Air Asia Madness

So, I think it's bogus to write about an airline that I haven't even flown with yet, but what the heck. I just want to comment on how awesome it is to be able to use a discount airline for the first time in Asia.

Despite the taxes and fees they add on at the last minute, and trying to charge me $15.00 to choose my seats, and sneakingly adding stupid travel insurance onto my total, I am still loving their prices.

Of course, with any budget airline, you have to deal with all of the "extras". They charge for every checked bag. They charge for any meals you might want to eat. Also the routing can be a pain. Because Air Asia's hub is in Kuala Lumpur, if you want to fly from Korea to anywhere else in Asia, most likely you have to route through KL.

This time around, we got SUCH a good deal on our tickets to Malaysia, which is why we decided to vacation there in the first place. We had originally planned on going back to China, or Mongolia, or Thailand. But Mongolia was expensive, China we had already been to and Thailand is going to be right in the middle of monsoon season. Enter: Malaysia.

We got two round trip tickets to Malaysia from Seoul for $550.00 a person. Not too shabby. Not only that, but they're DIRECT FLIGHTS. Might not be a big deal to some of you, but I have never been on a direct flight in my life (unless you count the 1 hour puddle jump to Jeju Island). The flight is at an odd time: it departs Seoul at 11:25PM and arrives in Kuala Lumpur at 5:15 in the morning. Again, some people might be dismayed, but not us. Actually, it works out really well for us. We don't have to pay for an extra night in a hotel, and we don't waste time getting to our first destination. We planned on traveling right to the Cameron Highlands our first day, so with this awesome flight we can get there mid afternoon (if everything goes according to plan), instead of that night. Score!

I will have many an opinion about the airline itself when we come back. We are going to take 3 flights with Air Asia total during our Malaysia trip, with one being a short domestic flight. I hope we like it enough because we have already purchased some our tickets to Southeast Asia this winter and will be buying more through them this fall.

As two young backpackers, I don't think we'll have too many negative comments about a discount airline like air Asia, simply because we don't expect a lot. We'll see!