Archive for July, 2012

Airline Seat Sales & Promo Fares : How To Watch Out For Them and How To Grab ‘Em Fast!

Posted: July 11, 2012 in Lakwatsa
2

A lot of people have been asking me how I have become such an “expert” in booking all these amazingly low flight fares for all my travels these past few months and after repeating it over and over again from one person to another, I thought it would be best, for the benefit of everyone else, that I post about it here and just give them this link every time somebody else would ask me the same question again. So I’ll do my best to give you guys as much tips as possible based on my experiences as well.

(1) Prioritize these two airlines : Cebu Pacific and AirAsia. NEVER ever ride Airphil.

All these years of travelling, Cebu Pacific and AirAsia are the only ones who never disappointed me. Well maybe the flight schedule change of being moved for another four hours from our Colombo to Kuala Lumpur trip screwed up my KL to Manila flight is reason enough to be royally pissed, but still, I would forgive AirAsia. Yes, I’m sure there are horror stories going around about these airlines, but nothing could be worse from all the horror stories about Airphil or even PAL. I have experienced it firsthand, and a number of my friends could also vouch for this as well. At least for me, I would choose the lesser evil and enjoy it.

Cebu Pacific is the most convenient one compared to AirAsia since most of CebuPac’s international flights are in Manila and Cebu, which are easily accessible compared to AirAsia flights that are all based in Clark, which requires you to travel for 2 hours via bus from Manila.

AirAsia is the cheapest of them all and the most customer-friendly. If the cheapest international ticket you can get from Cebu Pacific is P3,000 for a roundtrip ticket, the cheapest you can get from AirAsia is half of that for P1,500! Their web check-in facility is very convenient too since they allow you to do roundtrip web check-ins months before your flight. Cebu Pacific can only do one-way web check-ins within 48 hours before your flight date and does not offer roundtrip web check-ins. They seriously need to do this. Paging Cebu Pacific!

And AirAsia allows name change at no additional fee. Shame on Cebu Pacific for not doing this. One needs to be extra careful in typing and spelling out passengers’ names because they will charge you more if you made a mistake and if you’d want to correct it. I misspelled one of my friend’s names before and I called AirAsia and they were kind enough to edit it at no additional cost. Their customer service is the best out there. Check out other budget carriers like ZestAir, Jetstar and Tiger Airways. But their rates are not as good as the other two mentioned above.

(2) Be updated. Be active in social networks.

This does not mean checking and refreshing an airline’s website all the time. There are a number of ways to be updated for all these promo fares. Subscribe via email, like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. Note the emphasis on AND, not OR. So doing all these three is a must and do not be contented with just one. Fact is, you might miss out on those Facebook postings, and email notifications of these seat sales come in way too late from the actual start of the sale. Twitter updates are the most reliable one. If you have a smartphone and you have a data plan and if you are a Twitter addict like me, this is a big plus. My dad has a Cebu Pacific credit card and he gets updates via text messages hours before the actual schedule of the sale, which gives us the heads-up to prepare and contact a number of my friends to finalize our travel dates. You can even go ahead and book your flight even if the sale has not been announced on the website yet. If you don’t have a credit card, apply for one, and apply for a Cebu Pacific card.

(3) Remove unnecessary charges.

This is the sneaky part. A lot of people gets easily disappointed when they do their booking when they see the fare summary on the right side of the webpage after choosing their travel dates and destination. Please note that that is just an estimate and that includes a number of fees that you can easily get rid of like :

Check-in baggage : The normal weight for check-in baggages is 20kg for each flight. Adjust it to 15kg if you think you wouldn’t be carrying that much or don’t check-in anything at all. Airlines allow 7kg of handcarry luggage provided there are no liquids, sharp objects, etc on it.

Here’s another tip: if you are travelling with other people, do the check-in as follows: Person 1 (check-in for 20kg or 15kg), Person 2 (no baggage check-in), and so it goes. Based on experience, one person’s normal check-in baggage weight is actually between 10kg to 15kg, so combining your baggages in one ticket saves alot of money.

Having a portable luggage scale is also a big help. Though it’s not 100% accurate, it gives you an estimate of the total weight of your luggages, which gives you enough time to adjust your stuff before you get to the airport. It’s such an irritating sight to see people open their luggages at the check-in counter transferring clothes and stuff from one bag to another just to avoid the excess baggages charges. Save yourself of the hassle and stress and go buy your own portable luggage scale.

Ordering airline meals online : Remove, remove, remove. Go bring your own sandwich instead.

Insurance : Okay, I may be giving the wrong message here so let me make this clear. If you want to save, then skip it. If you want to get insurance if in any case something would happen, like a lost luggage or God forbid, you know what I mean, then get it. I don’t purchase travel insurance at all, so it’s up to you.

Skip seat selection : Unless you are very OC about sitting on a window seat, it’s not worth it. I usually tell the counter staff to place me on the aisle for easy access to the restrooms, especially for long flights.

(4) Plan ahead.

It all starts with the planning. Where do you want to go? Who’s coming with you? I always make sure I finalize the possible dates and my companions for any upcoming trips to make easier for me to just go ahead and book it, especially on a seat sale, rather than wait for a confirmation from them. By the time they would say yes, there are probably no more seats available or the schedule’s all screwed up (re: return flights not available, limited seats, etc.). So plan early, plan ahead. Get all their necessary info as well. Complete names, including middle name and their birthday. Take note: You DO NOT need a Passport number in order to book a flight.

Note : You can also book tickets from CebuPacific even if you do not have a credit card. Check this link out for a more detailed step-by-step instruction on how to pay via BDO’s Payment Center :

https://twitterpatedme.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/how-to-pay-for-cebu-pacific-booking-via-bdo/

(5) Patience is power.

Yeah, it sure is a struggle sometimes to book these promo fares especially if thousands of other people are probably doing their booking the same time as you do. But if you really wanna grab it, you gotta have all the patience in the world to go through this. It took me 3 hours to book all my Piso-fare flights last January since the website is hanging, crashing, asking me to input my info over and over and over again, but I made sure I never gave up. Yes, I was that die-hard. I have also noticed that the best time to book these flights are around 3AM, when a big number of people are already tired and probably have already given up. Also, these airlines are also tricky. What might be a fully-booked flight may end up as open again the day after, probably because some of those who opted to pay via payment center did not decide to push through with their original booking. So it’s always recommended to check back from time to time.

(6) Don’t be a cheapskate. Or in local Pinoy dialect, don’t be KURIPOT.

So what if you weren’t able to book for a piso or zero fare promo flight? You’re just gonna give up on your travel dreams just like that? Piso fares and zero fares are not easy to get by, true, but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t take advantage of the other promo fares available. Sometimes a P1,000 difference in flight fares is not a big deal. If you’re that obsessed of being a cheapskate, then don’t bother travelling at all! Yeah, you would probably end up with a roundtrip ticket of P7,000 or P8,000 so what? It’s still cheap compared to the usual fares which is twice that price. Take note that airlines offer seat sales most of the time for travel period 6 months from the current date of the actual seat sale onwards (mostly for those that are 80% or more off the purchase price). The least would be 3 months, but it’s not that big of a sale already, though it’s still a SALE, nonetheless.

So that’s it. I hope you guys were able to get some very informative tips here that you can use the next time you decide to watch out for these crazy promo fares and seat sales. And hope you’d get to be as lucky as I am in booking them. Remember, money is nothing, it’s the experience that counts! :)

Exploring the Ulu Temburung Rainforest

Posted: July 8, 2012 in Brunei, Lakwatsa
0

The last two days of my Brunei trip was definitely the highlight since I have booked us an overnight tour to the Ulu Temburong National Park, which covers a big chunk of the Temburong rainforest. I am not really a nature lover, but since we didn’t have that much to do in Brunei anymore, I figured that it would be a change of scene and a whole new adventure for me. Had packed the night before, bought some water and some snacks since I figured we’d end up starving over the course of this 3-hour journey to the our guesthouse in the middle of Brunei nowhere.

We were picked up by the owner of the tour agency from our hotel at around 2:30PM, dropped us off at the Brunei waterfront and waited for the local water taxi to bring us to Bangar, the capital of the Temburong district. It was a whole new experience riding the water taxi, passing through a network of rivers and channels around the back of Brunei Bay, watching the dense mangrove islands as we passed along and having this Fast & the Furious moment since the water taxi was speeding like crazy. It took us about an hour to arrive in Bangar to meet our guide, July, who was waiting for us at the Temburong terminal.

Before dropping us off at our guesthouse, we visited some of the locals in the Bangar area, a number of which were actually pagans, not just Muslims, who occupy most of the country. July told us stories about their history, tribe rituals, to stuff about tribe beheading, inter-family marriages to cannibalism. Now we’re talking! Haha! We arrived at our guesthouse around 4PM, tried to rest for about thirty minutes and departed for our evening river safari tour. We traveled along the mangrove banks for almost 3 hours, enjoying the wildlife and watching out for some weird animals to pop out of nowhere. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the Proboscis monkey, hornbills, a group of fireflies, some huge weird lizards, and oh yeah the crocodiles. We were also able to step into Sarawak, which was just about a few seconds’ swim from the Temburong riverbanks. So technically, I was able to visit Malaysia as well, though immigration was about 30 minutes from where we stood during that time. After the 3-hour long river safari tour, we had dinner at a local restaurant and retreated back into our guesthouse for some much needed rest.

Woke up around 6AM the next day, packed all our stuff, checked out, and had some breakfast before venturing into Batang Duri for the Ulu Temburong rainforest. We arrived at the riverbanks again and departed using a longboat. Had our lifejackets on, and thoroughly enjoyed the views and the sights from the river. At that point, with the sounds of the river water splashing against the boat and the peaceful sounds of the morning jungle surrounding us, it was definitely an amazing feeling.

We arrived at the Ulu Temburong National Park about an hour and a half later and started our rainforest trek. We weren’t able to cross the hanging bridge since it was destroyed when some of the large trees fell on it because of the typhoon that hit the region a couple of weeks ago. The most awaited part was crossing the 1200 steps to the base of the 60-meter Canopy Walkway Towers, where we climbed up all the way to the top of the 196-feet wobbly structure in the middle of the jungle. Crossing through the steel suspension bridges that connected the canopy towers was scary and at the same time exciting. Actually, I didn’t find it scary at all but Ann was scared to death, but she has no choice, I needed someone to take my pictures. Haha!

After absorbing and enjoying the view from the top of the jungle, we all went down back to meet with July, who was waiting for us to take us back into the riverbanks, where we had lunch, kinda like a little picnic before we journeyed downstream back to Batang Duri. We then went to the Temburong terminal to catch the water taxi back to Bandar with July, where he dropped us off on our hotel to rest for a few hours before we pack all our stuff back since our flight leaves in 6 hours.

After sleeping for a couple of hours, we got a call from the reception desk, informing us that Tita Lorna, our newfound friend from our flight a couple of days ago was downstairs at the lobby. We went down to meet her and as promised, she brought us a bunch of pasalubongs, which made me very, very happy. I don’t care if it’s just a bunch of chocolates and mei goreng noodles, I just love freebies and I love thoughtful people. We exchanged numbers and told her that when we return to Brunei, we’ll definitely contact her the next time around. After we’re done packing, we decided to have dinner and walk around the city some more.

We had arranged for the hotel to have their driver bring us back to the airport to catch our flight back to Manila. Along the way, we passed by the Sultan’s Palace, and our driver was kind enough to bring us inside and took some pictures of that beautiful place. It’s one of those moments that my jaw literally dropped open, trying to digest the magnificent sight in front of me. I just needed some background music ala “A Whole New World” and it would’ve been perfect. I wanted to stay a little longer but we needed to be at the airport to catch our flight back to Manila. Brunei may be tagged as a boring place, but I enjoyed every moment of it. Very relaxing, very quiet, just peaceful enough for me to enjoy and de-stress. And the people there are also one of the kindest and friendliest bunch I have met so far. Will I be back in Brunei? Definitely! I got this as a planned sidetrip for our Kota Kinabalu trip early next year and I can’t wait to tour some of my friends here the next time around.

Brunei : The Abode Of Peace

Posted: July 4, 2012 in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, Lakwatsa
4

Brunei would probably be the last thing anyone would think of as a vacation place. Considering its size and the limited places to see, people were raising their eyebrows when they found out I’m going here for a few days. Everything just fell into place that time Cebu Pacific announced a seat sale to Brunei. For just P4,000 for a roundtrip ticket from Manila to Bandar Seri Begawan, I knew I had to grab it. It was an absolute steal! I mass-texted a number of my friends to see who would like to join me and Ann was the only one who said yes. Good thing she did otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to book that flight. Of course, I am not into solo-travelling and I needed someone to take a lot of pictures of me, so having a friend join me was a requirement. Knowing that Brunei is a small country and there’s not much to do except visit the beautiful mosques, I booked us for three whole days. The flight schedule was just perfect since it was around the weekend, so it did not affect our work schedule that much.

While checking in for our flight, one Pinay passenger approached us and asked if she could have one of her bags checked in together with our luggages under our ticket. I was hesitant of course since I’ve heard horror stories about drug carriers doing the same thing so I was really cold towards her during that time. Ann said that’s probably not the case since she was able to go through the security checks earlier so we agreed and have one of her bags checked in with the rest of our luggages. She was pretty chatty the entire time that she even requested that she be seated besides us during the flight. I told Ann to talk to her since I was not in the mood and was very sleepy then.

Our flight arrived at around 2AM in Brunei, and had arranged for the hotel to have their driver pick us up at the airport. Tita Lorna, our new-found friend there, actually is a resident and has lived in Brunei for more than 30 years. She offered to bring us to our hotel but we told her we actually have somebody picking us up already. She wanted us to visit her and her husband on their house, but we told her we don’t think we’d have much time since we will be doing an overnight stay in the Ulu Temburong rainforest the day after. We gave her our hotel’s name instead, which was the Jubilee Hotel, after she insisted that she’d be dropping by there to bring us some pasalubongs to take back home before we leave Brunei for Monday.

Our hotel’s location was just perfect. Located at the heart of the city, Jubilee Hotel is just a few minutes’ walk to the central business district, shopping malls, food stalls, night markets, cafes, international restaurants, and the cultural and religious centres. I was suprised to find out that our contact at the hotel was actually a Filipina and was more surprised when I was informed by the receptionist while checking in that Sitti, our contact, has upgraded us to a suite room at no additional charge, which made us very happy.

At around 3AM, we were able to unpack and tried to catch some very much needed sleep and woke up around 8AM for breakfast. The hotel offered a free 45-minute tour around the city so we took advantage of that first. We needed to familiarize ourselves with the area before we venture on our own the rest of the day. Maps were also available at the reception, so it was a big help for us while we navigated around the area later that day. Our driver took us to a number of tourist sites, more like one mosque after another, but it was all worth it. We went to the Jame’Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque, the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque and the Istanan Nurul Iman (also known as the Sultan’s Palace). Nothing much to see afterwards so we asked our driver to drop us off Yayasan, a popular shopping complex, just a couple of minutes away from our hotel. Situated just between the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque and Kampong Ayer, it was the perfect place for us to relax and unwind after suffering a little from the heat outside. We then had lunch at Jollibee, which was very, very popular in Brunei. Didn’t taste as good though.

In the afternoon, we decided to visit the Royal Regalia Museum and Kampong Ayer, the water village. We hired a water taxi to drive us around Kampong Ayer for BND15 and it was such a beautiful sight to see hundreds of houses seemingly floating on water. Constructed on stilts above the Brunei River, it kinda reminded me first of the squatters area in Manila, but it was nothing like that. Every house there has airconditing, schools were actually located in the water village as well, there are foot-bridges, concrete jetties, a police station, a fire station, piped water, electricity and telephone lines, clinics and a number of shops were also there. Situated after the Brunei Bay, it is estimated that around 39,000 people live in the Water Village, representing roughly ten percent of the nation’s total population.

We had dinner in Yayasan and continued exploring the area at night. We had to take pictures of the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque at night since I’ve seen pictures of it and it was just magnificent. Nothing beats the real thing though. I know this word has been overused every time I describe a beautiful tourist spot, but it was amaaaaaaazing. Knowing that it’s made of pure gold, the way it glitters at night made me feel like I was in an Aladdin movie, waiting for the genie to pop out. I took so many shots of the majestic mosque, trying to find the best vantage point for me. Had to head back to the hotel afterwards to pack for our Ulu Temburong Rainforest trip the next day.

Hou Hai and the Hutongs

Posted: July 3, 2012 in Beijing, China
4

At this point on our fourth day, we were able to visit almost all the places we wanted to go to in Beijing. These last two days were a little more stress-free than the previous ones. My brother and I decided to visit the Lama Temple first, which was also in our original itinerary. But while walking around the subway, we thought it would be best to go and visit The Egg again to take some morning shots. After taking some pictures of The Egg, we then went ahead to visit the Yonghegong Lama Temple, located in the northeastern part of Beijing. After dropping ourselves off the Yonghegong Subway, we saw three monks crossing the street and we kinda figured they’re probably on their way to the temple, so we went ahead and followed them. And we were right. I was not really impressed of the place, considering that we do have a number of temples here in the Philippines already, so nothing really spectacular there to look at. Aside from the way the people pray and do their worship moves, I kinda thought the place was really boring. Sorry, it’s just me. I have this thing about religious places of worship that bores me. Hey, now you know why I don’t go to church. And I felt like I was about to suffocate from all the incense burning going on around there. After less than an hour, we decided to leave the place and visit Hou Hai.

Considered to be one of the most interesting and popular spots in Beijing, the area around the joined lakes of Qian Hai and Hou Hai, is the home to many restaurants, bars and cafes. Traditionally been home to nobles and wealthy merchants, the Hou Hai area is surrounded also by several grand homes, hidden in the labyrinthine old lanes knows as hutongs. This is a rare quarter of Beijing where the 21st century is kept at bay, and these back alleys represent one of the most satisfying parts of the city to explore on foot or by rickshaw.

After having lunch in one of their McDonald’s restaurants there, my brother and I continued to walk and walk, not actually knowing where we were during that time. We both know that we’re in the Hou Hai area already, we just don’t know where in Hou Hai exactly (edited: we were actually in Nanluoguxiang!). A few minutes later, we saw a couple of huge towers, just facing each other. I scanned my little guidebook and saw that we were actually just outside the Drum and Bell Towers. Since there was a drum performance scheduled at 1:30PM during that day in the Drum Tower, and it was around 12:30PM already, we decided to enter the Bell Tower first. Originally built for musical reasons, it was later used to announce the time and is now a tourist attraction here in Beijing. We had to walk up around a hundred steps to reach the top and then take pictures of the Hou Hai area from the top. We then transferred to the Drum Tower to walk the same long walk to the top, watch the drum performances and take more pictures of Hou Hai from above.

We then decided to continue on walking, trying to locate Hou Hai Lake. Located between two other lakes in the scenic Shichahai area, the beautiful Hou Hai Lake is surrounded, not only by a number of bars and restaurants, tea and coffee shops, but also with a bunch of locals and tourists relaxing, hanging out and just enjoying the calming and peaceful atmosphere of the place. We really didn’t know between the two connecting lakes as to which one was the Hou Hai Lake and which one was Qian Hai. All we know was that they’re being connected by the pretty and arched Silver Ingot Bridge, which was also the perfect spot to view small boats being rented by tourists and locals to peddle on the lakes themselves. We would’ve wanted to stay there longer but the sky’s getting a little gloomy, so we decided to look for our last stop, which was the Prince Gong Mansion.

Prince Gong’s Mansion or Gong Wang Fu Museum is located in the western part of Central Beijing, north of the Shichahai Lake. Consisting of large mansions in the typical siheyuan layout and gardens, Prince Gong’s Mansion is known as one of the most ornate and extravagant residence compounds in all of Beijing. I would consider it as a miniature Summer Palace and the place was really filled with so many visitors. I think we were the only ones who didn’t look Chinese there. I don’t think I even saw any Caucasion tourists inside the mansion grounds that time. Said to be one of the most exquisite and well-preserved royal mansions in Beijing, Prince Gong’s Mansion used to house several families and has a total area of 60,000 square meters. Filled with buildings, gardens, mini-lakes, pavilions, artifical hills and several siheyuan courtyards, plus it’s own grand opera house, it was one of the highlights of this Hou Hai experience.

After roaming around the mansion grounds, we then decided to head back to the hostel. It was starting to drizzle while we were in the streets already. We happened to meet this friendly Chinese girl who spoke English that went with us to the Ping-Anli Subway Station and even shared her umbrella with me. She was very chatty and I had a great time talking to her about our experience in Beijing so far. She even mentioned that she finds their current climate hot. Huh? While I was already shivering from the cold breeze, this is still considered as hot? I told her she should visit the Philippines so she can experience a whole new level of crazy hotness there. I had a great time roaming around the Hou Hai area and the locals there were very, very friendly and helpful. That, I really didn’t expect. Once we arrived back at the hostel, we decided to rest for a while and head out to the Beijing Olympic Park to take some night shots of the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube.

For our last day in Beijing, we decided to de-stress since we were able to go to all the places we wanted to go to for this trip. My sister wanted to do some bargain hunting, so I went with her to the Beijing Zoo Market, the most popular and cheapest clothing market in Beijing. Located just across the Beijing Zoo, hence the name, this market sells everything from clothes to accessories to sports equipments. I did not find it cheap at all. The Bangkok markets are actually cheaper for me, and had a lot of choices compared to this one. After buying some clothes, we passed by another shopping mall, the U Center and did some more shopping. In the afternoon, we went back to the hostel and after packing my stuff, I decided to do some more shopping in Wangfujing on my own while my sister went biking with my brother around the hutongs.

We decided to have dinner in one of the restaurants near the hostel, which has always been fully-packed with customers every day. Nothing on the menu was English so we just went inside, took pictures of the food on the other customers’ tables and showed it to the waiter. That was our last dinner before we leave for the airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave around midnight so we had the hostel arrange a taxi for us to be brought back to the airport. It was probably one of the most bittersweet moments I’ve had while on vacation, saying goodbye to all the sweet girls from Happy Dragon, which definitely made this vacation more special. We took some pictures with them and felt bad when we cannot add them on Facebook since it’s banned in China. I would have to say that this Beijing vacation tops them all as one of the most unforgettable and enjoyable trips I’ve ever had (sorry, Hanoi). I knew I would love this place, I did not expect it to love it that much. Definitely one of the places I would love to come back to again and again. And hey, I may not look like it, but I’m still part Chinese. My grandfather would’ve been proud of me. :)