Now that I've caught your attention, let me explain. Asian budget airline AirAsia announced yesterday that it would offer 100,000 free tickets to Thailand as part of a regional marketing campaign to boost its tourism industry, which suffered greatly from recent political turmoil.The Associated Press reports:
You must act fast, however. Tickets can only be purchased until Friday (Thailand time - they are 12 hours ahead of D.C.!) for travel between January 6 and March 31, 2009. Unfortunately, while there are no free tickets from the U.S. to Thailand, anyone who is already planning on traveling around Asia in the New Year might find this useful.AirAsia said it would collaborate with Tourism Authority of Thailand to bring back tourists and businessmen by "reinstating the core message that it is now safe to travel back to the Land of Smiles."
Under its campaign themed "Get Your Baht To Thailand" -- a play on the Thai currency -- AirAsia will give away 100,00 free tickets to Bangkok from Vietnam, Cambodia, Myammar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and China, as well as for flights within Thailand.
Passengers will only have to pay airport taxes and administration fee. AirAsia last month abolished fuel surcharges on all its flights.
"We hope that this campaign will instill the confidence among travelers and also help to boost tourism which is vital at this juncture," Group Chief Executive Tony Fernandes said in a statement.
(Note: When you are asked to select a country on the AsiaAir homepage, select Thailand, then select English as the language. We had a hard time finding the promotion when we pretended to be a Brit wanting a flight from Malaysia to Thailand)
Image: AirAsia.com
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I really wanted to visit my hometown. Please everyone get Thailand back to normal.
Has anyone been able to book this? Every time I try to view flight details its charging me about $90 ea way in fares (not including taxes).
From what it looks like, the fares aren't available on all dates. Did you try logging into the site under Thailand/English? I got the free fares to come up that way. Bangkok (BKK) to Chiang Mai (CNX) on March 8 is coming up as 990 THB (about $28), but Chiang Mai to Bangkok on March 11 is coming up as $0. Try playing around with the dates and see if it works!
nice post.
Wow! This is simply a great idea. Reading it has inspired me to become a traveler soon. I have read numerous travel blogs but yours is simply superb!
The best way to get the best value for traveling is to buy your flights separately and not from a tour company that packages everything up. I found cheap china flights from http://www.bamboobookings.com
It is very nice to make booking through net or phone rather than going branch of that company or anything else so, its easy way way to make travel.