Bargain of the century!
I had every intention of staying home in Auckland through autumn until my next trip in June. However, while helping friends search for fares, I came across a crazily low fare from Auckland to China.
Hainan Airlines had fares to Guangzhou for NZD548 through their hub in Haikou. I was allowed to stop in Haikou for 7 days in each direction. That price wasn’t readily available across a wide range of dates but for another NZD30 more, many dates were available.
I was surprised to see this airline, one of ten worldwide ranked as 5-star by Skytrax, discounting so heavily.
It didn’t take me long to decide that I would go and tell several other people about it. One managed to snap the deal too but another two had to pay about NZD110 more. It’s my first time taking advantage of China’s new 15-day visa-free entry for Malaysian citizens.
A few things about the fare:
- After you take away the taxes, the airline is only getting NZD395 for the 26 hours that I’m with them. That’s about NZD15 per hour.
- The total 26 hours cost (including taxes) less than some return domestic fares within New Zealand.
- Because they are inclusive of meals, 46kg of luggage and rear zone seat selection, there’s little ancillary revenue to be made by the airline.
- The fare is cheaper than the standby staff tickets that I can get.
Getting started with a new phone
Dennis and I got to the airport and joined the short queue for check-in at 1900 for the 2000 flight to Haikou on Hainan Airlines. Check-in was done in 15 quick minutes and I headed airside to collect my new phone which I had ordered from PB Tech.
In addition to the super-cheap airfare, I was getting a bargain on new mobile phone to replace my five-year old Huawei which was still going strong, delivering two days of battery life and never freezing.
My purchase is a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, an outgoing flagship model which was still retailing for NZD2299 in some places but at the time of order 3 weeks ago, PB Tech had it down to NZD1222 for the purple model only, with a further discount tax-free bringing it down to NZD1126.
Corporate discounts at 25% (eg. for Air New Zealand staff) simply couldn’t match this price. And judging by how the price reverted to nearly the regular one soon after my purchase, confirmed that I had scored a good deal.
It was my lucky day and I got from kerb to airside in 25 mins. I need all the time I can get to set up my new phone which I did in the lounge. Unfortunately I ran into problems:
- starting with logging into my lapsed Samsung account,
- then I had trouble transferring data from my old phone by cable and
- then I had to reset the new phone to try it wirelessly.
While hungry, I hardly had time to eat much. I managed to get all apps and data transferred and logged into all the Google and selected applications.
Unfortunately, the most important apps for the trip, namely WhatsApp and WeChat could not be transferred automatically. I had run out of time, when I realised this, I left the lounge to board my flight. I simply have to complete these upon landing in China.
Flying Hainan Airlines
Our Hainan Airlines A330-300 departed on time. Dennis and I shared a centre block of four seats with one other person. The spare seat was between Dennis and myself. I was surprised to find the flight quite full, considering how cheap the tickets were going for at such a late stage.
The crew remained seated seemingly till we levelled off at cruising altitude before commencing service. The meals offered were substantial, preceded and followed by a comprehensive beverage service. All these ended about 2h30 after take-off, after which I tried to sleep with the help of a pill.
Despite the awesome seat recline, I didn’t really sleep. But I must have dozed as time didn’t seem to drag.