Fly Non-Stop Sydney to Kunming for $303 Return with China Eastern
Dates: November to March
Thanks to Scott's Cheap Flights
Good pick up! Thanks.
Hey Kiribatian good deal, just wondering how good Scott's Cheap Flights are? First I've heard of it haha.
They just send you deals now and then if you sign up to their mailing list. Sort of a freemium model.
opps double post
Ah good to know, are the deals generally this good too?
@PaleoGirl: I have thought about joining.
Are they all flights originating from Australia? Do they sometimes have amazing business/first class deals even?
@la838: The deals are always good, but this one is particularly great considering it's direct and includes bags. I guess it depends what's around. So far I have been impressed though :)
FYI, they have flights on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. If you muck around with the dates, you could knock down a few more bucks off the price.
That is really cheap.
It's pretty surprising that we even have direct flights to Kunming though lol
Likely why it's cheap… not the most popular destination.
Kungming is revered around China as being picturesque and clean. Perhaps not popular amongst Australians, but a very popular destination for the Chinese at least. There is a lot of hiking and mountaneering to be done here. Its quite beautiful.
Great deal! For whoever needs a Chinese visa, the fee is $109.5. (https://www.visaforchina.org/SYD_EN/yyxz/276210.shtml)
how long does that get you in the country?
Can remember paying around 70 dollars for a visa few years back :(
Don't forget that Kunming is eligible for the 72 hour FREE transit visa: https://www.travelchinaguide.com/embassy/visa/free-72hour/
Travelling on a SYS-KMG return ticket isn't eligible for a transit visa. It must be a stop-over on the way to a third country , e.g. SYD-KUM-BKK.
Just make sure you don't KUM-BAK
Correct… but guessing that many people aren't keen on going to China and paying $110, as opposed to taking a short transit to SE Asia…
damm need chinese visa? so really its $303 for flights then $100 for visa lol
Great price. Is anyone able to find $303 flights leaving on a Thursday night, returning on Sunday? Or leaving on a Friday night, returning on a Monday? Wouldn't mind doing a weekender with only 1 day off work.
22+ hours of flying for a weekend?
Maybe OP doesn't mind sleeping on planes
the journey is the reward :)
Yeah, the flights seem to leave at 9pm on the way there and 1am on the way back, would be sleeping on the plane.
Try 27 hours round trip from Sydney.
Wow this is very nice
Thanks for sharing
If nothing else, OzB taught me a little about another Chinese city today.
is there much to do in Kunming for tourists?
Great price but I don't know what the hell I'm going to do in Kunming. I never even heard of that place. Any good connections to other major transport hubs?
Ah Google… Kunming, the modern capital city and transportation hub of China’s southern Yunnan province
I think they are building a bullet train which will make that more true in coming years.
Dali and Lijiang are major tourist attractions (even though you may not have heard of them, they are still major tourist attractions). Kunming itself is pretty nice, for a Chinese city
Also, it is a sleeper train ride to Hanoi if you wanted to make it into a larger excursion.
Train to Hong Kong or Beijing is cheap but looong.
If I had a month leave I would love to go overland across China.
go there to have some local flied rice :)
Care to elaborate?
Probably a troll. Or he might come back with ridiculous like how the services isn't first class…
U get what u pay for buddy. And sometimes when there's a promo, u will get bit more than what u pay for
Dude, you just linked to an article that has nothing to do with China Eastern or Kunming. Did you post the wrong link?
I flew China Eastern one time on an internal flight, first and only time I've seen the following
- Guy came on the plane with buckets as his carry on luggage
- Passengers lining up to get food from the stewardess, and lining up to return the tray
- Before plane even landed, people were getting up to get their luggage
But other than that, it was a fine flight
China Eastern is fine. I flew a number of times with them to China and the only incident that I had was once I asked the air stewardess for apple juice and she told me to help myself at the pantry. Normally, people will take that as a lack of service or an insult but I took as an opportunity to see what's in the cupboard. I went back to my seat with 2 beers, 1 coke zero, 1 cup of apple juice and 2 packets of peanuts, all ready to watch a movie on my tablet.
Did she join you later on?
At least their pilots are competent, that's the number 1 thing you look for.
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/11/09/china-east…
Is that the final price? I used to purchase a flight ticket from travelgenio via skyscaner. The list price was around $600, but when I was at the last step to pay for the ticket it immediately increased to $780.
Same experience with Iwantthatflight as well.
Now I am not trust the listed low price at all.
That was the final price ( I checked before) but now it has gone up to $313 - still a massive bargain!
:)
Are you sure?
I used to get a message say price increased even I confirmed to pay before payment process go through on server side.
100% sure. I clicked all the way through ;)
@PaleoGirl: So you bought a ticket, right? Otherwise you wont get the final price. Many time price changed when I made the purchase.
@John Kelvin:
no I did not buy the ticket, I clicked through to the stage where I could input my credit card details. Pretty sure that was the right price by then.
@PaleoGirl: That's what I did in my bad experience as well. Price may changed during the creditcard process so you have to submit your order to know the real price.
My son is there at the moment, he's been to Dali, 4 hour drive and its a old Ancient city, 1200 years old, no cars in the old part. He went via HK and paid a lot more than this.
next holiday sorted, kunming it is!
Don't forget that Kunming is eligible for the 72 hour FREE transit visa: https://www.travelchinaguide.com/embassy/visa/free-72hour/
Yunnan is one of the best places to go to in China if you like nature. The city is quite mediocre but travel to Dali and Lijiang if you want to see ancient China. There are more and more Western tourists there and I think it is still bit of a hidden gem since it's not one of the really well known places in for people outside of China.
I've been there a few times. Kunming is a very nice city if you don't mind the spicy food. Wasn't a big fan of the city part of Lijiang, Dali or Shangri La. Last time I went, it had got too tourist orientated. But if you have the time to do the driving through these spots, that's one of the best experiences in the right season. With all sorts of flowers and birds in the field, breath-taking views off the cliff, every second is heaven.
I'm coming, Kunming!
I paid a visit to Kunming, Yunnan Province 3 weeks ago, there is not much to see in Kunming but from there you can have a tour to Dali(famous for its "Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon" sceneries), Li Jiang(ancient China style buildings, bars with talented singers and original songs, warm and strong sunshine),Shangrila, Xishuangbanna and etc. If you have enough time, you can even consider booking a tour to Tibet or Sichuan Province(home of all giant pandas)from there, in short, thi is a really good deal for the ones who want to pay a visit to southwest China.
Great post, thank you. :)
I paid
You paid??
You can catch a sleeper bus (bus with Bed) to get to Dali and Li Jiang. Li Jiang has its own local airport now I believe. Apparently if theres ever one province to visit in China, it will have to be Yunnan due to natural beauty.
Kunming has a Stone Forest. For things around Li Jiang theres Tiger Leaping Gorge and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Suppose to have a permanent glacier up there. You might want to get some altitude sickness medication prescribed first since its getting close to 20,000 feet.
If you go down as far as Xishuangbanna, you could probably catch a train into Thailand for a quick look see. Would need double entry chinese visa then.
it's only eligible for 72hr visa transit if it's a stopover which means you need to have another destination not in china. we had major issues and had to buy an onward tix to hk before they allowed us into china. it was pretty scary
ha! Reminds me of a Cheap flight I got to HK via Chengdu from Melbs with Sichuan airlines. At the time Chengdu airport had only recently started accepting international flights. The customs person was unaware of the visa free transit policy and decided to use up one of my Visa entries (I normally get double entry, since I zip back & from HK <-> Shenzhen). My wife argued with the customs superviser to get the entry reinstated.
Then airline staff didn't want my wife to board the plane for HK (Melb -> Chengdu -> Hong Kong) since our route was unusual for a overseas chinese national (after Hong Kong, we catch MTR or private car back into China (Shenzhen) It was cheaper than a direct flight by $550) I think she argued for about 2 or 3 hours to convince the ticket counter to let her on the flight to HK. Dont think they were aware my wife can transit through HK visa free. Almost missed our flight.
our flight was bris -hangzhou - singapore -bris. the problem is that we stopped in sg on the way there to change planes. if we had stayed on same flight number but just stopover then it would have been ok.
but because i cant speak mandarin i couldnt argue. we were still going to singapore as our main destination before back to bris so hangzhou is technically a transit. but because the law was a few weeks old and hangzhou not a major hub and it was 10pm at night.. they didnt know the rules. luckily there was a nice chinese tour guide on the plane that helped us for abt 1hr and help us buy flights to hk.
once i got to hotel, i phoned expedia to cancel and they gave full refund. we just left a few days later as originally intended. it was all fine.
i will be buying visa from now on whether eligible for transit or not! not worth the hassle.
also that expedia has a policy of full refund within 24hrs of booking. brilliant!!
that's so cheap. I would add on domestic flights from bris. we really want to go to Kunming, Lijiang, dali.
Insane price. Worth the probable inconveniences
I want to go to Mongolia but I want to stop in Dunhuang on the way (to see cresent lake) is the cheapest/best way to get from Kunming to Dunhuang plane or train or other? And/or onto Ulaanbaatar?
the best option is - get off from xi'an and get bullet train to dunhuang and bus/train to inner Mongolia
Wish they'd hurry up and offer us the 10 year multi entry visas already.
Phuket, I am coming to Kunming
Kunming- on Luke Nguyen's cooking show on the SBS Food channel at the moment if you're in some of the Eastern states.
I didnt see that fare kumning. Too bad i paid full price a week ago…
Oh well im sitting here eating my mandarin and sulking… :(
So whos organising the OzBargain meet up in Kunming ?
might as well celebrate a bargain in style!!
Ok, China itinerary is set thanks to this deal. Cheaper than flying to Adelaide one way.
I am from Kunming, this is definitely awesome!!!! For those of you don't know this city, maybe you have heard of Dali, Lijiang, Shangrila… All in this province which is famous for tourism. It is one of the most diversified area in the world in terms of climate, landscape, people, customs, plant, animals… Just google you will find more and visit before it is world-class famous, you know.
Zhongdian was renamed to Shangrila, I think they did it to attract more tourists. Its towards the end of the typical tourist track.
You forgot the phrase "city of eternal spring" (apparently Kunming almost feels like spring all year around)
How easy/difficult is it to get around, eat, etc without speaking Mandarin?
you mean kunming :)
$303 Return? That is a pretty good price!