Time is growing short of course, so I spent the evening researching my travel options, now that my business arrangements are complete. So first of all, the business arrangements:
Departing Chicago on United Friday, January 20 at noon, arriving in Beijing the next day at about 3:45 PM. Hotel in Beijing: week 1--Sheraton Great Wall, week 2--St. Regis Beijing. I opted to try two different hotels, figuring it would be nice to switch things up a bit. In the end, the decision came down to two factors: Both hotels are Starwood properties, and I like points and nights. The Sheraton is closer to the client, which is important to me for week 1 when I am less familiar with the area and how long it takes to get from point A to B. The St. Regis is closer to touristy activities. I will depart Beijing on Saturday, February 11 at about 5:30 PM, arriving in Chicago the same day at 4:30 PM. (I know it's weird but that's what crossing the international date line will do to you.) I had to book economy due to the client's policies, but I have enough miles to use for upgrading and succeeded in the flight home, but was waitlisted for the flight to Beijing. Economy on such a long flight will suck, so hopefully I am upgraded for the entire itinerary. We'll see what happens.
As for personal travel, due to the Chinese New Year, flights are pretty jammed that first weekend. Travelocity was able to locate an itinerary with Cathay Pacific to get me in and out of Bangkok for $1423 (business class for all but one segment), connecting in Hong Kong. It's significantly more than I expected to be spending and I'm not thrilled to have a connection as the total travel time will be around 8 hours each way. These negatives are totally outweighed by the fact that I'll get to spend some time with friendly faces. I'm perfectly willing to spend whatever it takes to see two familiar faces in a sea of a billion unfamiliar faces. So I'll be departing Beijing at 1:00 PM on Saturday, January 28, arriving in Bangkok at 8:15 PM after a 2 hour layover in Hong Kong, and departing Bangkok at noon on Sunday, February 5, arriving in Beijing at 8:00 PM, after a slightly shorter layover in Hong Kong. The final segment is economy class for whatever reason, surprising to me as a booking class doesn't usually split two service classes. It's also a paper ticket for whatever reason.
Roundtrip flights from Bangkok to Chiang Mai on Thai Airways are running about $130 right now (with the itineraries I tested), which is about what I expected. I'm not about to book though-- I need a day to figure out what I want to do. My first instinct is to spend the night in Bangkok and continue on to Chiang Mai on Sunday, then return to Bangkok on Friday.
In booking the personal section of my travel, I discovered that Orbitz does not allow you to begin a trip from Beijing. Expedia presented options but when I tried to book, it told me that the itinerary was unavailable. Travelocity ended up being the winner in this case. I tried to look up the itinerary directly from Cathay Pacific's website, but it does not allow trips to begin from Beijing but does allow you to end them there. (Indeed, my initial segment is operated by Air China.) As far as I can tell, Thai Airways' website only allows you to search by schedule, not by price, so while the display of flight options is nice, the lack of pricing information until you choose your exact flights sucks.
No comments:
Post a Comment