Please Suggest Least Expensive Airfare To Usa (any City)

[wimpy]

Here's the latest on USA fares from the EVA web site...

Frankly, as a long-time customer of theirs, I don't think 31,000 baht RT tickets to the U.S. are any kind of a particularly good deal, and certainly not as low a price as they often have offered in the past.

I notice that on their cheapest fares they are no longer giving mileage. Cheapskates.

[jfchandler]

Wimpy, I noticed the same thing, as well as some other changes...

1. I believe, in the past, their pricing on the Hot Fares web site included tax... But now...it's EXCLUDING tax... So their 31,000 RT fare actually with tax comes out to a total of 37,780, or $1180 U.S. That's hardly any kind of great deal.

2. Their pricing for the coming 6 months seems to be much more uniform than I've ever seen it in the past... Uusually they have quite a wide range of available fares...depending on the date and class and other factors... But right now... the ranges are pretty narrow...and within each general time period, pretty standardized pricing...

I've flown with them for years, and have FF status with them. So the last couple years, when buying online, I've almost always had the choice to use some of my mileage to obtain a reduced price ticket, even if by only a little. I don't remember the last time there were NO such discounts available for their FF folks...

...unless....since I recently lost my Gold status and now have Silver status with them...that they're offering those to Gold card folks but not to the lower card levels... But I don't think that's the issue here..

[pcruzer]

since last year most airlines have reduce their schedules by 20 to 30%. so don't expect the super deals of 2009.

most travel agents have lower fares not listed on most sites including the airlines...restrictions apply!!

[pcruzer]

since last year most airlines have reduce their schedules by 20 to 30%. so don't expect the super deals of 2009.

most travel agents have lower fares not listed on most sites including the airlines...restrictions apply!!

[Lopburi99]

China Airlines has the best "monkey class" flights from BKK and CNX to LAX. You have to stop in Taiwan but no more than 2 hours. Book out far ahead and check different days of the week. Good luck!

22,250 THB total (about $700) to LAX on 6/30. One way. Good price I think. Their website shows a seven day window with applicable rates, very nice.

I'll check the other sites and post on those too, so others might benefit.

Today same China Air flight 21,750 total so it varies a little daily. Yes, stops at Taipei. About $680, best price so far. Trying sneary7's approach now HKK to LAX booked separately...

Unfortunately no savings by using separate bookings that I could find sneary.

After a lot of searching on various days, China Air's 21,750 (all inclusive) to LAX is the lowest one-way fare I've found. (JFK: about 24,000)

[toptuan]

Check Malaysian Airlines BKK-KL-LAX, if you don't mind a 2-3 hour layover in KL. Sometimes they have killer deals.

[qualtrough]

Best deal I could find last week, which I bought, was RT on EVA BKK-LAX outbound and SFO-BKK inbound for exactly 37000 all in. There may have been other carriers that were a bit cheaper, but it was hard to get dates that were not fully booked up. I am leaving on June 11 and coming back on the 23rd, and it was tough to get reservations around those dates. Must be all the farangs leaving??

[jfchandler]

Ahh.... the best I could find from EVA's web site for a BKK to LAX roundtrip in mid June was 31,000 baht base, 38,000 baht including taxes and fees, $1,175 U.S. And that was more than I was willing to pay (I had set my own goal for getting a RT ticket not exceeding $1000 all in), so I abandoned EVA and considered canceling my L.A. trip.

Then, I took one of the suggestions above (thanks very much!!!) and used the Sidestep.com multi-airline-search web site (which I had never used or even heard of before) to search for better airfares. Most results on most days weren't much or any better than EVA's price. But, one feature of the SideStep web site is to show fares actually obtained from their site for the same trip/segment on various days, month by month.

Using that info, Sidestep steered me to a couple of available China Eastern Airline flights (BKK-Shanghai-LAX) that were priced at $945 U.S. RT, all-inclusive. You don't buy tickets directly thru Sidestep, but that site points you to sites where you can purchase, which in my case was the choice of CheapTickets.com or Orbitz.com for the same flight and price. I used the CheapTickets site and got the tickets RT for the $945 price, with a couple of hours layover in Shanghai each way.

I've never flown China Eastern before... But I've already signed up for their frequent flyer program, and have the E-ticket already mailed from CheapTickets. And it just so happened, that the flight dates involved (midweek one week apart) were exactly the ones I would have wanted. Adjust either the outbound or return flights one day forward or back, and the price for the same flight jumped to about the $1200 figure or higher.

I also priced Thai Air from their web site...and their ticket to LAX was so ridiculously expensive, it's not even worth talking about.

[wimpy]

Ahh.... the best I could find from EVA's web site for a BKK to LAX roundtrip in mid June was 31,000 baht base, 38,000 baht including taxes and fees, $1,175 U.S. And that was more than I was willing to pay (I had set my own goal for getting a RT ticket not exceeding $1000 all in), so I abandoned EVA and considered canceling my L.A. trip.

Then, I took one of the suggestions above (thanks very much!!!) and used the Sidestep.com multi-airline-search web site (which I had never used or even heard of before) to search for better airfares. Most results on most days weren't much or any better than EVA's price. But, one feature of the SideStep web site is to show fares actually obtained from their site for the same trip/segment on various days, month by month.

Using that info, Sidestep steered me to a couple of available China Eastern Airline flights (BKK-Shanghai-LAX) that were priced at $945 U.S. RT, all-inclusive. You don't buy tickets directly thru Sidestep, but that site points you to sites where you can purchase, which in my case was the choice of CheapTickets.com or Orbitz.com for the same flight and price. I used the CheapTickets site and got the tickets RT for the $945 price, with a couple of hours layover in Shanghai each way.

I've never flown China Eastern before... But I've already signed up for their frequent flyer program, and have the E-ticket already mailed from CheapTickets. And it just so happened, that the flight dates involved (midweek one week apart) were exactly the ones I would have wanted. Adjust either the outbound or return flights one day forward or back, and the price for the same flight jumped to about the $1200 figure or higher.

I also priced Thai Air from their web site...and their ticket to LAX was so ridiculously expensive, it's not even worth talking about.

How did this fare compare with what the local agents could offer?

[Lopburi99]

Check Malaysian Airlines BKK-KL-LAX, if you don't mind a 2-3 hour layover in KL. Sometimes they have killer deals.

A little less than China Air at 21,340 inc tax. They have a lower fare category, perhaps the killer deal, but it was always sold out from what I could see. That is their "MHLow" category. Maybe if you book far in advance, or maybe they open it up now and then.

[elcent]

Delta charges 1290 for a round trip. Thai Inter 2990.

[moe666]

Any more a round trip Lax-Bkk, Bkk-Lax for give or take $1000 is a good price the old days of the $500 dollar round trip are over. It's called higher oil prices.

[jfchandler]

I didn't price/check any BKK travel agents... I rarely do... I usually prefer to handle entirely online....

But I did post here the full details on my reservation. So if anyone's done better thru a travel agent for a comparable flight, it would be good to know.

How did this fare compare with what the local agents could offer?

[jfchandler]

Yup, that's what I used to pay during non high season times when I first started traveling here as a tourist 7 years ago.... Haven't been able to get that kind of fare for a couple years ago... I think I maybe got about $700 RT with EVA off peak one or two years back.

Any more a round trip Lax-Bkk, Bkk-Lax for give or take $1000 is a good price the old days of the $500 dollar round trip are over. It's called higher oil prices.

[jfchandler]

I was pretty pleased with the way Sidestep.com works.... but it was a bit of a hassle....

To check fares looking for the lowest price, I pretty much had to search day by day... and then run the same search again for a day later, and another day later, and so on... I pretty much priced the entire month of June one day and search at a time...

I'm wondering...is there a comparable search site engine out there that pulls from the same fare info...but allows you to say.... I want to travel this trip....during this period of days or weeks or longer... And then, find me the lowest fares on any day/days during that period... That would save a lot of time and hassle...

A lot of times for my travel, I am at least somewhat flexible about when I go and when I return, and can easily adjust the timing forward or backward.... That's the kind of search capacity I'd want... But most of the sites for international travel don't even allow you to do the same 1-3 day flexible schedule request that most of them allow for domestic bookings/flights.

[shawndoc]

Check out : http://www.kayak.com/buzz

The Buzz feature allows you to put in the airports you are flying between, and then shows you the best fairs people have gotten recently through the site. You can view by month and day.

I used it to get a good idea of what would be a "fair" ticket price, as well as choosing general timeline as I can see what weeks are cheapest.

I still booked through vayama.com though, once I had the general timeline and expected price worked out.

[jfchandler]

BTW....two follow-up things to mention...

1. All of the 3rd party flight/ticket search engines I tried/used did NOT produce/match the best "Hot Fares" fares available directly from EVA via their web site. I already knew the best online direct from EVA fare going in... And never did one of the travel search engines match that low price, not even close. So at least in the online world, EVA's own web site seems to always have the best result.

2. Re my China Eastern ticket mentioned above, I subsequently had a problem with CheapTickets and China Eastern, but it seems to have been worked out OK. After getting my E-ticket by email from CT, and everything supposedly being confirmed, I called China Eastern to check on some other details like seat assignment and luggage allocation, etc.

And in the course of conversation with one of their CSRs in their BKK office, she mentions, "You realize that you are NOT confirmed on the return LAX to Shanghai segment of your flight, right?" I said, <deleted>!!!!, since I had already been charged by CT for the full ticket, and nothing from them had any indication about that. Later, I confirmed that info was correct with the main China Eastern office in the U.S., and then went back to CT and spoke with a supervisor there via telephone...

After about an hour and having contacted China Eastern, the CT supervisor called me back to apologize, explaining they had had some kind of mixup and their system had an expired booking code, so that there really wasn't an available seat on that segment. But their solution working with CE was to book me onto a different LAX to Shanghai flight that same day departing LAX a few hours earlier... Dunno what the regular price for that flight would have been, just that CT honored my original ticket price and changed the booking to the earlier flight, and threw in a $50 travel voucher for the problem.

But as I explained to the CT supervisor, what if I hadn't on my own called the airline to check about some other matter, and then flown to L.A. and returned to the airport there ready to come back home to BKK, only to find out I didn't have a confirmed booking on the return flight and instead had been on the waiting list all this time. I would have been screwed, and REALLY angry....

So it's a good lesson that whenever one is using a 3rd party ticket vendor, to always then check and re-confirm the details of the booking with the airline direct to make sure everything is in order.

[jfchandler]

Just to see, I tried Vayama just now for the exact mid-June dates of my LAX travel. And the best RT price it showed was $1606 on China Eastern, a far cry from the $945 RT ticket I was able to get via Sidestep and CheapTickets...

I still booked through vayama.com though, once I had the general timeline and expected price worked out.

[jfchandler]

Shawndoc, I also tried the BUZZ feature on Kayak, and it worked kinda cool... Good results, from what I can tell...

Here's what it showed today for the June trip to LA, and the results seem pretty accurate...

It doesn't mean, or promise, of course, that the lowest fare it produces is still available.. But it does tell you how long ago the lowest fare/fares were found, so that helps...

It's definitely somewhat I'd now tend to check first, to give me a good idea what kind of best price I want to be shooting for, when I search for a ticket.

[jfchandler]

Went back again now and repriced my LA trip on Sidestep.com, and looked again at the whole month of June.

As of today, from that site, the best available fares for any days--excluding the lower fare on China Eastern I found that apparently is not really available anymore--were in the $1250 to $1300 range -- which is a bit more than the lowest rate EVA was offering direct from their own web site.

I did notice, BTW, that Sidestep.com does have a feature in their flights search dialog that allows you to choose a flight period both three days ahead and three days after your desired date. So basically, when the search results come up using that feature, you get the lowest available fares for that flight day by day for an entire week (your chosen date plus 3 days ahead and behind).

That's definitely a good feature to use, given how airfares can jump around even with as little as a one day change.

[Lopburi99]

Check Malaysian Airlines BKK-KL-LAX, if you don't mind a 2-3 hour layover in KL. Sometimes they have killer deals.

A little less than China Air at 21,340 inc tax. They have a lower fare category, perhaps the killer deal, but it was always sold out from what I could see. That is their "MHLow" category. Maybe if you book far in advance, or maybe they open it up now and then.

The Malaysia site has been the best I've found so far, much better than SideStep today where good prices often disappear the next day.

One way trips to LAX are available at least once every week for 21,340 through the end of June (but there is one this Sat 5/15 for only 20,180).

For your round trip needs, be sure to check MalaysiaAirlines.com too.

Edit: BTW, that 20,180 baht flight was their MHLow category, the first time I've seen a flight there. I think it may open up for flights before the weekend of a given week as they see a light flight and want to book it up.

2nd Edit: Just checked Kayak. No fares anywhere near that low were shown. Malaysia Air not seen.

Edited May 11, 2010 by Lopburi99

[craigt3365]

Check Malaysian Airlines BKK-KL-LAX, if you don't mind a 2-3 hour layover in KL. Sometimes they have killer deals.

A little less than China Air at 21,340 inc tax. They have a lower fare category, perhaps the killer deal, but it was always sold out from what I could see. That is their "MHLow" category. Maybe if you book far in advance, or maybe they open it up now and then.

The Malaysia site has been the best I've found so far, much better than SideStep today where good prices often disappear the next day.

One way trips to LAX are available at least once every week for 21,340 through the end of June (but there is one this Sat 5/15 for only 20,180).

For your round trip needs, be sure to check MalaysiaAirlines.com too.

Edit: BTW, that 20,180 baht flight was their MHLow category, the first time I've seen a flight there. I think it may open up for flights before the weekend of a given week as they see a light flight and want to book it up.

2nd Edit: Just checked Kayak. No fares anywhere near that low were shown. Malaysia Air not seen.

Jeez...I just checked Malaysia Airlines for a flight this coming fall. Great rate at 18k Baht, but with 17k Baht in taxes!!!!!! Crazy...but still a good deal at 35k Baht return...

[jfchandler]

I too just checked the Malaysia Air site for RTs from BKK to Los Angeles for this June and July...

Everything close to 40,000 baht RT all in, which equals to more than $1,200 U.S.

Not bad, but hardly any kind of special bargain... Similar fares to be found elsewhere...

Even EVA's direct website fares are a bit lower than that, last time I checked them...closer to $1180.