Cheap plane tickets to China?

[AlecBGreen]

Hi all! I got my job in China and now I have to find a plane ticket that wont bankrupt me. Does anyone know a good place to find cheap plane tickets? I checked cheaptickets.com and priceline.com and the best price I could find (for a one way, DC to Beijing ticket) is $1100. Im sure I can do better (since my roundtrip ticket 2 years ago was like $800) but I cant find anything. Any suggestions?

-Alec

p.s. if your interested in my job, here it is: http://www.chinatefl.com/guizhou/teach/gzqh.htm

[amazona]

1. you might could do better, some ideas

Where are you departing from? There are often good prices offered from the West Coast, such as from Los Angeles. East Coast might be a bit more challenging, I'm not sure.

Unfortunately, one-way tickets often cost as much (or more!) than both way tickets. They don't like it when you do this, but you may have to buy a round-trip ticket and then once you've reached your destination, 36 to 24 hours before the flight out, call the airline and tell them that "something" came up and you won't be flying out at that time. When a one-way ticket is $1,100 and a round-trip ticket is $900, well, what the heck do they THINK people will do?

Register with smarterliving.com and check their sales prices for airfare or even packages. Sometimes you can get the package, just use the air, throw away the hotel, and still come out cheaper...don't ask me why.

Cheaptickets is not usually cheap any more, and Priceline has too many issues (such as weird red-eyes and other B.S.)

I haven't checked with pleasant holidays but don't they sometimes have cheap flights/packages to China?

Very important -- Install sidestep and use it to search the internet for the cheapest airfare. If you have a choice of arrival dates, change them around and try different times and dates. It can make a big difference in the price.

I've also been introduced to qixo.com and sometimes they've got the cheap price. Finally, there's a private site where I sometimes hear of airfare deals. I'll go check it now and if I find anything, I'll come back and put an update. If I don't come back, it means I didn't find anything at this time.

Sometimes you have to keep checking for days or weeks to get the best price.

[AlecBGreen]

2. cool!

thanks for the help! I live near DC so it would be the most convenient departure place but I would have no problem with driving out to Cali and catching a plane from there...actually that would be a lot of fun!

[bratcatinok]

5. Also if you have access to

charging your ticket on American Express they can have some great fares.

Several years ago I decided on the spur of the moment to fly from DFW to Reno, Nv. I checked all of the so-called cheap places and they were expensive. I called American Express and their ticket was 430.00 less than anything else I could find.

[SoCalDem]

3. Try air china's website...1029 round trip from DC

call their toll free and you might get an even better deal depending on time of day or day of the week

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Just did a quick peek at...

Contintental, and they have a RT deal for $894 to Hong Kong from Newark. Probably less from Houston.

Northwest is the other big one to China from around here, but all of the majors go there. Of the furriners, British Air, Singapore Air, Korean Air, JAL and the other Japanese one are reliable and might have deals going to Beijing or somewhere else in China through their domestic hubs.

Check their websites-- the online ticket brokers don't always have the best prices. And, a good travel agent might get a great deal out of a reliable bucket shop.