Finally done with booking all the trips for the rest of the year and the beginning of the next.
Just got into the mood of looking through all that all over again and the Shanghai hotel I was aiming for just began to offer rooms for reservations. Better yet, they were offering early bird discounts of 35%.
Feels good, man.
That's not even the end of the discounts - I also used the 10% Expedia coupon from DBS for hotel reservations.
Too bad I couldn't book a hotel-and-flight package for this particular trip or I could have gotten that coupon for packages at $1500 and above.
Oh wait... maybe not.
The flight is going to cost me around S$530, the hotel in Shanghai S$280 and the hotel in Hong Kong $200. That won't add up to $1500. Moreover, there's that small discount for booking such packages.
The reason I couldn't get the package was because Expedia sucks in this regard.
Back when I first tried to book this trip, I couldn't get the hotel and the flights I wanted.
This time, Expedia just simply slapped me with an error.
I even tried it thrice to confirm it's not a random thing.
Hence I had to book the flight and the two hotels separately. Thank goodness I didn't have to book the flights separately though. Got to be optimistic; I certainly can't afford a new monitor or PC at the moment if I start smashing things. Or rather, I'm unwilling to afford it.
At least there's that DBS coupon to give me a tiny discount.
The Hong Kong hotel was a great stroke of luck. Seriously, never did I expect such an awesome deal when I came back to book the flight.
Initially I was prepared to book the Holiday Inn Soho since it was close to Central MTR station. I thought I could perhaps take a cab transfer after the Airport Express ride. Short distance, so the resulting transport fare could offset the higher price of a hotel such as this.
But when I went to Expedia, Mini Hotel Central appeared on the first page of my search result with the note that it offering a 10% early bird discount.
Three stars (rated by Expedia), freshly reopened this year after renovations, walking distance from Central MTR Station which is connected to the Airport Express Hong Kong Station, free cancellation until the month I'm checking in there. Best of all, it only costs S$89 a night.
Feels damn good to reserve it.
That had to be the quickest hotel reservation I've ever made. If my luggage is light enough, I'll just take the Airport Express and walk to and from the hotel. According to the hotel's website, it's just 10-minute walk or a 5-minute taxi ride.
Fuck yeah!
The catch is that the room is so tiny, they use glass partition to separate the bathroom from the rest of the room, but who cares? It's just going to be me, myself and I.
Although, I suppose couples could find that detail much more interesting than I do.
This hotel is so hot, Expedia was telling me that there were 14 reservations for it in the last 48 hours, and I'm not surprised.
Actually the plan was to have the trip fall on the week after New Year's Day but MINDEF, being the asshole that it is, decided to throw me a certain NS-related notification that occupies that period of time.
I have certain restrictions and preferences for trips like this, so this notification really messed the whole plan up. For one, I do not want the Shanghai part of the trip to fall on weekends, so I try to start the trip at the beginning of the week. In addition, I have to be there for at least 4 days.
Anyway my final itinerary included the weekend in my Shanghai stay, but just the Saturday and departure on Sunday morning. I think I can handle the weekend crowd for just a single day.
Then I'll have about two days in Hong Kong to visit my grandmother's grave and get that Chinese traditional seal I've been thinking about. My plan is to get the seller to mail it over to me, since it takes a while to be carved.
Also bought travel insurance for one trip from three insurance companies: Chartis, Aviva and Ace. They were all about $30 each so that's a total of around $90 of premiums.
Not really sure if that's a good idea but it's done.
Regardless, I have another 2 trips' worth of insurance to buy.
All the benefits look similar and so do the premiums. The important points anyway, like trip cancellation, delayed luggages and etc. Hospitalisation and medical-related stuff are in the second-tier category on my priority list.
Maybe I'll get 2 Premier-tier policies for one of the trips.
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