I saw a deal posed by a China Southern Rep yesterday, and was reminded of my nightmarish trip four years ago. No one should have to go through this, and so I'd like to post my experience here as well and urge y'all not to fall for the lower price they are offering, the nightmare isn't worth the couple hundred you may save.
We were made to stay the night (the stopover was supposed to be for four hours) - in Guangzhou. Any other airliner would put it's passengers up in a 4-star hotel. Not China Southern. After spending 4 hours at the airport being sent around (no one spoke english), we (a bunch of western people) were given big bright red stickers to wear and told to board a van. We weren't told where we were going, whether our fligt was delayed, or what the hell was going on - we were told to board a van. So we did.
We were driven 3 hours away from the Airport to a outlying suburb, to a run-down hotel. There, we were told that we had to share our rooms. And that we had to choose our roommates. WTF. I ended up paying for my own room as did most of the other passengers. The room was musty, covered in rat feces, had a TV that didn't work, and a mattress that I had to put a towel over to sleep on.
In the morning, we were given 'breakfast' - a plastic bag containing a no-brand soy milk and a pickled egg in a shrink-wrapped packaging. Then we were driven to the airport, and dumped unceremoniously at the entrance, left to ou own devices (again, no one could speak English). Finally we were rounded up, again plastered with red stickers, and told to stand in a group …in the middle of the lobby …for four hours.
Then we were taken past security to a spartan departure gate, where we were made to wait another four hours. No reading material, nothing to view, no even any views of the outside. Luckily there were toilets in the departure gate, because the shitty coffee they were giving us was going straight through me, and eating my insides. At this point, I hadn't eaten in almost 15 hours.
Turns out we were making an unscheduled stop in Beijing! Hurray. An hour and a half later, we were in a Beijing departure gate, that looked eerily familiar.
The staff was rude, and unhelpful. They wouldn't allow me to use my iPhone for the entire duration of the flight, because of 'aviation laws' (I did anyway). We were treated like cattle, or perhaps foreign spies from the cold war era. Our papers were checked far more than was necessary, every time we would enter a new area we were made to fill out new forms. We were barely fed. We were never told what was happening, what time our flight was at, which gate it was departing at, we were simply clustered together and escorted places. It was like being in prison.
Looking around the Internet for other people's experiences with the airline comes up with similar experiences and recommendation.
Wow, sound horrible.
This I agree with them. Just because other airlines allow it, doesn't mean you can use it on any flight you want.
What the the time difference from you scheduled arrival to your destination to when you arrived?