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Regional Flight Travel in Asia has come a long way over the last decade. While flights around the region used to cost hundreds of Dollars until still in the late 90’s, this changed dramatically with the introduction of Budget Airlines in Asia, just a few years into the new millennium.

Nowadays, brands like Jet Star, Tiger Airways, Cebu Pacific Airlines and Air Asia are common household names, who revolutionized the ways people in Asia travel. Especially Air Asia, ‘World’s best low-cost airline’ in 2010 (according to Skytrax) deserves further mentioning, if you have no money to waste and plan to fly as cheap as possible in Asia.

What’s to know about Air Asia

Air Asia is without any doubt the pioneer of low-cost flights in this part of the world, having introduced ticket-less travel and constantly innovating new routes and undercutting the prices of its competition. Originally started by Tony Fernandes, an entrepeneur who copied the Southwest Airlines and Ryan Air business models for adaptation in Malaysia, it relaunched in 2001 from its hub in Kuala Lumpur.

Since then the airline expanded heavily into the region, having today subsidiaries and additional hubs in countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia and even flying to destinations in Europe (like UK or Paris) or Australia with the introduction of its ‘Air Asia X’ service.

They also ventured into the hotel business with the opening of Tune Hotels in various countries and online financial services with Tune Money.

Currently Air Asia is serving over 400 daily flights with an almost flawless incident record since its inception. Prices start as low as 0$ plus fees and service charges and with a little bit of preparation literally ‘now everyone can fly’ for budget rates.

Here is what you need to know, to ensure you are getting the cheapest possible prices, if you are planning to fly with Air Asia to destinations in the region:

 

12. Only Book Online

Air Asia also has booking offices around the region, but the real deals only happen on the internet. The booking offices might be able to find flights faster for you, as they are more experienced and are booking hundreds of flights every day, but I saw them using the very same web interface like anybody else. So there is no real advantage in using them to get around server limitations by being able to use another booking system. Also you will most likely have to queue with other travelers and he opening hours of those booking offices make them all but useless for using them during ticket promotions.

On top of that, they charge commissions on your ticket price. You are much better off getting a real good deal by booking your own flight ticket via the Air Asia website.

 

11. Book during Air Asia Promotions

While the standard fares of the airline might seem fairly low compared to their full-service counterparts and even other budget airline competitors, the real good deals can only be had during their promotional periods. Here you can find ticket prices for as low as 0$ plus service charges and fees. Myself and friends enjoyed already flights for instance from Bali to Jakarta for as low as 5$ all in all or for 25$ between Bali and Singapore, one way. This is the best way to save on standard fares, but you might have to prepare yourself for some hours in front of your computer with hopefully a fast internet connection to accessing Air Asia’s notoriously slow and overloaded servers.

 

10. Subscribe to their newsletter

Nobody likes another dozens of spam mails each week, but this one is really useful. Air Asia Ticket promotions are usually announced on short notice and start for periods of 3-7 days at a certain day at midnight. The best flights with the lowest prices are usually gone within 10-30 minutes after promotions start. So you are better off, if you know about those promotions beforehand. Only then you can make quick, yet qualified decisions during your flight bookings. The newsletter will make sure, that you don’t miss out on any promo.

 

9. Register an Account on AirAsia.com

Another account and password to remember you might ask? Yes. This one makes booking so much easier, as you don’t have to type in your personal details over and over again for each flight you want to book.

Especially during Online Promotions the automatic insertion of your credentials saves valuable minutes during which the cheapest prices could be gone already.

 

8. Compare price trends before you book

Check the prices of other Budget Airlines via their websites and use tools likes Air Asia Price Charts to get a better feeling for Air Asia’s current price trends and demand for certain routes.

If there is low demand for routes and you are flexible with your flight dates, you could always wait for a promotion to pop up for your destination over the next couple of weeks. Of course you can always book a flight for the standard fare, if you really need to go on a certain date. But you either have more time or more money, so flexibility can pay off big time here. Return flights might be differently priced as well, those tools will help you to find out about it.

 

7. Do your homework before trying to book

That might sounds like a no-brainer, but most people don’t do it. Sometimes it’s hard to get information about departure and arrival times before the start of promotions. Especially when new routes are introduced, this information is usually only revealed after the promotion started already.

With existing routes this is less of a problem and you can look up flights dates anytime online. If you need to book connecting flights with other airlines, it pays off to know before-hand, if your next flight will start in the late afternoon or shortly after midnight. Nothing is worse than calculating your flight times and arrivals during the start of a promotion while prices are running up and away. So do your homework, know exactly your routes, dates, alternatives before trying to book anything via unresponsive online forms.

 

6. Book as early in advance as possible – be flexible!

Even besides the Ticket Promotions – the further away your departure date, the cheaper is usually the flight fare. Flexibility is the key here. Flights during weekdays are normally cheaper than on weekends. If you have to fly on a certain day without having any alternatives, book as early as possible, even weeks or months in advance to get the best deals. The number of allocated seats with promotional prices is usually very limited.

One good example are Visa Runs. For instance if you reside in Indonesia and know, that you have to leave the country every 2 months for a new passport stamp anyway, why not book your next 3 or 4 visa run flights half a year or even longer in advance? This way you most likely can make use of the cheaper contingents.

Also longer routes don’t necessarily mean higher prices. Sometimes, flights from Bali to Kuala Lumpur are cheaper than flights Bali to Singapore, even though the Singapore flight is a good 2 hours shorter. Don’t question the logic of the those prices, just make use of it!

While it is nice, to hop on a flight to Singapore in the early Bali morning, just to visit the Duty Free at Changi Airport and return home with your 1 Liter bottle of Absolut Vodka a few hours later with your fresh immigration stamp – it could be as well worth to fly a few hours longer to Kuala Lumpur for a 100$ or more less. You might even be home earlier, if there are return flights in a closer timeframe. As with all mentioned connections here, your mileage will vary for your specific routes or dates, but it doesn’t hurt to check those options.

 

5. Use the Firefox Browser to access the Air Asia website

Personally I prefer Google’s Chrome for my internet surfing, but most people had better results getting through to Air Asia’s overloaded servers during promotions with the Firefox Browser. Probably a lot of times you will still see the red ‘Buzz buzz buzz’ bee screen, while trying to book during promotional periods, but Firefox is said to lose connections completely less frequently than the likes of Opera, Chrome or Internet Explorer (is anyone still using IE?).

Also open several browser windows or tabs if you are planning to book more than 1 flight or for checking different routes. Get used to checking different flights in parallel not one after the other! Don’t forget to register your account with them to have your credentials automatically inserted into their booking forms (see tip number 9).

 

4. Reload, Reload, Reload!

If you are stuck in the red ‘Buzz buzz buzz’ bee screen, or if you are facing ‘Gateway Error, ‘Timeout’ or ‘Webpage not available’ errors especially right after the start of promotional periods, don’t despair. Those are signs of the big run-up of interested travelers to Air Asia’s servers. The web forms and even the whole website can become slow and unresponsive.

Press ‘Reload’ to have your current page refreshed whenever those errors appear, the information you put in already usually will stay in the forms, so you can avoid going back to the main page again.

While on normal days you should have no troubles booking via their website, during promotional period the exceptional load on their servers brings booking to a slowww crawl. Prices shoot up within minutes and it can be hard to get through with your browser. The ‘Reload’ Button is your friend.

 

3. Use their mobile website for booking

Air Asia also maintains a mobile website for smartphones and other mobile devices at mobile.airasia.com. This site accesses the same servers like their main page, but uses less graphics and a leaner text interface with simple pull-down menus. The data to download is much less than from their main page. Especially if your internet connection is of the slow kind, the mobile page could be your best bet to still participate and score some cheap tickets during promotional periods.

 

2. Book via airasiago.com if you need a hotel as well

This website mainly serves the purpose to book hotel deals with Air Asia partner hotels, but you can book flights via this site also. They access the same servers for flight bookings, but there might be some more performant connection on their backend. Be aware though, that there are only a limited number of partner hotels for some travel destinations, but you might still be lucky.

Last month I was able to book a flight for 1 week Bangkok including hotel for mid 2011 via this website, even though the servers of the main website were slow as a snail – the final price I got was lower than the standard fare available on the main page. All in all I paid around 150 $ for a return flight to Bangkok, including 1 week stay in a 4-star hotel. Show me any deal that can match that!

 

1. Check for unwanted services and surcharges added

Those can be travel insurances (you actively have to press ‘cancel’ 2 times to remove those before booking), extra luggage charges (I prefer hand luggage only), meals, ‘convenience kits’ (like a wet towel) or additional airport pickup or transport. Also if you have a bank account in the country from where you do your booking; you can avoid the ‘convenience fee’ they charge for credit card payments, by simply choosing direct debit as a payment option.

For short flights, I wouldn’t even bother to make seat reservations online or putting in your passport details. Those are not needed to complete a booking when time is of the essence.

Did any of those tips work for you already? Or do you have any other tips to get better prices when booking tickets with Air Asia? Please make use of the comment form below!

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If you decided not to go to Asia, there are many Waterloo hotels you could go to instead.

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written by Chris