China Southern - first time booking experience

[luxury-lizard]

Background:
We're off to Europe late May - first stop Malta. Our outbound flights were booked using Velocity points (via DOH) - we have now cancelled these as Virgin has suspended its wet-lease flights indefinitely. Backup flight booked the day the 'war' started - using AC points (PER-BKK-FRA) - the best available at the time. Now since we live in Sydney this was not ideal so we looked around (just yesterday) for paid alternates. The best we could find (all the way to Malta and avoiding the ME) - one-way in J at $7200 pp.

Solution:
So yesterday I stumbled across a China Southern flight SYD-CAN-IST for $2900 pp in J. Adding the IST-MLA would be another $350 pp in J.
So I went through the online booking - and after entering all the passenger details, seat selection, credit card details - I clicked "PAY" - oh dear blank screen!!
So I called the China Southern local number - amazing - answered immediately - obviously a Chinese agent who spoken totally fluent English. She found my orphan booking - checked the details, sent me a payment link - paid and all good - itinerary and e-ticket came through.

One small problem:
On trying to look up my booking on the China Southern website - I cannot do it (I am only a guest not. a member) - tried PNR and "order number" - both said invalid format. I really only wanted to check that my seat selections were still in place. I'll call again later today and sort this out (I'll report back). If anyone has any tips - please advise.
I'll report back our experience on China Southern (both flight are 1-2-1 flat beds so should be OK) - other aspects of business class have a much lower priority to us.

 

[markis10]

Have you tried their app, most of the Chinese airlines have apps to do everything that seem to be more functional than their websites.

 

[luxury-lizard]

Ah will try

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Ah will try

Try the app… but reading other answers after a quick google suggests it might be easier to just call

 

[hwy]

Same problem when I booked in Feburary- it takes 24 hours to populate in the CZ mysterious database before it shows up as a booking where you can manage your reservation.

When you are on board just remind yourself the price you pay to lie flat all the way. I found that for the price it is a great product. CZ biz lounge in CAN is a little chaotic though- probably because they allow in all types of paid lounge access.

 

[luxury-lizard]

OK - I've now worked this out with some assistance from an agent I spoke to. So here are the "easy" steps:-

1. On the home page click "online services" / then "seats/checkin"
   If you get errors at this step - clear all cookies and/or try another browser - I had more success with Chrome than Safari
   You may also get an error stating the system is too busy to assist - try later
2. You will now be asked to enter your e-mail and request a one-time code - this worked fine
3. After entering the code, fill in the fields on the next screen: ticket number, name etc , flight number and date (Note you use your ticket number not PNR)
4. You now get the seat map and can select seats
5. If you have a connecting flight you have to do step 3 again - same ticket number but next flight number and possibly a new date if you have a next day connection.

Hope this helps others.

 

[kpc]

I know you have already booked your flights but Guangzhou (Can) is not a bad place to stop for a few days...modern, clean, fantastic Cantonese food, great cheap hotels etc.

We spent 4 days there last October and enjoyed the stay.

 

[markis10]

CZ biz lounge in CAN is a little chaotic though- probably because they allow in all types of paid lounge access.

The premium lounge was doing coughtails last week, may have indulged in an old fashioned or two prior to my JAL flight!

 

[luxury-lizard]

Here's a brief review of my CZ flight (SYD-CAN-IST in J for $3000 one-way). Other than a schedule change that made our transit in CAN 1.5 days - all flights were on time. Both legs had 1-2-1 flat beds. Service was fine but certainly no SQ. On the SYD-CAN leg they had 1 bottle of Champagne for all of business class (fortunately not many people were drinking Champagne or in fact anything at all) - there was essentially no wine at all (other than one bottle of what looked like Chinese red wine). There was no menu - FA just asked you what you wanted from a menu she had. Food was forgettable.

The CAN-IST leg (which departed at 1am) had a full menu and lots of wine selection.

So all in all - great for the price (in these times of super high airfares, particularly one-way) - fine but CZ would need to be significantly cheaper than (say) SQ or QR to fly them again.

(Side note - we stayed at the Pullman at CAN airport (a short shuttle away from the international terminal) and used the metro to go into the city visiting the Canton Tower. Here's a tip - both the hotel concierge and the guard at the metro told us you need to buy a ticket before boarding the metro; however, you can tap on/off using any credit card or Apple Pay.).