Time and again, in my blog-posts, I have been emphasizing that travelling in China is a slightly different experience. For example, foreigners could invariably feel concerned about the huge language and communication barriers across the mainland. I live in Suzhou and have been trying my best to adapt to the local living conditions, including learning Mandarin Chinese. Moreover, if I have spare time, I try to visit new cities to understand China better (in early 2018 I visited Nanjing, Hefei, and Changzhou).
Now I’ve started planning a trip to the eastern part of China- including Harbin (Heilongjiang), Changchun (Jilin), and Shenyang (Liaoning). However, these cities are located quite far from Suzhou, and a journey from Suzhou to Harbin using train, although cheap, looked very tiring and time consuming. In order to save time and energy, I finally decided to book flights to and from Shanghai.
Related post – Chinese Intercity Bus Travel Guide.
Initially, I didn’t know which were the best websites to book flights in China. After doing some online research, I booked my flight (April, 2018) using Qunar.com (for the upcoming trip in May). This was my first time using a Chinese-language website to buy flight tickets.
This is post is about sharing my China travel experience with Qunar. Particularly, I’d give you suggestions about – how to book flights in China? The article presents a Qunar.com flight booking review with a focus on mainland China travel.
What is Qunar.com?
Well, in Mandarin Chinese Qunar (去哪儿, Qù nǎ’er) means “where to go”. As you can sense, Qunar.com is a Chinese-language website for booking hotels, flights, trains, etc. Although so far I had not booked international flights with Qunar.com, it seems that we can do so. In fact, we can search flights between available source and destinations similar to English language flight booking websites.
My qunar flights
I booked Shanghai-Heilongjiang (RMB 700) and Shenyang-Shanghai (RMB 550) flights with Qunar.com. I paid the airfare using Alipay. In fact, the payments are accepted by Alipay, WeChat, and of course, Chinese and international credit cards.
Cheap flights
I did compare the Qunar’s air ticket prices with other websites, and the prices on Qunar looked relatively cheaper. Moreover, it seems that there is a free meal included in your booking (with Qunar).
Qunar Baggage allowance
Well, Qunar offers a 5kg cabin baggage, and 20kg checked baggage allowance for free. Since the allowances may vary from route to route, please make sure to confirm the baggage allowances before booking your flight tickets. As a solo traveler, I think the 25kg allowance is more than enough for one person. 🙂
qunar English version
I have explored the site comprehensively and I’m yet to see a Qunar English version. If I happen to find it later, I’d update this post. Keep in mind that you can use Google Chrome’s translate function to convert the Qunar.com’s booking page to English and book the flights, hotels, etc. In fact, that’s how I booked my flights. I am adding a few translated webpage screenshots in this post.
No email or pre-registration is required
You can book flights without using email (and without creating a user account). Qunar gives you an SMS login option where you’ll need to provide a Chinese phone number and a one-time password will be sent to your phone. This password can be used to login to the site in order to book flights. In future, if you need to manage your bookings (e.g. change or cancel flights), you can again use the same one-time password login procedure.
I just entered my Chinese phone number, passport number, name, etc. and got the booking confirmation SMS on my phone.
Moreover, we can use either a Chinese or international phone number for flight booking on Qunar.
Ticket issuing time after 1 week
I booked my tickets on 20th April at 15:56. After the payment was made; I saw the message “待出票该航班预计在04月27日 15:56完成出票” on my computer screen. The message meant, “wait for the ticket, the flight ticket is expected to be issued at 15:56 on April 27”.
Initially I was worried as this was the first time for me to see a one-week gap between ticket booking and ticket issuing date. So, I checked with my colleagues, and they suggested me to wait for a week as Qunar.com is considered to be a reliable travel agency in China.
Ticket booking numbers sent using SMS
Later, I got two separate SMS for the aforementioned two flights within half an hour after booking the flights (despite official warning about one week waiting time). Now I just need to show the SMS at the relevant airports to get my boarding pass.
So, I’d suggest a Qunar user to make sure to enter the proper phone number while booking a flight. The ticket reference number would be sent through SMS. As such, you don’t need to worry about the one week waiting time displayed after you make the payment to book a flight.
qunar customer service
If you didn’t know, Qunar has an active customer service support. You can find the details on the help page. Here is a translated help page’s screenshot-
qunar airlines
Please remember that there is nothing called “Qunar airlines”. In fact, Qunar.com is a platform to compare ticket prices offered by different airlines (or hotels, trains) and then book the one you like.
qunar app
Well, Qunar also has a mobile App. Just search Qunar in your App store (e.g. Google Pay), you’d find the App quickly. If you are using a Chinese App store, you can try searching 去哪儿 (Qù nǎ’er) as well. Moreover, there seems to be an English version of Qunar App (Android phone) – but so far I haven’t tried using the English version.
qunar hotel
As mentioned before, you can also use Qunar.com to book hotels. I’d recommending checking the hotel prices on other sites (such as booking.com) before you finalize your hotel booking.
Qunar and ctrip
Well, Qunar and ctrip are two are different travel service providers and have different operating terms and conditions. If you want to try Ctrip, you can consider trying Ctrip’s international version which is available in English – Trip.com.
Qunar Flight Cancellation
I had to shorten my May trip due to some personal reasons – that basically caused me to cancel my return flight. As such, I used the same one-time password login option. The cancellation charge for one flight ticket was RMB 300. The rest of the balance amount was immediately credited to my bank account (via Alipay). Overall, it was very simple to cancel the flight (make sure to use a translated version of page if you are not good at Mandarin).
In summary, I’d recommend using Qunar.com for booking flights, especially for travelling in China. As such, apart from the language issues, everything else looks great with Qunar.
That’s all in this post about Qunar.com flight booking review. 🙂
If you have any question about flight booking with Qunar, feel free to post in our forum so that others could also contribute and learn. For regular updates like us on Facebook, or follow on Twitter!
If you find the write-ups useful, don’t forget to buy me a beer!
Happy travelling in China.
Cheers!
Last updated: Saturday, July 7, 2018