Research 101

Yumi has been asking me over the last couple of days to write something on the blog. “Something” ………… I’ve been spending a lot of my time doing research, looking at hotels/hostels/guesthouses/etc.. booking airlines, researching trains, sleeping, looking up guides, tourists traps, negotiation tactics, taxi prices, and so on. I figured I’ll make another useful post in a long line of pictorials and narcissism. … and i’ll start this with a picture to demonstrate windows live writers ability to paste from excel and other windows applications:

 

First, I’ve made a simple flex excel to plan our trip…it’s in jpg format because WLW is best described by a desire to punch a kitten

 

  Sites I use for research

KL to anywhere	MA=malaysiaairlines.com
Indonesia+Asia	GI = garuda-indonesia.com
Indonesia+KL+saigon	LR=www2.lionair.co.id
All over	AA=AsiaAir.com
Lao	http://www.laoairlines.com/
Phnom Penh-Bangkok	http://www.siemreapair.com
	http://www.sabreairlinesolutions.com/
	http://www.jetstar.com/au/en/index.aspx
Thailand ONLY	http://www.nokair.com
Myanmar ONLY	http://www.airbagan.com/
airlines	http://www.shambles.net/
	List_of_airline_holding_companies
HUBS	http://www.skyscanner.jp
	www.kayak.com/
AWESOME site	http://www.theairdb.com/airport/RGN.html

 

 

This is how I track flight prices. It should be more populated but it’s not. I didn’t use it until recently. It does give you a good idea on prices in Asia though.

Tokyo –> KL should have been cheaper, but I made a mistake… my little fuckup that Yumi still brings up every time she has a chance.

Long story short: I cant speak with local travel agents, so in order to speak English, I use skype to call California, but (unknowingly) get transferred to Indonesia. Since I am flying out of Japan, price is quoted in Yen, but since call center is in Malaysia, my Japanese CC is charged in MYR. The payment gets converted from dollars to yen and then to MYR. Soon I find out that since my ticket was purchased in Malaysia, I wasnt eligible for the price quoted in Yen and was charged $200 more for tickets... while credit card rapes me for another $40 in exchange fees.

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