Almost all international airlines are offering attractive discounts. But are these deals as mouth-watering as they seem? Aabhas Sharma finds out.
Travelling overseas has never been easier — or cheaper. The economic downturn and the swine flu have together resulted in tourism taking a big hit, with the result that it is not just hotels that are offering great deals but also international airlines. In fact, the bottom seems to have fallen out as far as ticket prices go — and these are unlikely to get any cheaper. For the time being, the customer does seem to be the king with airlines competing with each other in offering special discounts. Looking at the deals, you may be tempted to book yourself a foreign holiday too. But before you log on, here’s what Business Standard found out when we did a recce of the market and tried to avail of some of these lucrative deals:
Singapore Airlines, under its aptly-named offer Exceptional Value Deals, has been announcing an all-inclusive fare to Singapore for just Rs 11,000. But this was a limited period offer, only for a week, valid for bookings made till yesterday. We hope you made good use of it. If you didn’t, you can try booking a ticket to the US, China or Australia on the same airlines. Travelling to China will cost you a mere Rs 22,000 (including taxes), and if you want to head off to Australia for a vacation, you will have to fork out just Rs 25,000 — as compared to almost double the amount on a regular fare. All purchases, however, need to be made before June 11 and one has to travel before September 30.
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Similar deals are being offered by other airlines too. Sri Lankan Airlines is offering a return trip to Colombo (ex-Mumbai) at Rs 12,635. The catch is that this excludes taxes. And if you want to travel to the Maldives or Hong Kong on the airlines, the ticket will cost you Rs 18,000 — more or less equal to what other airlines offer (sans discounts).
Malaysian Airlines is offering a scheme called “Grab a Deal”, where you can get fares below Rs 10,000 (one-way, without taxes) to Kuala Lumpur from Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. These tickets are on sale only till June 2, although you can travel any time till December (even in the “high season”) — a good deal on the face of it.
Well, we thought of checking out a few of these packages to see if we could get lucky with a really cheap ticket. However, what we found was that many of these offers came with limitations: the seats were limited, there were “terms and conditions”, and only the fastest fingers first got the prize in the end.
First up was Singapore Airlines. We tried booking a flight to Perth since the deal was so attractive. The best price we got trying to block a seat on the Internet was Rs 42,000 — almost Rs 20,000 more than what we were expecting to pay. And this was on booking for a date 60 days in advance.
Next, we tried our luck with a trip to Singapore. The result for the “best fare available” was Rs 30,912 — again, Rs 20,000 more than what was supposed to have got us the ticket.
As a marketing manager of an online travel portal put it: “These are just tools to attract more fliers but you have to be really lucky to get a seat at the prices advertised.” He also added that such schemes rarely got translated into an increased number of travellers. On busy routes like Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, the chances of getting lucky with a cheap ticket are more remote than for a ticket to, say, Australia, he said.
Next, we decided to try booking ourselves on Sri Lanka Airlines. To our surprise, here, we actually got lucky. The offer for a Mumbai-Colombo-Mumbai ticket at Rs 12, 385 (with taxes, it comes to about Rs 14,000) was true and we reserve a seat at the price — although the booking had to be made in the next 14 days. We thought of looking for seats on the same airline’s other routes as well, including Mumbai- Kuala Lumpur-Mumbai. Again, the advertised fare was the one we got.
On Malaysian Airlines, too, a one-way trip to Kuala Lumpur from Delhi cost under Rs 10,000, as advertised by the airline. The catch here was that the travel date had to be within a week of booking.
Due to the reduction in fuel surcharge, airlines like Cathay Pacific are reportedly offering seats at much lower prices on their American and Australia routes. But since they aren’t advertising, the best available fare is the one which you get trying to book on their websites.
A friend told me that he is travelling to Zurich next month as he has got an unbelievable return fare of Rs 23,000 ex-New Delhi. The airline is Emirates. As luck would have it, I got the same route for Rs 33,000, on the same airline. I guess, you do need to be lucky.