KArdon:
Would you have the name of that travel agency in China.....Website or email.

Thansks a lot,

Diana

I didn't mean to add more confusion to this topic. I think most people's concern is to buy in China or overseas. And my unswer is that most likely you will be better off even by using your hotel's travel agent than buying overseas.

The travel agency is Muztagh Travel. Their URL is www.muztagh.com. The person I dealt with was Ilham Ali <[email protected]>

Since they wanted me to wire transfer the money before the trip, I went through quite an agony wondering if I were making a mistake. Ilham was very patient--gave me references, etc.

If you have similar concerns, tell Ilham to give you my email address--say that this is the person who went to Dunhuang recently.

KArdon,
Thanks a lot! I will check their website. We are leaving in less than a week to SE asia.

Diana

Just got back from our 3 week trip to China. I discovered that it was entirely unnecessary (as Peter and others have written) to worry about internal China tickets prior to going there. Although I assume we could have done better by shopping travel agents in China, we chose simply to arrange these tickets through our hotel travel desks for the sake of convenience. Both for Beijing-Xian and Xian-Hangzhou routes, we saved more than 25% compared to prepurchasing in the States, or a total of several hundred dollars for the 4 of us. In each case I asked the travel desks for "discounted rates" and they immediately offered this savings. Interestingly, in both cases they also volunteered that I could "probably get an even bigger discount" if I shopped the outside street travel agencies! Also, we encountered no cancelled flights, and we did not hear any other tourists complain about any -- a big difference from our last trip to China 18 years ago, when it seemed like good odds that flights would either leave early, late, or not leave at all.

Ed - Glad to hear you have no problem with air travel in China. China has changed a lot, and the old CAAC has been broken up into 3 main carriers, and on many main routes, they have to compete against each other. And all of the airlines have bought a lot of planes in recent years, so it's basically a flyer's market - therefore the good frequencies and low cost. In fact, the competition was so fierce some months ago that the central government has to step in and set a minimum fare. It also consolidates the dozens of carriers into the three main ones. [There are still a handful of others that are not part of the "big three".]

It's a weird world where three airline competes against each other, but all have the central government as their owner.

It is a strangely managed economy, indeed. In the Xian suburbs, we noticed 4 gas stations on the 4 corners at one intersection. Two seemed to be the same company, with two others represented as well. Yet my understanding is that they are all majority owned by the PRC government! Our driver explained that the government wants to foster competition...

This is an interesting thread - I hope someone may have an answer to my question. Would all this also hold true for flights between Hong Kong and Taiwan?
We will go to Taiwan to Kaohsiung but then leave from Taipei.
Expedia, etc. can do this for about $430 per person. If I can save $100 or so it may be worth my stress of waiting. I tend to like to have all arrangements made before I leave home. But we will have 4 days in Hong Kong first.
Thanks for any insights on this.

BLM - There are dozens of flights between HKG and TPE each day, so definitely wait until getting to Hong Kong before getting the tickets. It's a 1.5 hour flight, and shouldn't cost more than about US$200 roundtrip, even at last minute. Just go to any travel agent in the city, but not the airline.