Wednesday, August 2, 2017

How to explore Singapore in cheap – Flight Booking

So this post is not about what are the attractions in Singapore or review about any glorious shopping mall or a street, that information is more than available online, you can in fact virtually live in Singapore online !! This is about some hacks, cheat codes or tips that no one spoke about on internet when I was planning for my trip and these small pieces of information can really make a difference for good. 

This post is also about how you can plan and travel on your own and avoid overpriced conducted tours. Conducted tours are boring, they just allow you to take a glimpse of the place so that you can take pictures and later can say, "I was there", sure you were there but did you enjoy the place ? Most of the cases, NO. Conducted tours are always cramped and you end up getting tired after holidays rather then being relaxing.

I travelled from Bangalore, India with a very smart & dominant 3 year old daughter and a hard-core vegetarian wife. I will start with checklist of things so that you can plan this trip on your own,

Flight Booking - I booked Tigerair, it was the cheapest and was making use of the entire arrival and the departure day. It arrived Singapore 8 in the morning and departed at 10:30 pm. Few things about Tigerair,

  • Check-in weight is not included in the flight price but you can always buy while booking the tickets. I added 20 kg prepaid for 26 USD x 2 (Return and onward flight) in addition to free 7 Kgs cabin luggage per person. 20 Kg Check in with 7+7+7 kg was just enough for 8 day tour for 3 people with good amount of shopping. 
  • If you choose prepaid luggage, the website would add it to all the passengers by default, look for edit button to remove it from other passengers.
  • Pram or Stroller is free of any baggage, this was my first time so I wasn't sure.
  • While booking you will be asked to choose seats, there will be 3 options and all would be chargeable, look for small "skip for now" button on the page and skip it to get free seats allotted while collecting the boarding passes.
  • No food or drinks served inside aircraft is free, you can choose to buy food while booking the tickets but in my experience the hot meal I chose was disgusting.
  • It cost me little extra because I chose for flexible dates, it cost me another 84 USD for 3 seats on the round trip.

I paid a total of 690 USD for round trip for 3 of us with 20 kg prepaid check in luggage and flexibility to change the dates. Its still cheap after all these add ons and can still be made cheaper with better and planning ahead.

Write to me at ankkkit@hotmail.com if you need some more info that you would like to know.

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