In case you missed last year’s post about great airfare deals in New York’s Chinatown it’s worth another mention this time around. This is the third year in a row that we’ve been customers of Wa Minh Travel on Grand Street. It’s still run by Happy but her cousin, Susan, is no longer in the office with her. However, the deals are still there and they’re about as good as one can expect with today’s taxes and high gas prices.

Tamar got a round trip ticket to HCMC, Vietnam on Japan Airlines for $1,440 including taxes and the additional $70 for weekend travel (both ways) with only 1 stop over in Tokyo. This fare was on sale for a limited time and would normally cost over $1,800. The taxes alone are over $700, half the price of the entire ticket. FYI: Weekend travel is Friday to Monday and costs an extra $35 each way if travel begins on one of these days.

I tried to book my ticket for departure mid-January but no such luck…no yet. I’m wait listed on Korean Air and Happy tells me that I should be able to get a sale price on JAL about a month before my intended departure, Jan 17th. Otherwise my ticket would also cost over $1,800 and Happy just doesn’t want me to pay that! I’ll just have to wait until the middle of December for the sale to come around. However, availability may become a problem since it’s just before Tet and the Chinese New Year (Jan 26, 2009).

Wa Minh Travel arranges visas for Vietnam (or anywhere else) for about $60 extra but they can’t procure multi-entry visas spanning more than a month which is what Tamar and I both need for this trip. For that you must apply directly with the Vietnamese embassy which never lists prices on their website and they have really limited phone hours.

We’re still up several hundred bucks from the $1050 round trip with Korean Air that I got in 2006 (including the visa) but international travel is just really pricey these days. Fortunately, the pho in the street is hot, delicious and still costs under a dollar!

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