transportation

How to Survive a Long Flight

Can’t sleep in a long haul flight? Everyone dreads a long flight especially if it exceeds more than five hours. Flip doesn’t like it too. I usually drink some liquor before I board a flight so I could sleep through it. But sometimes, I wake up and couldn’t go back to sleep.

Here are my Top 10 creative ways on how to kill time on a long flight. I’m not suggesting you to follow any of this though. This is purely just for fun.

Try to Learn another Language: Are you sitting beside a Japanese or a Chinese or maybe another nationality? Why not ask him or her to teach you some basics? Or better yet listen to a foreign radio stations and try to decipher what they’re saying.

Let your Creativity Flow: Go to the bathroom and draw a funny face on the mirror using toothpaste. It wouldn’t aggravate anyone I guess because toothpaste is so easy to clean. Who knows, you might be making someone smile, especially if that someone was having a diarrhea explosion on a long haul flight.

Talk to your Seatmate: Bored? Why not initiate a conversation with your seatmate? Get to know where they are from and where they’re heading to. Share some travel tips about their destination if you can.

Get Infatuated: Walk around the cabin and find the most attractive person onboard. Introduce yourself and get to know them. Just don’t wake them up if they’re sleeping. Who knows, you might be starting a wonderful love story in doing this.

Read a Book: This seems to be not creative at all, right? So why not read a book that is not yours. Borrow whatever your seatmate is reading and read it.

Talk to Yourself: Ok, this might sound crazy. Do not talk to yourself out loud, everyone might think you’re a lunatic onboard. Talk to yourself by writing yourself a letter. And don’t forget to mail it to your own address as soon as you land. It would be very interesting to receive and read that letter after a few days.

Become the next J.K. Rowling: Yeah, you heard that right, be creative and write a very good fictional short story. To make it more exciting, observe your fellow passengers and include them in your story. Did you see a grumpy looking old lady? Why not cast her as the witch in your story. (LOL)

Make a Movie Review: Tired of watching the same old movies over and over again? Why not make a review out of it and post it in your blog after. Who knows, this might be your next career.

Are there only eight on the list? Why not add more? Feel free to post your ideas on how to creatively survive a long flight.

How to Find the Cheapest Airfare

Here are some things that I learned from my experiences and from other people that I met while traveling. I hope you find them useful. Please exercise caution in following the advices of this flip traveler.

Arguably, the most expensive part of our travel is the airfare. It could easily set us back at $100 for a one way ticket to Singapore, Hong Kong or Bangkok or maybe even more.

a.    Plan ahead. Take advantage of those dirt cheap airfare promotions from Cebu Pacific and Air Asia. I was able to get a MNL-BKK P25 (including tax) ticket from Cebu Pacific last December 2008. It’s one of their Zero Airfare promotions with no Fuel Surcharge. Yes, it’s not a typo it’s really P25, cheaper than watching Twilight’s New Moon.

b.    Always compare prices of different airlines. Don’t just book Clark to Singapore just because you saw Cebu Pacific offering it for P1000. Check other airlines like Tiger Airways or Jet Star. You wouldn’t know if the other airlines have a promotion unless you check them out.

c.    Check Manila Bulletin for travel ads. We frequently see them and we always ignore them. Some of them are not just travel agencies, they’re also known as consolidators. They buy bulk tickets and sell it dirt cheap. Compare their prices with your online price. I haven’t personally tried this but I’ve heard a lot about people getting good deals getting their tickets from consolidators.

d.    Check online consolidators as well. They’re not always expensive. For example, I booked a ticket in Ctrip.com for one of my travels in China and the cheapest was around P1500 (including taxes) to fly from one city to another. So I checked the website of the same airline, hoping to find a cheaper price and whoaaa!!! it’s more expensive. The price was almost P5000 for a one way ticket. I booked my ticket in Ctrip and I was able to save P3500 for the same flight.

(Lhasa Airport)

e.    If you’re flying long haul, always check the price if you fly from the hub. Like for example, I was planning to go to South Africa and I checked out Cathay Pacific’s RT price (this was last year) from Manila to Johannesburg. And whoaaa!!! it’s like almost or more than P100K. But if you fly using the same airline from Hong Kong, it will just be around P50K including taxes. It is because Hong Kong is the major hub of Cathay Pacific. So book MNL-HKG via Cebu Pacific and then HKG-Johannesburg (just an example). This plan didn’t materialize though due to lack of funds.

f.    Re-route. If the Cebu Pacific price for Bangkok to Manila seems to be expensive why not check the Air Asia price for Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur and then Kuala Lumpur to Manila. This is one thing that I always do. Some routes have more promotions than others. And sometimes Air Asia offers more promotions than Cebu Pacific and sometimes it’s the other way around.

g.    If you’re traveling in a landlocked country like for example Cambodia. You might as well try doing it overland from Bangkok instead of flying. More often than not, especially if there are no airfare promotions, overland traveling is cheaper.

h.    Don’t forget to bank your miles. Check if the airline has a mileage affiliation or something. Sign up and bank those precious miles. You might be able to fly for free because of those miles. There are also some ways of earning miles other than flying. One is to get a credit card that converts your points into miles, the most flexible that I know is Citibank Premier Miles. Another thing that I do to get miles is by answering surveys and getting miles in return. You may try it if you want, check out www.e-miles.com.

If you have any other suggestions or information to share, please feel free to write it in the comments area. Good luck in finding the cheapest ticket and keep on traveling.