China Eastern out of Melbourne

[wilco]

OK now that the boys have had a bit of to and fro and the dust now settled and now with all parties in total agreeance that only to get from Oz to China is with MU - here are a coupla fares I am currently looking at:

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You cant deny its a pretty cheap fare..... but I still think id take CX Y for half the price....

 

[MEL_Traveller]

You cant deny its a pretty cheap fare..... but I still think id take CX Y for half the price....

or qf y+ to hong kong and then economy onwards for about the same price?

for my money I'd take the MU, busness class is still business class, and better legroom than qf ¥

 

[Cruiser Elite]

I have indeed booked both these flights - I did have J Savers on SQ already locked in for both but I will cancel and re-bank pts.

YES YES I can hear you all saying what a clown - the direct flight into PVG opposed to MEL-SIN-PVG swung me there - and it means I get an extra sleep in my own bed - and I can play around with the timing PEK-PVG leg on other flight as I will need a day in Shanghai that trip also.

MU office in PEK is very obliging - T & C's look pretty restrictive on surface - but once you in China return flights are readily changeable -well they have been in the past at least.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

OK I can see there is ever increasing interest by so many in these cheap MEL-PVG / SYD-PVG flights I thought I might give you guys an insight into MU's FF program - Eastern Miles.

Earlier this year when I first saw MU offering $2,300 ret J MEL-PVG I dug a bit deeper to check. In April I decided to stick my toe in the water and decided to try this just to see how good / bad it was. Prior to paying for first flt I checked their FF program and noticed a couple of enticing promos:

1. Double points for miles flown + tier bonus equated to 2.5pts / mile flown
2. 50% discount on pts required to redeem MEL-PVG flts.

The upshot was that at that particular time I needed to fly 2 x return J and throw in a few dom flts then i would have sufficient pts to redeem another ret J flt MEL-PVG - so basically 2 x $2,300 plus about $1,200 in dom flts which I was going to spend anyway would reap me another $2,300 ret MEL-PVG J flt for ZERO - I kinda thought that was a good deal - 3 ret MEL-PVG flts ave cost $1,533.

So I joined EM on 18/04/2011 and received my temorary membership card in mail about 1 week later. I took 2 ret J flts in Apr and May. End of June the fockers withdrew the 50% discount to redeem so I missed that - then I took a further flight in Aug and also missed the double pts so tier netted me 1.5pt / mile.

I called CE several times trying to get them to send me out the real membership card but to no avail - yesterday in the mail it arrived - so this is what an Eastern Miles membership card looks like:



and this is the covering letter included:



And just in case you guys cannot understand the structure of the Eastern Miles program then this should explain it for you:



And also included was the obligatory Membership Guide:

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Now I would never want to bore you guys but I thought you might be interested in some info within the Membership Guide:

Firstly info on Membership Tiers and the Contents Page:




Some info on MU's Partner Airlines - even the Red Roo appears here:



And some info on Points Generators:



And of course like ALL good airline programs there is a plethora of other partners:



Fabulous huh - especially if you are like me and read not one word or Chinese character. Clearly MU / EM has the whole of the Western world firmly in their sights.

 

[wilco]

for my money I'd take the MU, busness class is still business class

That made me giggle..... or were you being serious??

and as for the above post... Tarom? as a partner? are they serious?? lol

 

[MEL_Traveller]

That made me giggle..... or were you being serious??

and as for the above post... Tarom? as a partner? are they serious?? lol

ummm... they are a member of sky team... along with air France and Korean and everyone else... not sure what's so amusing!!

china eastern is fine... they serve taittinger, better than qantas cheap piper champagne....

 

[wilco]

ummm... they are a member of sky team... along with air France and Korean and everyone else... not sure what's so amusing!!

china eastern is fine... they serve taittinger, better than qantas cheap piper champagne....

WOW! I did not know that (or care to know) but there you have it. Good on Skyteam for their charitable membership program!

And Taittinger is nice, but not when served on the rocks!