How to beat AirAsia’s b*st extra charges

AirAsia revamped its Web site in November, changing all of booking pages. This is a refreshed version of the original “How to beat AirAsia’s b***s**t extra charges” with new screencaps and new step-by-step instructions.

Update: Feb 23, 2014. I’ve shifted some of the steps because AirAsia changed their sequence.

Update: Jan 13, 2013. Changing publishing date so the post will be higher up, ready for this round of Free Seats.

AirAsia has revamped its whole Web site. Good news is, some of the sneaky charges in the previous booking procedure have been taken out.

However, there might be still some confusion with the booking, I’m doing up a new version of the guide too.

For this money saving activity, you will need

Internet connection
Browser
Direct debit e-payment method (save RM4 per journey)

I am using a return flight from Singapore to Kota Kinabalu as an example. Please ignore the exorbitant flight price.

Step 1: Pick a good price

Unless you are flying within the month, I recommend that you wait for a while for the promos to roll in. The AirAsia Facebook puts up updates about the sales frequently. I haven’t figured out the promo fares’ cycles but they come quite quick.

Plan as far in advance if you can and do not buy tickets at full price. If you are booking during the promo period, remember that a lot of people are doing the same so you need to strategize your booking.

Step 2: Beat the charges I–Luggage

When you have selected the flight with the best price and time combo, you are ready to eliminate those sneaky fees.

At the page where you fill in the passengers’ details, you will come across the first extra charge–baggage fee.

AirAsia lists the 20kg as default. You can select 0kg if you are hardcore.

I’ve been travelling with only a carry one for many of my trips now. It takes some getting used to but it is possible to stuff a laptop, two dresses and other things into one backpack.

Be careful, you will need to deselect luggage twice on the same page if you have booked a return trip.

Money saved with 0kg: S$17 one way (for default 20kg price).
Total saved: S$34

Step 3: Beat the charges II–Insurance

With the revamp, AirAsia has made it much easier to skip buying insurance. But it’s still a bit sneaky.

To remove insurance,

untick the box
click [Cancel]
click [OK]

: Cancel AirAsia Insurance

A word of caution: I do not recommend having no insurance when travelling. I have an annual travel insurance by another company so I do not buy from AirAsia.

Money saved no insurance S$12.
Total saved: S$46

Step 3: Beat the charges III–Seat allocation

Hurray! There is no sneaky extra charge here.

Just head straight to Confirm on the lower right.

I was given the “Hot Seat” once (for free) but I didn’t feel that it was any better than the rest of the seats. Maybe the red faux leather was prettier than the boring black, but everything’s the same.

Unless you and your darling are two lovebirds who cannot bear to be apart (nice ad by the way, AirAsia) or you need to take care of your child/elderly, please be sensible and do not add any seats.

No sneaky charges. Hurray!.
Total saved: S$34

Step 5: Beat the charges IV–Processing fee

We are almost there!

The last fees that you will encounter is very much like the Boss level in video games. You will need that “Direct debit e-payment method” I prescribed up there.

If you pay using a credit or debit card, AirAsia will charge you something they call a “processing fee” for each flight that you take.

It doesn’t mean that you can buy 10 person’s tickets in one transaction to even out the processing fee. It means it’s 10 x [processing fee]=A lot of wasted money.

[Update Sep 16, 2013] Since a month ago or so, AirAsia has started charging processing fee for direct debit payments as well. However, you will still save a measly RM4 if you use direct debit.

In Singapore, we can use ENets as the direct debit payment option, which eliminates the processing fee. Just change the currency to Singapore Dollar to get the ENets function.

For other countries, there are other ways so please research before you start your payment.

If you are buying tickets departing from countries without your Direct Debit option, change the currency to the one your account is based to see if they have the option for you.

Money saved with no processing fee S$16 return trip.
Total saved: S$62

Step 6: S$62 richer (+pre flying tip)

So by being careful, I just saved myself S$62 for a single person return trip–enough to fund for another trip to a closer location! The amount also adds up if there are more travellers.

Also, remember to use Web check-in because they might charge you extra at the counter.

My tips are targeted at AirAsia. At my favorite money saving site: UK-based MoneySavingExpert, there’s extra tips on how to save money on budget flights with a focus on inter-Europe cheap flights.

That is all I have to impart. Go on your money saving journey, my friends!

Do you like budget flights? What was your cheapest ticket?

I’m on Runaway Juno representing Kota Kinabalu

I interrupt our regular post schedule with a BIG announcement!

I’m on Runaway Juno’s Runaway to Sister’s City this week, talking about my dear hometown: Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, Malaysia.

If you are interested to learn more about Kota Kinabalu, here are some primer (actually, almost all of KK posts here):

For my regular readers who do not know about Juno, you should check out Runaway Juno blog now! (OK, maybe after reading the rest this posts.)

A few of my favorite Runaway Juno posts are the one where she talked about how she took a giant leap and also discussed things that I would (cowardly) rather sweep under the rug.

Until next travels! Stay safe.

Why you should visit Singapore’s Arab Street in the early morning

I like Arab Street for its food and the pretty Sultan Mosque.

But whenever I am in the area, the sun is shining too brightly and I feel dehydrated from walking around. There is just too much noise and people–the tourists with their gigantic cameras, cars waiting for the green light and shops laying out their wares on the sidewalk.

It’s sometimes a little too much to handle.

One day, I had the chance to visit Arab Street early in the morning around 7am. It was a different Arab Street without the people and the cars.

It was a little surreal but I liked it. The sun wasn’t out yet and the people were still away.

Deserted pedestrian street in Arab Street

Sultan Mosque, Arab Street, Singapore — Sultan Mosque, Arab Street

Do you like crowds when travelling?

#FoodFri Devonshire cream tea set in Singapore

My favorite place for afternoon tea in Singapore is Fosters, an English Rose Café at Holland Village.

Even though the scones are the leading characters in the set, the Devonshire cream steals the limelight EVERY SINGLE TIME! The rest of the spread is so so.

The white cream comes in a small tub, the top in a cute swirl. It doesn’t taste of cream but of coconut. Can you imagine? Coconut bread spread that doesn’t taste like fake coconut.

My history with Fosters

Setting of Fosters, an English Rose Café. Menu opens like a paper

When I was in university, one of the bus I take always passed the restaurant. It looked posh. With my university allowance, I didn’t think that I could afford going there.

So, one of the first things I did when I got my first pay was to visit the restaurant.

I was curious about its Devonshire Cream Tea Set. Back then, the set had two scones, four finger sandwiches (2 cucumer–eek–and 2 ham), 2 fruit cakes.

Today, there is only 2 sandwiches and 1 dried store-bought fruitcake. At least, the one coffee or tea remains the same. The breadspread is the same: strawberry jam, butter and Devonshire cream.

It’s only available from 3 to 6pm which is a tricky timing since lunchtime passed not so long ago.

The restaurant is decorated quaintly and makes a good place to chat with friends. If there’s only two of you, you can sit at the two sofas near the door where a suit of armor guards.

How to get to Fosters, an English Rose Café

The nearest MRT stop is Holland Village.

[And look! This post fits WP’s Daily Post writing challenge]

Have you been to Fosters? Do you like Devonshire cream?

Happy birthday, YQtravelling

Hello! It’s Jan. 8 and a special day here at YQtravelling. It’s the blog’s one-year birthday!

This marks one year since I’ve moved the blog from Posterous to WordPress.com. It will actually take me another 3 months to get serious about blogging but let’s just ignore that.

Thanks for following the blog throughout the year. If you’ve only joined in recently, welcome!

So what has happened during the year? A lot. :) I visit more places than I ever did in the past years. I’ve written about more places than I have in my life time.

Let’s checkout what were the top 5 posts during the year:

Things outside of YQtravelling

I also experimented with guest posting.

Over at Flocations, I share how to plan a 24 hour trip to Kuching.

At Diario de un curtido en Asia, I share how you can maximize a 24-hour trip in Singapore.

At AirAsia’s blog, I share how my day in Osaka went. This was the guest post which I gained the most traffic from. I really need to start writing more there.

Things to come

So, what will happen to YQtravelling in the new year? A lot. :)

I can’t share too much at this period but the blog will follow me while I travel.

Once again, thank you for joining me on my travels.

Tell me what you would like to read more on the blog: tales, tips, blogging, food? Drop your thoughts in the comment.

Tune Hotel Ipoh promo Jan 2 to Mar 31, 2013

I’m breaking my usual posting schedule to bring you a deal.

I found out about a Tune Hotel Ipoh promo. It’s a collaboration between Tune Hotel and the Malaysian railways to encourage people to take the ETS from KL to Ipoh. Even if you are not taking the train, it applies to you too!

Room rates are
RM68 nett from Sunday to Thursday
RM100 nett for Friday and Saturday.

Rates include 1 unit Cozy Package (24 hours air conditioning, 1 towel and toiletry set, 24 hours TV and WiFi.

Use promotion code KTMIPOH

Other terms and condition

Stay period: 2 Jan to 31 Mar 2013
Rates valid for 1 double room or 1 twin room (subject to availability) per night
Black-out dates for stays: 1 Jan, 24-27 Jan, 10-14 Feb
Promo only for Tune Hotel Ipoh

(I’ll bring the flyer to a scanner soon so you can read all the nitty gritty fine print.)

My thoughts on Tune Hotel Ipoh promo

I’ve stayed at Tune Hotel Ipoh before and liked it a lot. My promotion then was a lot cheaper than what they have now: RM61.14 for room, 12-hour air conditioning, rental towel and “free essentials toiletries kit”.

But the deal’s quite good for weekenders. I just did a fake booking and the fees turned out to be RM142 for all the benefits they are including.

The hotel is a little walk from the old town area where food is congregated. Exercising is good, my friends.

I also love Ipoh for its food and sights (they have a damn castle!). It’s a great weekend trip if you are in Peninsula Malaysia or Singapore.

Will you be going to Ipoh?

Come see to a ‘tamu’ Sabah’s version of a Farmer’s Market

If you happen to visit Sabah, please time your visit so you can go to one of the weekly “tamu”.

Pronounced as “tah-moo”, the weekly market (or Farmer’s Market) where vendors gather to sell different produce and products.

Different areas have different tamu days. For example, Donggogon’s tamu is on Thursday and Friday. Putatan’s tamu is on Saturday and Sunday. Kota Belud has one on Wednesday. Kinarut is on Saturday while Lok-Kawi where my parents have a shop has tamu on Thursday.

In olden days, it was a day in the week where villagers flock to a central location to either sell or buy their excess agricultural or anima stock. Nowadays, you will find all sorts of things on sale at a tamu, including clothes.

Seeing the Kota Belud tamu on Wednesday

Gate of Pasar Tani Kota Belud — Gates of Kota Belud agricultural market

I had the chance to visit the tamu in Kota Belud on the day of the roadtrip to Kudat. Kota Belud is a little town halfway between Kota Kinabalu and Kudat which takes about 1.5 hours to reach there by car.

My family began our journey to Kudat on a Wednesday. On the way, we stopped by Kota Belud for lunch. We were in luck since Kota Belud’s tamu was on a Wednesday.

According to a guidebook which I just returned to the library today, Kota Belud is the home of tamu. I couldn’t really tell when I was there.

It was fruit season that period and my parents managed to buy durian and rambutan for cheap.

For those used to the sanitized markets in the western world, Sabah’s Farmers Market might be a culture shock with overpowering smells, heat and humidity.

Vendors lay their wares on sheets of plastic. For peel-able fruits, you are able to taste some before you decide on buying more from the vendor.

In Kota Belud, most of the durian sellers (who also sell mangosteen and rambutan) were lined up on the pavement and not in the real market area. Some of the vendors bought the fruit wholesale and didn’t plant it themselves.

If you speak Malay, bargaining can be easy. I’ve not seen vendors quoting prices to those who do not speak Malay but I suspect they will not rip people off too badly.

From nearest: Unknown fruit, langsat, mangosteen, jackfruit

Have you ever been to a tamu? How was your experience?

Glutton in Sabah

I was home for the holidays and ate many yummy things (and some less yummy food). This post is divided by the locations I ate the dishes.

Bon appetit!

Durian. My family loves durians but I’m a little meh about it. However, this time when I was back, I have kind of fallen in love with its creamy custard texture.

Lamb chop. On the second day when I reached home, I had a craving for lamb chop so I requested my parents to bring me to our regular steak place.

Our seats were right next to the covered drain but we got wafts of drain smell floating around us. :<

The lamb chop was rather disappointing. The portion was large but the meat was so tough I felt like I was a grazing cow. My jaw hurt in the end.

Kota Belud kopitiam

Before my mom and I headed to Kudat, we stopped by a kopitiam in Kota Belud. We lunched with my dad and my parents’ friends and ordered things to share.

Fried bee hoon. A typical fried noodle dish, garnished with roast pork bits.

Pig blood curd yong tau foo. If you’ve not had blood curd (like bean curd but with animal blood), you might feel a bit queasy about it.

It’s actually really tasty. It doesn’t taste of blood. I can’t really describe the taste but it’s firmer than jelly.

Kudat seafood

Mom and I couldn’t find a nice place for seafood while we were in Kudat. In our car, we went about town.

Finally, we settled at one of the wooden houses at the sea. We happened to sit at the less popular restaurant. Oh well, food is food is food.

Crab. I’ve never had this sort of crab before. The usual crab I eat has a uniform color but this was patterned. Mom said it was a “flower crab”.

The meat wasn’t as firm as the usual crab I eat. But the good thing is that the shell is less tough and I can break off the shell easily to the crab meat.

(This crab was not eaten in Kudat.) Just to show you what the regular crab I eat looks like. I had this at restaurant near my home.

Steamed fish. Oh, how much I love fish steamed with soy sauce and ginger. The sauce goes well with rice.

Roadside fruit stall

On the way to and from Kudat, fruit stalls are scattered by the roadside.

They all sell the same seasonal fruits: BBQ corn, bananas, jackfruit, honey, rambutan.

BBQ corn. It’s interesting how they cook the corn. I usually eat steamed or boiled corn, never one roasted by fire.

However, our cobs of corn weren’t cooked enough.

Honey. Mom bought a bottle of dark honey (“Darker means older honey,” said the seller.) I haven’t tried it but the bottles look so pretty.

Bukit Padang stalls

Cha kway teow. Stir fried flat board noodles. The half-cooked cockles are known to cause mild food poisoning.

Cendol. Shaved ice, coconut milk, gula melaka (palm sugar) syrup, and green cendol. Enough said. It gave me brain freeze when I tried to eat it really fast.

Others

Hokkien noodle. I love this dark sauce thick noodles. And the fried pork fat. Mmmm.

Pearl milk tea. Or also known as “bubble tea” in Singapore. Black chewy tapioca drowned in milk tea.

YOYO’s the best pearl milk tea branch in Southeast Asia, according to me.

Cooling water, or what we call “rhino horn water”. I do not think the drink has actual bits of rhino calcium. But it was selling like hot cakes (if they were liquid and cool) at my parents’ store.

I learned from a customer that they use it to cool down after eating heaty durians.

Swiss roll. I bought this cake because I mistook it for another bakery’s milk cake. There’s custard in between.

Fish soup bee hoon. Sluuuuurp. (OK, I’m not that big a fan of pale fish.)

Pot luck! My mom and her friends had a pot luck on new year eve night. It was dinner after mahjong. Later we went to the beach for our ritual feet washing.

Which is your favorite dish?

What I do when I am back home in Sabah

I just came back from an 11-day trip home (which is about 9 days long if you take away the travelling days). It was a good recharging of my batteries.

Since some people–okay, maybe only my uncle–are curious about why I go home so often. (I only went back home 3 times in 2012.) I’ll share what I do when I am home.

See the parents

The main reason I head back to Sabah is to see my parents. Or maybe for my parents to see me. I’m not sure which way it goes.

I also bicker (good humoredly, I hope) with the parents.

Eat seafood

A good reason to head home is for the cheap yummy seafood. A meal for two which includes a kilogram of cooked crabs, steamed fish, a stirfried vegetable and rice costs only RM63 (US$21).

Steal Wi-Fi at restaurants

My parents cancelled the fixed broadband line because it doesn’t work 95 percent of the time. In the end, I had to surf on my mobile phone.

For long blog posts, I had to bring my laptop to restaurants and use their Wi-Fi while I wait for the food to arrive.

Meet friends

I usually multitask by stealing Wi-Fi and meeting my long-time-no-see friends.

Help a little at the shop and house chores

My parents own a grocery store in the neighborhood where I grew up. I didn’t really like tending to the shop because it’s mindnumbingly dull to sit at the cashier, key in prices and bag groceries.

But then, this was the place which provided my university tuition.

Play mahjong

I played plenty of mahjong with my mom and her friends when they lacked another player.

I’m not very good at it but I did win some (a minority) rounds.

Travel

When my holidays are too short, I don’t move around much. This time, I had 11-days so my mom drove us to Kudat for a one-night trip. We saw the “tip of Borneo” and ate some seafood.

Visit the temple

I’m still rather confused about which religion I am partial to. I grew up believing I was Buddhist when I was praying to Taoist gods). I do like Greek gods now but I don’t think that’s considered a religion now.

Despite my confusion, I still visit temples. There’s a Taiwanese saying “有拜有保佑” which means “you will be protected if you pray”. The saying means that it doesn’t hurt to pray to as many gods so you won’t be left out on Judgement Day.

Welcome the new year

My mom and her friends have a tradition of going to the beach around 11pm on new year eve. Before the clock strikes 12, we head into the sea to wash away the bad from the current year and welcome the good luck from the coming year.

Where is home?

Last time, I wrote a post about how I am homeless because I cannot tell which is home. When I was back in Sabah this time, I realized that it’s possible to have many places you call home.

It all depends on how much you feel that you belong in a place.