Travel

Flights between China & the USA are getting increasingly more expensive & difficult to book. I guess I should not be surprised given the vast number of Chinese sending their children there for college, hence flights between these two continents during the popular summer & winter holidays get filled up six months ahead of time. What's left are the more expensive seats & business class seats - way beyond our annual traveling budget. What's made it worst are the cost-cutting measures implemented by many American airlines which have resulted in fewer (& more expensive) flights.

Z, who traveled back to Beijing for his winter break, said that on both legs of his trip, the plane was filled with mostly mainland Chinese students studying in the USA, going home for the holidays. I was horror-filled to discover that the economy saver seats (read: cheap) on direct flights between the the airport from which Z flies out of to Beijing were already full for the May flights (which is when the college semester ends for many). So Z will have to make one transit stop on his way "home".

I have just booked our trip for the summer. We travel in June, peak travel period, and I do not want to be left in a lurch with no tickets or stupendously expensive tickets if I book them too late. The early bird, in this case, truly gets the worm.