well.. its a tightly controlled market. It is what it is. If you want to get your wife here then you have to pay it. If you're in no hurry you could always try and get her as a passenger on a container vessel. Might work out a bit cheaper and a bit of an experience with more generous baggage to boot. http://www.flightlesstravel.com/plan/cargo-ships/ I would have done this but I need the kids in schools.
I was quoting in dollars because the single ticket Is paid in dollars. .Last time I flew single BA I think it cost about a thousand dollars or so. I've paid a while spectrum of prices to Manila from various places in the world over the years. This doesn't seem to be so bad. My last few cathay return tickets have been around the eight or nine hundred pound mark.
I dunno about that Howerd. Last business class ticket I bought that way was about four thousand dollars. If I could find a first class ticket for 1200 dollars I would be all over it.
Single flights from Manila to Heathrow I would expect to pay under £400. In October there are some around £230.
who with? Useful to know for future reference as long as they aren't taking 35 hours via some godawful middle East hellhole. I admit I didn't look very hard. I just wanted a quick ish flight for four people and I didn't want to pay Cathay the price they wanted. Interestingly enough, the PAL flight takes a bit longer than the Cathay flight because they don't have rights to overfly Russia as Cathay do, they take the old 'silk road' road over south east asia and the middle east. That's why the flight is about 15 hours nonstop (as opposed to the cathay route via HK that takes about 12 hours from HK and another 2h HK to MNL).
I guess you are booking the flight as if you were in the Philippines even though you are in the UK? If you go to Skyscanner.net and book with them, you will be booking from the UK in effect in GBP. I assume you can do that? If you go to Skyscanner.com.ph you pay Philippines prices which are much higher. So, unless there is some airline rule that stops you booking in GBP for a flight for your family starting in the Philippines, it is a way to save money.
Yeah I just booked the flight as if I was in the Phils and paid using my card. I wasn't able to convince any of the airline sites to do otherwise. Perhaps going through an intermediary would save some money. I didn't personally check. I would be interested to see what happens though.
@ChoiAndJohn I will know for sure what happens when I book my wife's flight but I am pretty sure it will go through. Even if you were physically in the Philippines but with a UK credit card I think using a VPN would allow you to use skyscanner.net rather than skyscanner.com.ph and get the far cheaper UK prices.
You can always pay the ticket cost into your wife's account in the Philippines and she can pay with a standard debit card.
That is the expensive way, as buying tickets in Pesos in the Philippines is probably 50% more than paying for the same ticket from an agency in the UK.
I am booking Jubys for her from within the UK probably through Skyscanner one way is quoted £357 one stop in Peking on Air China in mid October the other agent I have used is Southall travel who seem fairly good with no issues in the past. I spoke to agent at Southall to get a rough idea of price gave passenger name departure and arrival told him I was paying with my card gave him Jubys g mail address for the e ticket and mine for the invoice he was happy to quote and to arrange!
Yes we put 18th September as expected travel date we enter our fourth week of waiting next week I think as @Timmers suggested they may review the applications by travel dates or maybe not I am still curious aboutthe stamping of the CFO if you get the stamp on the day if you have your visa with you! any thoughts anyone?
Well, I am booking from the UK and so did ChoiAndJohn. But ChoiAndJohn booked on the airline's website so got charged Philippines prices as flight originates in the Philippines. So best to use an intermediary, such as SkyScanner, to pay at UK prices.
Personally, I would not chance getting it stamped on the day the visa becomes valid at the airport. Who knows, CFO staff may not turn up for work that day. I think from what Timmers said somewhere, you also have to give them notice that you want the passport stamped at the airport.
Ah understood. I think someone mentioned about single flights from Pinas have to be booked there. I queried that as I'd never heard of it before but got no response. I booked mine here for the wife no problem other than presenting the card at the airlines office within the airport.
