Talking Travel: Get Your Holiday Tickets Now

Talking Travel is the Beijinger's weekly travel guide to great deals, interesting destinations, and weekend getaways.

Update: Cebu Pacific Air just announced a RMB 1 seat sale between Beijing and the Philippines from November 5 to 7, or until seats last. For travel from June 1 to August 31, 2014, passengers can book CNY 1 seats from Beijing to Manila. HKD 1 seats are also available from Hong Kong to Manila, Clark, Cebu and Iloilo. Tax and baggage fees are not included. Click here to check availability.

For anyone planning a December holiday trip, this is the week to book it. Airfares are already creeping up across the board, flights are filling and non-middle seats are disappearing. It's not just a matter of price at this point, availability is now also a factor.

No real deals at the moment, but expect some late November/early December, pre-holiday deals to emerge shortly. We'll beat the bushes for some discounts this week and hope to save you some money next week.

That item last week about visa-free travel for Chinese citizens to Thailand? Not so fast. Thailand's Tourism and Sports Minister Somsak Pureesrisak said that Thailand would need "more time to prepare infrastructure and the many services needed to cater to an increase in Chinese visitors." Four million travelers from China are expected to visit the Kingdom this year.

Heading for Las Vegas? (Why? Macau is closer and is now the world's gambling capital.) No need to fear there won't be any Chinese eats. No fewer than seven of the Strip's biggest casinos have opened fine-dining Chinese restaurants. Read all about them here.

If there are any doubts about the perceived strength and growth of China's travel market, the strong initial public offering of travel site Qunar.com, which is 55 percent owned by Baidu, should allay them. The stock more than doubled on its Friday debut. Amazing how Qunar and Ctrip, two sites that are extremely difficult to use, can still perform so well on public bourses.

Until next week, one road flat safe.

Look for more travel information from the Beijinger every issue in our Get Out column.

Email: s.schwankert@truerun.com
Twitter: greatwriteshark
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