Good morning Errol,
My situation has altered somewhat! When I went to order the Business
Class ticket London-HongKong-Cairns from: "Justtheticket.com" I was 
quoted P2799+tax of P103 (Just on double the price you obtained) 
of : P1257.80+tax of P75.80

This is the first situation that needs to be resolved. Can you please get 
on the telephone and sort it out, and once you do get a reference or booking
number of some sort for me to quote. Tell them I will lock it in with a (say) 
P200 Visa Card deposit and pay the balance in cash when I get to London, 
as I dont wish to pay the extra 2.5% they charge for paying by credit card.

O.K. that is the first thing to sort out please Errol.

Next I have found ("discovered") an new talent here in Kingston Jamaica 
whom I have invited back to Australia on a 12 months contract. 
His initials are F.A.P. I need to book him on the same flights as myself
except flying Econonmy..as opposed to my Business Class. The other variation
for him is that he is to have a 4/5 day stopover in Cairns and then fly on
to Melbourne. (Where he will be entertaining in my son's Club)
F.A.P. will require a return ticket (London) open ended or 12 months time. 
My journey will end in Cairns (where I live) whereas F.A.P. will fly on to
Melbourne after (say) a 4 day stopover. Hope that is clear.

The final variation is now the departure date. I now plan on not be arriving 
in London until Saturday 21st June 2003 so the new departure date from
London will be on or about Wed 25th June 2003 (prefer night time departure time)

These times/dates etc are all now final. (with flexibility available to obtain
value priced tickets)

In summary: 
1.)I need my Business Class ticket London-HongKong-Cairns priced,
confirmed and the ability to to somehow lock it in and order it at the 
agreed price. If need be I could "TT" the full amount to their nominated 
bank account. ( I would need details of their account number etc)
This would be only cost me about 30.00; a lot less than the 2.5% for paying 
by Visa Card.

2.) I need a quote etc for the additional Economy Ticket: 
    London-HongKong-Cairns-Melbourne ( for F.A.P.)

3.) I have changed the departure date to 25th June. This is my preferred departure
date. In the evening time of 25st June 2003. Although I am flexible to the 
extent that any date from (say) 24th June till 1st of July would do.

The top priority is to get value priced tickets!

Will leave it with you Errol, don't hesitate to post a clarification 
if you need to. We now have a bit of time on our side, so if you could 
really shop around;both on the net and on the telephone to dig out the 
best value you can find I will appreciate it and tip you another $50.00
for an excellent job and good valued tickets found. 
Thanks in advance from : Roger
SPECIAL NOTE: I originally priced this question at $25.00 but I have 
doubled it to $50.00 to allow for your local phone calls.

---

Request for Question Clarification by errol-ga on 05 Jun 2003 12:35 PDT

Hi there, Roger!

Just a quick RFC to let you know that I'm onto it first thing in the
morning...
The price that you had there, was that for a return because the quote
I obtained a few days ago was for one way?

Regards,
errol-ga.

---

Clarification of Question by bwll77-ga on 05 Jun 2003 14:43 PDT

Hi Errol,
You may be right about a the return ticket price. I hope so!!!!
As you know I only need the one way ticket back to Cairns. Now between
the time I posted this question (this morning) and this afternoon. A 
couple of potential problems have occurred with my "Jack" my new "star".

He failed to appear for a pre-arranged appointment at noon. And he is 
carrying JD$19,000.00 of my money. Not a lot, probably a couple of hundred
quid. I am not worried about the money, but I am concerned about his 
reliability and integrity. I gave him the money to purchase a collection
of antique vinyl records for my son. I fear/suspect that the tempetation 
of having "all that money" was too much for him, and he hit the "goonga".

I will give him another 24 hours to materialize and explain, but at this
stage, 4pm in the afternoon it is not looking good.

On the basis of that I have rescheduled my flight from Kingston to London
for 10.25pm on Friday 13th June 2003. On that flight I will arrrive in 
London at 3.05pm on Saturday 14th June 2003.

So allowing 2/3 or 4 days in London my departure date from London could be:
17th, 18th, 19th or 20th. Dont forget that my stopover in Hong Kong needs to
be on a Business Day. I dont mind staying two or three days in Hong Kong if
I have to, but what with the SARS thing the quicker I get in and out the
better. I will stay at the Regal Airport Hotel in Hong Kong which is right
at (in) the Airport, and there is a branch of HKSB there.

So I will leave you with all that and let you know,in due course what decisions
I make in relation to Jack.

Thank you and kind regards from: Roger

---

Clarification of Question by bwll77-ga on 06 Jun 2003 03:47 PDT

Good (Friday) morning here Errol,
Now about 6am here, must be about noon in London. No word from Jack overnight
so that's the end of him. Forgot about the tickets for him. And book me for
arriving in London Saturday 14th June 2000, and departing anytime from the
17th onwards. Start with the evening of the 17th then the evening of the 18th,
then the 19th and so on. I look forward to catching up with you later on in
the day. Kind regards from Roger

Good afternoon!
Hope you are well and I'm sorry to hear about the situation with that
guy.

I have telephoned Just The Ticket for you and got them to confirm and
finalize details of the flight.
The price is exactly as before - £1182 + tax London Heathrow to
Cairns, one way with the extra price if you wish to travel to Bangkok.
In my view it does represent fantastic value, especially as it's
Business Class.
What you need to do now is email or telephone the lady (Grace) I have
been dealing with to book and confirm your ticket.
Her email is grace@justtheticket.co.uk and her direct line is +44
(0)20 7291 8126.

The price above is for the following schedule:

Leave Heathrow at 18:25, 17th June.
Arrive at Hong Kong on the 18th June.
Depart Hong Kong at 23:20 on the 20th June.
Arrive at Cairns on the 21st June, 13:50 in the afternoon.

The same price would apply if travelling on either the 17th, 19th or
20th and you have a choice of departure times.
It's very strange that the ticket prices are around £400-£600 more
when viewing on their website though, it's usually the opposite...

===

I had a look around, as you requested, for any cheaper flights and did
find one other option that gave better value which was to book with
Cathay Pacific directly.
The basic price would be £1039 + tax (~£1100 total) which involves
purchasing an Economy class ticket at £289 and then requesting an
upgrade to Business class for £750.

An example schedule would be:

Depart Heathrow at 22:35.
Arrive at Hong Kong at 17:55 on the 18th.
Depart Hong Kong at 23:20 on any day.
Arrive at Cairns at 08:25 in the morning the next day.

Cathay are very flexible and allow long stop-overs in Hong Kong for
several days, the best thing about the price I obtained was that
anybody can phone up and get exactly the same price, it's not
different on the web or in any other situation.
For booking this ticket, the agent I spoke to advised me that you
could wait until you are in London if you really needed to because the
deadline for booking would be on the day before if travelling on the
17th or maybe you could purchase through the website if you prefer.

The contact details for Cathay are:

Tel: +44 (0)20 8834 8800
Website: http://www.cathaypacific.com
Address:
Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd
1st Floor 3, Shortlands
Hammersmith
London
W6 8DA 

Other than that, a couple of cheap websites, Priceline [
http://www.priceline.co.uk ] and Travel Store [
http://www.travelstore.com ] quoted me £4625 and £6775 respectively.
So, the one way fares would be around half of these (the sites did not
have a "one way" option) which is still a high price.

I think it's unlikely that I will be able to find anything cheaper but
I will keep looking just in case.

All the best,
errol-ga.

Thanks Errol. I have just spoken to Grace and locked my ticket in.
Much appreciated Attached are five shiny stars and the $50.00 tip I
promised. Catch up with you again sometime maybe. Kind regards from:
Roger

Hi Roger!

I'm glad you have sorted out your travel arrangements and thanks for
your generosity once again.
errol-ga.