The flight to Taipei, Taiwan is not cheap. During the month of March a airline ticket to Taipei, Taiwan will run about $1600 CAD after taxes, give or take a hundred dollars. On this trip to Taiwan, I booked my wife’s plane ticket using my Air Canada Aeroplan points, so basically she flew for almost free. I say almost free because even though I do not have to pay for the airplane ticket to Taiwan, Air Canada makes you pay for the taxes on the ticket, which works out to be like $180 CAD. That of course is better than paying $1600 CAD.
My wife’s flight to Taipei, Taiwan took her from Toronto to Vancouver and then Vancouver to Hong Kong, then to Taiwan. Booking through Air Canada takes advantage of the Star Alliance group of airlines. It was Air Canada service all the way to Hong Kong, but from Hong Kong to Taipei, Taiwan she flew Thai Airline which she likes because Thai airlines usually has great in-flight service.
My flight to Taipei, Taiwan was paid for. There wasn’t enough Aeroplan points to get my flight to Taiwan for free. So, in order to try to save a little money I had to get creative. One way to save a bit of money, is to go to the Air Canada web site and see if they have any special web offers for flights to the Asia region. I was able to find a special offer flight to Osaka, Japan for $500 CAD each way, which basically came to $1000 CAD for a return ticket.
I then had to find a flight from Osaka, Japan to Taiwan for as cheap as possible. To do this, I used two travel web sites, Orbitz.com and Kayak.com to narrow down the flights to Taipei, Taiwan. After browsing through the search results for the available flights I was able to find one flight by NWA (NorthWest Airlines) for the price of $400 USD. Given that in March the Canadian dollar was almost on par with the U.S dollar to total cost of the flight to Taipei, Taiwan and back was $1400 CAD plus or minus $50 CAD. Air Canada’s cost was about $1600 CAD after all taxes, so I save a little bit ($150 CAD).
One of the bonus, was that the special web offer flight to Osaka, Japan went from Toronto to Vancouver, then to Osaka, Japan. The Toronto to Vancouver flight was the exact flight that my wife was on, so we got to fly together during the first leg of the trip there and back.
If you are more crafty, you could probably save a lot more. I suggest using as many travel web sites as possible, as each can give different results sometimes and also always look out for special web offers on flights from the major airlines. Also, don’t forget to sign up for the frequent flyer miles program for the airlines you are flying with, since you paid for the ticket you might as well collect the points, so you can earn yourself a free flight eventually.
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