‘Secret’ promo fares: PAL sets daily flights to New York, Toronto, twice daily to SFO
Good news to Filipinos thinking of visiting their relatives in North America during the summer school vacation or making a quick getaway to the West Coast during the Holy Week.
Philippine Airlines has not officially announced it, but the flag carrier is increasing by April 1 its nonstop flights to New York and Toronto to daily, and to San Francisco to twice-a-day.
Even better, the flag carrier is offering cheaper introductory fares for business and premium economy classes, beating its regional and larger competitors.
This early, the PAL website is showing the additional frequencies to New York’s JFK airport and, as proof, already accepting online bookings for the daily service.
The PAL website was quoting, for example, business class Manila-New York fare for April 1 departure and May 1 return at under P192,000.
The PAL rate is a bargain compared to the P231,000 for business class passage from Eva Air, P202,000 from ANA, and P219,000 from Cathay Pacific, all of which have stopovers in their respective home cities.
(Those prices, if you want to know the source, were quoted by the Sky Scanner travel fare aggregator website and the airline’s respective websites as of Wednesday.)
PAL’s promotional pricing strategy against the regional carriers extended to the premium economy class as well.
The PAL website by midweek was quoting a premium economy fare of $1,823, about P97,000, for the same travel dates to New York, against Eva Air’s P113,000 or Cathay Pacific’s P107,000.
The flag carrier will also increase its nonstop Manila-Toronto service to daily from the current five a week, also starting April 1, with Airbus A350-900XWB replacing the Boeing 777-300ER fleet currently servicing the route.
The PAL website was quoting under P193,000 for business class passage to Toronto for the same travel dates, compared to P232,000 from Eva Air, P196,000 from Cathay Pacific, and P248,000 from Korean Air.
As to economy fares, PAL was quoting P48,360 for its lowest offering for the same travel dates to New York, compared to China Airlines’ P39,708, which makes an enervating 22.5-hour stop in Taipei on the outbound journey.
The cheapest fare on the same travel dates, also for New York, was being offered by mainland China carrier China Airlines at P32,257. The small print: almost 10-hour layover in Shanghai on the outbound and an even longer 14-hour layover on the return leg.
As to Toronto, PAL was quoting under P53,000 economy class fare for the same travel dates. The lowest was being offered by a website travel consolidator for China Eastern, at under P33,000. But with a total 42 hours and 45 minutes of journey duration on the return leg, this flight is really a slow boat to China. Heard through the grapevine
The planned SM condos along Chino Roces Avenue have been whiplashed by the ongoing standoff between Makati Mayor Abby Binay and a number of pro-Junjun Binay councilors.
According to the grapevine, the councilors are insisting that the planned revisions of SM condominium plans, particularly the provision of one parking lot for every residential condo unit even as small as a studio, go through the city council before any application is forwarded to the mayor’s office.
E-mail: moneygoround.manila@yahoo.com