ITA Software & BNE-KTM Trip

[GladstoneTim]

Hi,
I hope it is okay to put a couple of kind-of-related questions in the one thread.
1. I am pricing a trip for Sept BNE-KTM return. Using the itasoftware.com, with BNE as the selling city I get a good price but i can't find the fare direct on the airlines' websites. Is this typical? Would a travel agent be able to come close to what ITA is quoting?
2. Any tricks for getting a good fare to KTM? Wanting to stop over in SIN or HKG on the return.
3. China Southern comes up as the best fare but have such varying reviews on airlinequality.com. What do AAFers think?

Thanks

Tim

 

[yohy?!]

Hi,
I hope it is okay to put a couple of kind-of-related questions in the one thread.
1. I am pricing a trip for Sept BNE-KTM return. Using the itasoftware.com, with BNE as the selling city I get a good price but i can't find the fare direct on the airlines' websites. Is this typical? Would a travel agent be able to come close to what ITA is quoting?
2. Any tricks for getting a good fare to KTM? Wanting to stop over in SIN or HKG on the return.
3. China Southern comes up as the best fare but have such varying reviews on airlinequality.com. What do AAFers think?

Thanks

Tim

If you take a print out of the fare breakdown coding to a TA they should be able to sell you the fare. Just use the email link on the final pricing page to send it to yourself.

China Southern is fairly average for long haul from what I hear (no personal IFE, mediocre food, likely limited english from FAs) but they'll get you from A to B. Not to mention that a stopover in SIN or HKG will involve a backtrack from mainland China (Guangzhou I think) to get there.

 

[JohnK]

My experience is not all travel agents in Australia will want to match the airfare quoted on ITA. Perhaps it has something to do with their commissions and profits.

 

[yohy?!]

My experience is not all travel agents in Australia will want to match the airfare quoted on ITA. Perhaps it has something to do with their commissions and profits.

Probably true but hopefully at the very least they will be able to come closer to it than their retail pricing.

 

[GladstoneTim]

Thanks for the thoughts.

Any ideas about getting a good deal/cheapest rouitng/any tricks?

 

[drmikki]

Hi GladstoneTim,

I went PER-(SIN)-KTM-SIN-PER in 2008 with Sing Air/Silk Air and was pretty happy with them. We needed to get to Singapore for a wedding on the way back, and didn't want to run too much risk of missing everything. Given we didn't have massive faith in KTM airport, we wanted an airline where we knew we could get in touch with efficient English speaking customer service in case of problems. That said, we had no problems, although the pat-down by security was a little...erm...over-familiar. (She really should have bought me dinner afterwards! :shock

A dummy booking for mid-Sept gives BNE-(SIN)-KTM-SIN-BNE for 1403 ("sweet deal", no FF miles) or $1560 ("Flexisaver").

What are your plans for KTM?