I am going to try to use frequent flyer miles to get to China. Our first stop is Guilen. Would it be better to get there via Beijing or Shanghai? What would the cost be?

Since we don't know where you are leaving from or what your airline options are, it's difficult to answer. <BR><BR>I would suggest, if possible, go thru Hong Kong. If Beijing and Shanghai are your only destination cities then Shanghai would be closer as Guilin is considered in the southwest.

Are there good ways to easily find out the cost of flights within China before we're actuallly in the country? I know its cheaper to do it when we arrive, but want to be able to plan a little bit beforehand.<BR><BR>I haven't found good online internet prices (I tend to use them as a cap on what the expect). <BR><BR>Thanks for any help!

Try &lt;chinaetravel.com&gt; and click on &quot;flights&quot;, and you will see fares of domestic flights. Remember these are &quot;list&quot; or full prices that we pay when one purchases the ticket in the US. These prices should only be used as references. Not knowing better last fall, I paid the full price for a flight between Beijing and Shanghai. However, there was no penalty when we decided to fly to Shanghai a day earlier. <BR><BR>The Chinese version of &lt;ctrip.com&gt; lists discount fares (tremendous difference!) but not the English version &lt;ctrip.com&gt;. ctrip.com is headquartered in Shanghai. Since calling China is not that expensive, you may want to call them (I hope they have English speaking customer service agent) and find out the discount fares before leaving. Phone # is listed in their website<BR><BR>I, too, am interested in an English language website that lists China domestic discount air fares.

ttt

Re: ctrip.com. Since according to the post above there's a deliberate attempt to mislead and overcharge foreigners (standard procedure amongst Chinese agents), why would you want to call them anyway? Over the counter is the only way to do this, and then English isn't a problem.<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html