Air Asia X Massive Sale Lost to MAS Travel Fair!

This is the first time where Malaysia Airline‘s fare deals looks more attractive then Air Asia X’s, at least to me. From 1st March until 6th March 2011, Air Asia X is having second round of Massive Sale on air tickets to fly in the last quarter of this year, after 3 months time. All-in fares are cut down further for long haul flights that serving air travel to long distance cities such as London, Paris, Tianjin, Shanghai or Melbourne.

This should be the best timing for me since I’m planning for my next trip to Beijing this Autumn (even though my Europe travel is still on its way this coming Spring 🙂 ). So I was actually prepared to grab any good deals from this Sale. Unfortunately, limited Promo tickets with odd dates and time only are available. The lowest all-in return air fares I could grab is RM660, but there are for mid-November flights which is going to be very cold by then. The second choice would be late-October flights which would cost RM900 all-in (inclusive on board meals, hold baggage, seat selection and insurance). The dearest option is to fly in late September which is also the best visiting time for Beijing but would cost RM1,080 all-in for return air fare. After some quick thoughts, I decided to fly in late October to get the optimum balance between cost and timing.

But they are selling hotter than hot cakes! I clicked on those available dates, started filling those online booking forms up for 5 person, selecting seats, checking and reviewing all the passengers and payment info, then clicked the finally button to process the payment. Oops! Error message! I Clicked “Refresh” and it returned with an error message again! What went wrong in the process? Then I re-started the whole booking process all over again and found out that the price actually went up to RM1,300!! I believed during my “booking, filling up forms, selecting seats, selecting meals” process, someone grabbed my seats!! Why could this be happened? Shouldn’t my booking be locked while I was still in the booking process? 🙁 I gave up. It was too expensive for a budget flight.

I thought of giving up my Beijing travel plan, until I checked Malaysian Airlines Travel Fair. I remembered I did mention that AirAsia is more superior than MAS in terms of pricing transparency. Still no doubt about this. I booked my London flight with Airasia X for RM1,800 while MAS is still selling at RM3,000. All of the time Air Asia promotion fares are much lower than MAS, sometimes even with its all-in full fares. But this time, I think they lost the crown to MAS! Unless I could grab the lowest fares of RM660, otherwise, I would chose MAS this time if I’m planning to visit Beijing in Autumn. And yes, I’ve booked my MAS return flights to Beijing this October for RM1,360 all-in! MAS won for its competitive pricing (for this route only but not others), attractive package inclusive of 20KG hold baggage, slightly more tastier meals (I have to admit that Air Asia’s on board meals are sucks!), slightly more spacious leg room, and unlimited on-board complimentary hard and soft drinks. Congratulation, Malaysia Airlines! You have won my heart for the first time since the incorporation of Air Asia.

So, that’s it. I’m flying to Beijing for a 7-days photo travel trip this Autumn! and I’m still planning my travel itinerary for my Europe Travel MkII this coming May-June. Hope every thing would turn out perfectly! By the way, I just realized that Air Asia raised their price on meals, seat selection and check-in luggage fees by more than 50%! This is how you are losing out your loyal customers, Sir Tony Fernandes. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.