Airasia is back with 1 million FREE seats

Thanks to the one-million-free-seats promotion (travel perious: January to April 2010) , Airasia website loads so slow. Expected. Just imagine MNG having 50% sales, almost every woman in town will rush to the outlet. Imagine squeezing with the crowd to grab the-desire-discounted-item, long queue at the waiting room, barcode scanners that stop working cause there is just too much customers, and the list of horror goes on.

Now when there is a chance to fly to Hongkong or Australia for ‘FREE’ (still have to pay the tax yadayada), it is expected that almost everyone will rush to the site. I’ve expected the crowd and slow loading time that keeps on bringing me to an error page. If so, why am I throwing myself into the frustration and squeeze with the crowd to book a cheaper tickets for next month holiday? *self blaming on* Stupid.

Update:
Yay! I managed to book the tickets for next month after spending more than 2 hours ’shopping’ in Airasia website. *big wet eyes* Highlight of the trip will be Redang island! I should have bought the cute beach wear and huge sunglasses at The Curve the other day. Ugh. But, boyfriend doesn’t seem to be going with us, so why bother. Am also hunting on the waterproof case for my digicam.

Done one major thing. The next thing is to come out with travel plan, organize transportation, accommodation, timing, yadayada. Sounds like so many things to settle. *faint down*

Most probably this is going to be my last holiday for this year, as I will be slaving to pay for my tuition fee.

Medan – KL, cheapest fare ever

Here’s the map of Southeast Asia. I drew a red line connecting Medan and KL incase there is people interested in knowing the location.

I was checking Airasia site for the flight fare, from Medan to KL on April. After searching for several dates, I didn’t find any that is cheap enough although they have a new promo, Medan – KL starts from IDR.14.000 with booking date until today or tomorrow (I forget which one). I was about to rant when I click on a date and found it!

Yes, that is it. The IDR.14.000 (around USD1.20) flight fare (one way only). The total fee is IDR.84.000 after add in the administration fee. But wait, that is not the total fee yet.

There’s more:
1. Baggage fee
Add in IDR.15.000 for 15kg baggage. You won’t need this if you bring hand luggage.

2. Seating fee
Yes, now passengers can pick the seat instead of free seating. There goes the horror of rushing and squeezing in the crowd (in uncivilized way) just to get a seat. *sweat*

Add IDR.75.000 for the Hot seat, where you can select seats from the first 5 rows of the aircraft or 2 rows at the emergency exit. Otherwise, standard seat is just IDR.15.000. If I can’t get row #6, I’ll opt for Hot seat cause Hot seat included Xpress Boarding (again, there goes the horror of rushing to the plane with tonnes of people. *sweat*)

Back to the calculation, so IDR.84.000 + IDR.15.000 + IDR.75.000 = IDR.174.000 which is around USD15 only. Oh my.. This is the cheapest fare I ever found (for Medan-KL) during my 3 years traveling with Airasia! If I don’t buy it, I must be very stupid and regret the whole life. *dramatic mode on*

But.. the minus point is, the flight is at night. I certainly avoid night flight cause most of the night flights often delay one. I don’t wanna stay and wait at the airport (alone) until midnight or so. Besides, taking flight on Saturday night means I have wasted the weekend (for some reason that I myself will understand only).

Anyway, the summary of this post is that.. I found the cheapest fare for Medan-KL but I didn’t buy it. The end of the story.

*continue hunting for cheaper fare*

Airasia: Shop til you drop

The beloved low cost fare Airasia, has coming out with a new promo again. This time it is about Shop til you drop. The travel destination including shopping heaven: Bangkok, Hongkong, Singapore, and Shenzhen. The price ranges from RM3 to RM90.

Booking Period (for public) : 15 Jul 2008 – 20 Jul 2008. Travel Period : 25 Aug 2008 – 13 Nov 2008. The member of Airasia-Citibank card has the privilege to book the seats 1 day ahead of the public.

I spotted the RM3 flight from Medan to KL and the return ticket for end of August. Total tickets + baggage + insurance costs me IDR.700.000. Consider cheap. By then, the mid year sale should be ended already. Or else, I could fill the moving boxes with the shopping spree. But never mind, as long as I can spend time with him. I’ll take this as an early holiday cause I’ll be busy until earlier next year.

Airasia: just how fast the price changes

Oh man, it was so scary. I just checked the Airasia flight from Medan to Jakarta for my auntie. The flight is for next week. She has chosen the date and was fine with the price. I thought I would book it after having my lunch. Stomach was growling.

“Will the price go down after you have your lunch? If that is the case, then take your time,”she said (kidding tone). Oh well, to have Airasia price suddenly goes down is a day dream. But, who knows, miracle might happen.

30 minutes after that, I checked the price again. And you know what… It has raised as much as IDR.100.000 per seat. *faint down* Just how fast the price has changed. It is faster than the result of taking Phentermine without a prescription. I wonder maybe Airasia has a tracking thing. They know that is the flight that I wanna book, therefore they raise the price. Hmm.. who knows.

Another lesson to learn, book immediately if you wanna fly with Airasia. The price fluctuates so fast that even 1 second counts.

Airasia: Low fares continue

Even lower than low fares, they came out with International Free Seats again~! Booking period from 14 – 16 May 2008. Travel periode is for next year, 12 Jan – 30 Apr 2009.

I so wanna go to BALI~! But, it’s $$$ issue again.

Airasia: even lower than 0 fare

Just read about MAS vs. Airasia on the boyfriend’s blog when I saw this newsletter from Airasia.

Obviously the 0 – fare carrier is MAS lo. Even with the medical id fee Airasia still cheaper than MAS.

Another comparing ad, wanting the consumer to calculate. Like how the ad in the newspaper among Tesco, Giant and Carrefour. Or like the mobile operator in Indonesia. Everyone is fighting to be the cheapest and lowest fare. NONE talks about quality!

Consumer not only want a cheap fare flight but also a safe one.