, like wingontravel.com or others.

[In fact, I just checked wingon's website. Lowest fare HKG-PEK in December is indeed about $250 on Air China (HK$2,050). Dragonair is HK$2,140 and China Southern HK$2,350.

hobbes

A good site u can check fares on is www.aerohkg.com - don't know how much time and energy u have but a great money saving option is to take the train to Shenzhen and then fly Shenzhen-Beijing. Strangely HK-Beijing still gets intl fares and Shenzhen-Beijing gets domestic pricing on carriers like Air China.

gard

Hi

My wife and I went to China in March 2002. When we travelled from Xi'an to Hong KOng we flew to Shenzhen and took a fastboat the rest of the way. Flying to Shenzhen gave us domestic prices and it was a lot cheaper than flying to Hong Kong airport. I have posted a trip report with pictures on my personal homepage gardkarlsen.com. Maybe you can find some useful information there

Regards
Gard
Stavanger, Norway

lw2117

Thank you everyone for this helpful advice!!!

rkkwan - I went to wingontravel.com and the website was in Chinese. Do you know if there is an English-version of the site?

hobbes - on www.aerohkg.com it appears you have to buy the ticket and then put in preferences for dates and times -- almost like Priceline. Can you not select or view flight options before buying?

Thanks again!!!

rkkwan

lw2117 - Don't know about English version of their site, but you can try this other agent too:

www.tiglion.com

The pricing are almost identical. And either way, while the site looks like a booking site, these fares can't be booked online in real time. So, you can email, fax, or call them to book. The country code of Hong Kong is 852.

rkkwan

And about flying from Shenzhen. I think prices should be about US$150. So, you save around US$100 per person. While you need to add the cost of a bus/train/ferry from Hong Kong to Shenzhen Airport, it's minimal as it's not cheap just to get to Hong Kong aiport either if you take the Airport Express.

Main issue is time, as well as the hassle. The border crossings between Hong Kong and Shenzhen can be crowded and messy during holidays (except by ferry, which is much better). Flying out of HKG is much less stressful. It's a matter of personal preference whether that's worth ~US$100 to you.

hobbes

On aerohkg.com click on fares in the top row and u will be able to view fares much like expedia or travelocity.

Cost of transferring between HK and Shenzhen by train is about HK$50 or US$6. The train connections are great tho quite a bit of walking like any other train terminus so not ideally suited to heavy or large luggage situations. As for crowds - I went to Shenzhen today expecting it to be very busy on a Sun and we were in the mall 1 hour after our departure from a midlevels station in HK - the border is becoming increasinglt efficient. Having said that RKKWan is right re trade offs - there is a time trade off involved coz u will lose 2.5 hours approx (HK-Shenzhen train stn-Shenzhen airport-Beijing) incl the 45 min in advance check in time in Shenzhen airport for the domestic flt.