January 15, 2011

Chrismas trip to Hongkong, Macau and Hainan Island-HKG to HAK on UO157

Hong Kong(UX)/Hong Kong express airlines(UO) are subsidiary of China fourth largest airlines-Hainan airlines, what I call the only hope of Chinese airlines. They have long haul service to Seattle, Toronto, several European countries, Dubai, Asia and Africa. they also  have UO and UX to flight many Asia cities from Hong Kong. Most their long haul aircraft are newA330/340 with nearly 180 flat bed business class. Their program are very easy to use and seats are pretty easy to be found.  Award are distance based, so my flight from Hong Kong to Haikou only costs me 9000km per person in business class. The only small problems are my paid infant ticket was collected fuel surcharge+ their lousy website

The easiest way to go to HKG from Macau is by ferry, same company I mentioned earlier, they have many ferries throughout the day to go to HKG. Also, Hong Kong is considering you are transit through, so will refund the airport departure tax 120 HKD at airport. The only problem with this route is you can not enter Hong Kong.  Our flight was 4:15 pm, but when I got to ticket window to buy 1:30 ferry, they said only flight departure after 4:30 can buy 1:30 ferry.  since they didn’t actually check the ticket, I then told them my flight is 4:45 instead.

After getting the ticket, we took our bag to check in counter. According to the website, our flight was eligible for upstream check in service, which I can receive boarding pass for our flight, but for some reason, they were not able to print our boarding pass, so we had to check in again after arriving Skypier at HKG airport.

The Ferry arrived on time at 2:30pm, after disembark from the ferry, I collected my boarding pass, departure tax refund receipt at transfer desk.  Before boarding the train to the terminal, there was a desk to refund departure tax, you won’t miss it.  Since we still had lots of times, we decided to went to the lounge. Hong Kong express flight doesn’t have their own lounge, need to us Hong Kong airline lounge, but it’s actually far away from UX gate 5xx as they were located at remote gate area and need to take transfer bus.

We were last few people to board the plane because of waiting for the bus. The plane was B737-800 and interior was exactly identical to their parent company-Hainan airline. It was a short flight with meal service, I ordered Beef and taste was pretty good.  After 1 hour flying, we arrive Haikou Meilan airport, capital of Hainan Island, a place I have been countless times since I was 11.

Posted by Troy under 2010 Trip, Other Airline Reward Programs | Read the First Comment