'Shocked': Going abroad is much cheaper than playing in the country

"Turn around" to travel abroad

Booking a flight to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) for a family of 6 on June 2, Ms. Quynh Trang (living in District 3, Ho Chi Minh City) was "shocked" when she bought a ticket from Vietnam Airlines for less than 1.6 million VND/way. The total ticket price for 6 people from the most expensive airline in Vietnam was only over 9.5 million VND.

Vietnamese tourists travel to Australia on May 10

After the plane ticket was booked, Ms. Trang went to online booking sites to find a hotel and was even more surprised because there were thousands of diverse options with extremely affordable prices. Searching for homestay results for 6 people in the center of Kuala Lumpur, Airbnb showed many apartments with promotional prices of only 39 USD/night, equivalent to about 900,000 VND, staying 3 nights for a total of more than 3 million VND, including cleaning fees.

The apartment is spacious, clean, has 3 rooms, each room has 2 double beds, fully equipped with TV in the living room, washing machine, refrigerator, free wifi and 1 parking space. Guests can also use the services in the building such as swimming pool, gym. Depending on the area, location and luxury of the apartment, there are many different prices. However, it is easy to find extremely "cool" apartments with prices ranging from 40 - 70 USD/night.

"The whole trip of 4 days and 3 nights for 6 people, less than 14 million VND including airfare and hotel. I didn't expect that going abroad would be so cheap, so I decided to extend the trip, from Malaysia I will take a train to Singapore, stay a few more days and then return. Singapore hotels are much more expensive than Malaysia, but buying a return flight ticket to Ho Chi Minh City with Bamboo Airways is only over 13.4 million VND/6 tickets. If you buy from Vietjet , it is only over 11 million VND. It is cheaper than traveling domestically, and you can also go abroad to other lands" - Ms. Trang shared.

Like Ms. Quynh Trang, Mr. Thai Nguyen (Hanoi) has just booked tickets to take his whole family to Thailand in mid-July, instead of flying to Phu Quoc as originally planned.

According to Mr. Nguyen, since March, when looking for air tickets to travel during the April 30 - May 1 holidays, he "looked" at tickets from June to August. The cheapest flight from Hanoi to Phu Quoc is also nearly 2 million VND/way, with Vietnam Airlines about 4.3 million VND/round trip ticket. Meanwhile, at the same time, if flying to Bangkok (Thailand), the cheapest flight of Air Asia is only over 1.4 million VND/way, Vietjet from 1.3 - 2 million VND/way depending on the flight. The most expensive flight of Vietnam Airlines is only 2.2 million VND/way, slightly more than the Hanoi - Phu Quoc flight by less than 60,000 VND/way.

"But the cheapest flight of Vietnam Airlines to Phu Quoc takes 18-19 hours, while the flight to Bangkok takes about 13 hours, which is much more convenient. In general, traveling at this time, flying internationally is cheaper than going to some provinces in the country" - Mr. Nguyen said.

Not to mention, to increase the opening of international routes, airlines are implementing many attractive promotional programs. For example, from May 10 to 17, Vietjet will open unlimited time slots for 1 million 0 VND flight tickets for new routes to Australia, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc.; continue to promote flights to India from only 0 VND, open for sale on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays every week from now until October 25; Vietnam Airlines opens direct flights from Hanoi to Melbourne (Australia), with round-trip promotional tickets starting from only 645 USD (equivalent to 15.237 million VND) from now until December 31...

Domestic airfares are "hot" all year round

Domestic flight tickets are starting to get hot again.

Meanwhile, even though tourists actively "hunt" for summer tickets to domestic destinations 1-2 months in advance, they still have to buy sky-high airfares. There are not many flights to Vietnam's tourist "capitals" during the peak summer season from June to August and prices have also begun to "heat up".

For example, on the Ho Chi Minh City - Da Nang route on June 17, Vietjet only has 3 flights from 7:30 am to 11:30 am, priced from 1.85 - 2.3 million VND/way; in the afternoon from 13:00 - 16:00 there are only 3 flights priced at 1.2 million VND/way. If you want to buy tickets priced at around 1 million VND/way, passengers will have to accept late night flights. Bamboo Airways only has 2 flights at 5:45 am, priced at over 1.7 million VND/way and the 20:02 flight with a ticket price of nearly 1.4 million VND/way, equivalent to some early morning and evening flights of Vietnam Airlines. If flying with the national airline during the day, passengers will have to pay from 1.6 - 2.1 million VND/way depending on the flight. The cheapest flight of Pacific Airlines is also up to nearly 1.8 million VND/way.

As the locality that has made the most proposals to lower airfares after identifying this as the main reason for the disastrous decline in the April 30 - July 1 holiday travel season, flights to Phu Quoc this summer have not seen many changes. On June 23, the cheapest flight on the Hanoi - Phu Quoc route was over VND2 million/way, operated by Bamboo Airways, and there were only 2 flights at that price in the evening. If you fly in the morning, noon or afternoon, the ticket price is over VND2.4 - 3.3 million/way. Round-trip tickets cost up to VND4.5 - over VND6 million. Vietnam Airlines only has 2 flights with economy class tickets, priced at over VND3.1 and over VND3.5 million/way; the remaining 2 flights of the day are only business class, priced at over VND4 million/way. Pacific Airlines and Vietravel Airlines have no flights today.

The "hottest" route from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, although there are still many flights, is still "red-eyed" but still cannot find a round-trip ticket under 3.3 million VND/way around the beginning of July. The cheapest round-trip ticket of Vietjet is nearly 3.4 million VND; the most expensive of Vietnam Airlines is nearly 5.3 million VND.

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/du-lich-he-het-hon-xuat-ngoai-re-hon-nhieu-choi-trong-nuoc-185230511111513518.htm