titian

Does anyone know a travel company or website in China that offers cheap flights and service in English? I am heading to China to backpack around for 3 months. I arrive in Beijing and then pick up a few domestic flights and make my way to Harbin, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Guilin, Dali, Kunming, etc. Help appreciated. I have traveled other places in South East Asia, but heard China is a challenge. Advice on booking flights and hotels would be appreciated. Thanks

rkkwan

www.ctrip.com is the favorite among international flyers.

Syl

I was looking at 9588.com as well. Is it safe to give your credit card # over the internet on these sites?

poutine

I used elong.com last October for my only domestic flight. I had no problems. They did need me to fax back my signature in order to pay by cc. They confirmed by email.

poutine

Sorry, that would be elong.net not .com.

baaj

I've used both elong.com (or .net) and ctrip.com for many years when I lived in China. They are both very trustworthy enterprises.

donnawolski

I used 9588.com to book several domestic flights in China prior to leaving US. Unlike elong and ctrip, the site processes international credit cards in real time without needing to fax any additional info. Our confirmation by email was prompt - almost instant. We had no problems using their email confirmation as e-tickets.

keldar

I live in China and use www.appletravel.cn in Xiamen. She has a wonderful sight and great rates for all of southeast asia. You can book on line and receive e-tickets. She is very reliable and if you phone her she speaks excellent English.

greginchina

I used to get frustrated when elong and ctrip required faxed copies of credit cards in order to make a purchase. I'd always end up paying cash on delivery (even for an eticket which they'd bring along). But this seems to have changed with Elong (not sure about Ctrip). I recently bought an e-ticket with a VISA card entirely online with no fax required.

Nutella

As Greg did with elong, I purchased a ticket from ctrip online from China with no need to fax anything. I used my US based Amex card. Just looked up my receipts, and they charged approx 3% of the ticket cost as an additional service fee for using a foreign credit card. This was disclosed at the time of purchase.

I also used ctrip's free delivery service when I was in Beijing - they showed up at my hotel with the ticket and I paid cash.

I wanted to make some major changes to my itinerary at one point, and was able to cancel flights and get refunds on the phone with ctrip's English speaking customer service.

greginchina

I take back everything I said. Tried to book 2 tickets from Elong today with a VISA card.

They wanted photocopies of each side of the card, my passport, and a signed declaration.

Despite having a secure website (SSL) where you can enter card details, they haven't quite joined the 21st century yet.

Also, another bugbear of mine is that Elong don't seem to have heard of Asia Miles. Asia Miles is a frequent flyer club run by cathay pacific of which China Eastern and Air China are a member.

However, Elong only allows you to enter an Eastern Miles number for China Eastern and when pushed them to check with China Eastern I was told China Eastern hadn't heard of Asia Miles. Moreover when I checked in at Chongqing on China Eastern several months ago they hadn't heard of Asia Miles so I couldnt get the points. I don't know if this is bad communication amongst airline staff or just laziness but its very frustrating.

Anyway, rant over