According to their app, a round trip from Beijing to SFO is EIGHTEEN THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS for basic economy. Beijing to Newark is 9000. According to Expedia, Beijing to SFO through Newark is 2700 for basic economy. Apparently going halfway around the world and adding a transcontinental flight on the end reduces your ticket price by 15000 dollars?
Airlines are weird. Was looking the other day and a direct from JFK to Seoul was $2000, but on the same dates a JFK to Ho Chi Minh City flight was $800. The weird part is that the JFK to Ho Chi Minh has a layover in Seoul. Same airline both times. The flight you take to get to Seoul from JFK for the Ho Chi Minh trip is the plane you'd take from JFK to Seoul. But somehow it's cheaper to do that flight and then go to Vietnam?!
Also I think they can cancel your next flight if you book round trip
When I asked (was going to a show in Seattle but had a round trip thru PDX) they said that they would expect you to finish the journey by rebooking on another flight, or something to that nature.
I had a flight that would cost $600 to go from airport A -> B -> C, but going with the same flight from B -> C was $800 (I even live closer to airport B than to A)
Of course they wouldn't let me book the cheaper ABC ticket and join the flight at B.
That's a TOS violation, and they can sue you for cheating them.
British Rail does it all the time.
I remember there was a whole site set up dedicated to find cheaper layover flights like this and airlines got really mad.
Can they really prove that you didn't just have a potty emergency and hang out in the stall till the plane leaves?
"Uh, sorry I had to shidd out of my doodoo ass, can you just refund me the flight in a couple weeks?"
If you have health insurance, just go to the doctor and say you just cant stop shidding and get a note saying you have medically diagnosed doodoo ass.
If you don't have health insurance, live stream the doodoo for an alibi.
OH NO i just lost track of time while dining in the airport terminal and missed my connecting flight!
its ok tho, i'll just make do here and catch the second leg of the return trip.
This is an excuse to take the train to China. It might actually be faster.
After Alaska is liberated, we can have trans-Beringian railroads
I think the Chinese gov has imposed a cap on how many flights can come to China from the US (last I heard is one flight per one route per one week or something, maybe there are a few more now, still the supply/demand is totally wrecked), because, you know, the US has been killing more than 1 mill of its own people with some pandemic thingy …
Haven’t seen my parents since 2018 :sadness:
if you fly through hong kong its like 1.7k and any high speed rail to anywhere in china is basically 8 hours long and costs 100 bucks for a round trip first class seat. if you want cheaper i heard tourists can get a normal seat for like 10 or 20 bucks, cheaper for chinese citizens
yeah. hopefully covid stops being a thing i really wanna visit chongqing one day. cant do that if we are in hell for the rest of my life :agony-shivering:
The prices are the same for everyone in China. No "foreigners prices", no matter what that white person who lived in Beijing for a year will tell you.
just a hong konger i know, theyre asian :shrug-outta-hecks: they say certain areas get better discounts due to average wage changes
ngl im kinda miffed at this site immediately assuming like someone from hk or taiwan is a turbolib or something
esp if that person is from a western country like wtf is this stereotype shit
well it's partially true, but nowhere near as true as westoids think
IIRC 35% of Taiwanese people prefer the PRC over the US. Which is still a minority, but it's a 1/3 minority
:yea: like the pricing thing is well documented and a good thing, actually. like how does it make sense that mainlanders from rural areas that make no money have to pay the same price as people from the cities with western incomes to use trains? thats bad, especially when the poor are more likely to use trains due to not owning cars. so by that logic it also makes sense to charge tourists sensible amounts in order to subsidize the poor and assist with local development, especially with how currency converts.
but also that person is a 2 week account so prob gonna be banned soon anyways
"im sorry that that you got charged $0.10 usd instead of $0.01 usd for your food, its really unfair"
Someone I know from Chongqing mentioned it at one point and sent me an article on how subsidies work. But they do have HSR subsidies for migrant work and some companies pay for it as well as part of some program. But slow trains are common in regional travel and afaik they cost the locals like 20 cents USD depending onincome. Cgtn had a story on it that I posted here at one point but can't be bothered to dig through my 500 posts
https://youtu.be/vuoNxCMVLc4
heres the cgtn video. one of the train ladies mentions the reduced price, it costs 1 usd to travel 100 miles for one person on a slow train, some other videos cited 60 cents USD, and 40 cents USD. some villagers make around 200-400 USD each year so its pretty expensive for them unless they cut a deal with some agency. but of course goods are cheaper as well.
this image says 'public welfare slow train' on the side of the train https://www.marketplace.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DSC02728.jpg?w=768
afaik if you dont have public welfare you can take the train but they charge a higher rate
I've had Chinese friends complaining about the cost of flights pretty much since they started doing regular flights in/out of China a year or two ago
The current basic economy fare is more than 3x what the first class fare used to be, Jesus Christ
