If you’ve ever wanted to spend up to a month city-hopping around East Asia, now’s the time. With Cathay Pacific’s All Asia Pass, you can fly from Los Angeles or New York to Hong Kong, spend seven to 30 days in the area, and take side trips to as many as 17 other Far Eastern cities, all for $999 in air fare.
That’s an outstanding deal — and one that you can access only at www.cathay-usa.com/allasiapass, Cathay’s special Web site.
Don’t live in Los Angeles or New York? A through-fare of $1,149 is available from a dozen cities in Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington, connecting through Los Angeles. And a through fare of $1,424 is available from more than 20 other big U.S. cities — including Boston, Denver, Miami and Salt Lake City — connecting through either Los Angeles or New York. (All fares exclude the usual taxes and fees.) There is no direct flight from Chicago, so ask your travel agent for a connecting flight to Los Angeles.
You’ll have to hurry — the deal has a time limit and other restrictions: If you aren’t already a Cathay “CyberTraveler,” you must first register through Cathay’s Web site. You must reserve all flights at least 10 working days before you depart. You must start your trip from the United States no later than Dec. 6 and you must return to the United States no later than Dec. 15.
The ticket is totally nonrefundable (but you can change travel dates for a fee of $150). On a through fare, you can’t stop over in Los Angeles or New York. Check the Web site for additional fine print.
Available side trips cover most of the main visitor centers in East Asia: Bangkok, Cebu, Colombo, Denpasar (Bali), Fukuoka, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Nagoya, Osaka, Penang, Sapporo, Seoul, Singapore, Surabaya, Taipei and Tokyo.
For the most part, you must return through Hong Kong to travel from one city to another. As Cathay notes, visiting all 17 cities during a 30-day period is probably impractical — an understatement if I ever saw one.
Cathay headlines All Asia Pass as “Our best travel deal ever.” And that’s probably right. It’s actually cheaper than the cheapest Economy round trips Cathay quotes just to Hong Kong from either Los Angeles or New York. And, ordinarily, you’d pay hundreds of dollars for each side trip.
If I had the time, I’d love to take advantage of that deal. In addition to Hong Kong, I’d especially like to visit (or revisit) Bangkok, Denpasar and Sapporo (on Japan’s little-visited north island). I’d also love to go back to Colombo in beautiful Sri Lanka — but would pass, this year, because of the intractable terrorism.
It’s my observation that Cathay Pacific is by far the most active foreign airline in using the Internet. Since I’ve been following airline action on the Web, Cathay has run several “auctions” and other interesting promotions. If you have any interest in traveling to Asia, visit Cathay’s Web site and sign up as a CyberTraveler (it’s free).
Even if you don’t have enough time to take advantage of All Asia Pass this year, my guess is that Cathay will have another intriguing offer or two for you early next year.
