Of late there have been many things on my mind. The top most on the list was a lot of trips getting cancelled. Thankfully some of them have now been rescheduled.
The second thought revolves around the issue of solo traveling in India post December 16, 2012. I was at Palampur in first week of that December and I never felt unsafe. And now unless there are others with me I just keep dithering about going really solo.
So I thought I would travel solo to nearby Asian destinations. I started with looking for cheap flight tickets to Hong Kong. And to me it felt that they were nowhere to be found!
I tried all the major search engines for comparison for that elusive cheap air ticket and I was not very impressed. Of late I have discovered that the cheapest fare is usually available on the airline website only. And Air Asia of course doesn’t show up in any search. But Air Asia doesn’t help me much anyway because it is based out of South India and it would cost me a lot of money to fly South. By my rough calculations it may actually make the fare then close to other full fare airlines.
Initially I was looking for tickets in March but then after looking at my leave calendar I discovered that I could take 5-6 days off in April too. I became hopeful once again and tried searching for Hong Kong fares in April. To my surprise the fares went up by 10K at least in April. I wonder why? I thought maybe there is going to be more traffic in April but still the result did leave me mystified!
Finally I decided that I would book whatever were the cheapest flight tickets. For a return trip they were just a few rupees short of 30K. But the transaction didn’t get through. My card got charged and I was left without tickets! After a lot of frustration I somehow got back the money.
Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe the travel Gods want me to remain true to my style which is reasonable, affordable travel. But all you gurus of hunting cheap travel tickets what am I missing on? Where are those cheap airfares?
Looking for good air fairs is a job in itself. There are some good companies that provide some decent service. Come the summer and many want to travel and that is why fares are going up.
Thank you for sharing your perspective Shalu.