A Trip to China - Will this be a case of you get what you pay for?

I've been doing some reading on travelling to China, and every now and then there are emails from travel agents and hotel chains that indicate prices were not as exorbitant as they are if you were to travel to the USA or Europe.

Then there are recommendations from friends who tell you that it’s worthwhile making the trip.  And the tipping point, for everyone, seems to be the price.

China.  10 days.  Around $2,000.  The company offering this deal, Trip-a-deal.  Heard of them?  No.

A visit to the web page goes through the tour and the added bonus of another two days, a visit to the terra cotta soldiers, a trip in a high-speed train, for another $500.

This is the itinerary, in short:

DAY 1 - AUSTRALIA - BEIJING, CHINA

Upon arrival, a tour representative will meet you at the airport and then transfer you to check-in to the Beijing Friendship Hotel

DAY 2 - TIANANMEN SQUARE & FORBIDDEN CITY

DAY 3 - GREAT WALL OF CHINA

On the way to the Great Wall, stop at a Jade Museum

Day 4 - BEIJING - XIAN (HIGH-SPEED TRAIN EXPERIENCE)

But before the train, Beijing Zoo to see the giant pandas and Traditional Chinese Medicine

DAY 5 - TERRACOTTA WARRIORS & HORSES - ZHENGZHOU (HIGH-SPEED TRAIN EXPERIENCE)

DAY 6 - ZHENGZHOU FREE DAY

Except you can go to the Shaolin Temple and Kung Fu experience (extra cost)

DAY 7 - ZHENGZHOU - SUZHOU (HIGH-SPEED TRAIN EXPERIENCE)

Hangout in Zhengzhou for the morning at a museum and a memorial tower

DAY 8 - SUZHOU – HANGZHOU

Venice of the east, Canal tour (Extra Cost)

DAY 9 - HANGZHOU – SHANGHAI

Gardens and West Lake cruise (Extra cost), Tea Plantation

DAY 10 – SHANGHAI

Night cruise (extra cost)

DAY 11 - SHANGHAI, CHINA – AUSTRALIA

Shanghai Museum, the Bund, the Yu Gardens and Old Shanghai (extra cost)

DAY 12 - ARRIVE IN AUSTRALIA

Why not.  We book it.

There's a few extra costs involved in the lead up to the departure, most of which could not be sorted out until we received the tour documents from the travel agent.

The most important, the visas required.  6 weeks before we leave, it costs about $200 and a few days of my time to fill out the documentation, and the Chinese government wants a lot of personal information, more than you would normally expect.  If you want to go, you give it up.

We also now have a copy of the itinerary and the hotels we're staying at.  Looking at the hotels, they are not expensive.  It’s not hard to see why.  They are not any of the chain brands, and they seem to be some distance from the city centres.  It will be interesting to see what the standard of the rooms will be.

But their web presence shows they are at least interested in generating interest.  And most of the hotel consolidation sites like Trivago have them listed and critiqued.

Closer to the day of departure, I try to log into the Qantas site and check the seating arrangements and attach our frequent flyer numbers.  It does not accept the booking reference.  I call the helpline and they tell me it is a group booking.

Yes, we'd been told that and that as such we could be anywhere on the plane.  It was a matter of trying to get seats together on the day of departure.  It raises the spectre that the tour company has done a deal to take up all the SeatGuru red seats for a favourable price. 

Just how else can they keep the prices so low?

We are going in blind, and it will be interesting to see what happens.  I can't remember what happened to our friends in their quest to sit together.  To them, it was not as important to them as the price.

We have a trip from Brisbane to Sydney.  Then we have a trip from Sydney to Beijing.  The only certainty is that our baggage will be checked through from Brisbane to Beijing.  At least the transfer from domestic to international will not be hampered having to also handle baggage.

We’ll soon see if reality matches the hype.