There are many airline companies in China. The big three are Air China,China Eastern, China Southern. Now the best way to get your air tickets is from their web sites. Usually, you can get a good deal if you book your tickets 30-60 days in advance. You will find it impossible to get any discount if you wanna book the tickets 10 days earlier. I once bought a ticket from Beijing to Shanghai at 80% off and the main reason is that I booked my ticket 60 days in advance.
Many people have this kind of experience: when they called the Chinese travel agents to book the airline tickets, the price is usually more expensive than the price in the airline companies’ own web sites. This is because the electronic tickets have lowered the costs of sales for the airline companies and they are encouraging the customers to buy the electronic tickets from their web sites.
Here is some useful information about the electronic tickets in China:
1. How to pay?
The most convenient way is to pay by credit card(they accept visa, mastercard, discover cards, etc. I will recommend the discover card because it has no foreign transaction fees). If you are booking your tickets by phone, you can just provide your credit card information(card number, exp date, ower name, etc) to the airline companies. For the online booking, it is also very convenient and all you need to do is to follow the web sites’ instructions and input your credit card datas. If you do not have a credit card, you can choose to pay cash(get tickets from the airline companies’ offices in the downtown. Sometimes they can deliver the tickets to your home).
2. How to get the flight schedule(invoice)?
The flight schedule is acting like the invoice and it can be used to get compensations for your business travel. If you do not need this flights schedule, you can just get your boarding pass using your official ID and you don’t need to waste time in this flight schedule. If you need this for getting compensations from your company, you can get it in 4 different ways: (1). Get it from the airline company’s counters in the airport. (2). Get it from the airline company’s offices in the downtown. (3). Ask the airline company to send it to your home if you are booking your tickets through a travel agent. (4). Ask the airline company to mail it to you. In these 4 options, I think the best way is to ask them to mail it to you. You can just provide your mailing address online when you are booking your tickets and the airline company will mail the flight schedule to you in 1 or 2 weeks.
3. How to get a refund?
(1). If you did not ask them to send you the flight schedule, you can get the refund immediately(you will need to pay for the refund fees of course). (2). If you already got the flight schedule from the airline company, you will need to return this to the airline company. They will process your refund request after they receive your flight schedule.