Far East Prices Head South

Travel bargains to the Far East and the South Pacific continue to amaze. The area’s financial problems appear so grave that vacation prices there drop on an almost weekly basis. No sooner is a package rate announced than it is cut.

Here are some of the latest bargains for an impulse trip across the Pacific:

How low can Hong Kong go? The latest stunner is a price of $639 per person double occupancy for round-trip air fare from San Francisco to Hong Kong, four nights at the Metropole Hotel (a better-than-tourist-class property on Kowloon), a substantial discount coupon book and all hotel taxes and service charges. Additional nights are a reasonable, if not exactly cheap, $70 per person. Air transportation is on either Korean Airlines or Asiana. The rate is available until Sept. 30 from Just Holidays at (888) 397-9988.

Multi-city bargains. The rates go up, but the values improve if you visit more than one Asian city. A package featuring round-trip transpacific air fare, inter-Asian air fare and a total of six nights in two of the world’s most exciting cities (Hong Kong and Bangkok, three nights apiece) is being offered until Sept. 30 on Cathay Pacific, for $999 per person from Los Angeles. Free air add-ons are available from San Francisco, San Diego and a number of other cities in California. Accommodations are at the modern Kowloon-side Hotel Concourse in Hong Kong and the Empress in Bangkok, and additional stays cost only $25 a night in Bangkok and $35 in Hong Kong. Call VacationLand, a San Francisco-based Asian specialist, at (800) 245-0050.

And note that New York’s Travel Bound is currently offering three nights apiece in three cities--Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore--and all air travel for $1,378, from either Los Angeles or New York on Cathay Pacific. Accommodations are at the Siam City Hotel in Bangkok, King’s Hotel in Singapore and Kowloon or Kimberley Hotel in Hong Kong. Call (800) 456-8656.

Bali bottoms out. Having alerted you earlier this year to the fact that another California agency, Orange-based Escapes Unlimited, could fly you from Los Angeles to Bali for a five-night stay there for $969 per person double occupancy, we are now advised that if you’re willing to fly China Airlines to Bali (via a stop in Taipei), the same company will charge you only $899 for the same arrangements. Call Escapes Unlimited at (800) 243-7227.

Next year in Beijing. The price declines continue, apparently, into next year. From the well-respected Japan & Orient Tours, a five-night stay in Beijing--air and hotel--will cost only $798 per person, double occupancy, from December of this year until the end of March 1999. What makes that package even more attractive is that it utilizes Northwest Airlines from any number of gateways--including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle--at exactly the same $798 price, regardless of departure city. You stay at the Capital Hotel in Beijing and can upgrade to the Swissotel Beijing for only $50 more. The price includes buffet breakfast daily, a full-day sightseeing tour of the Forbidden Palace, Imperial Palace, Tiananmen Square and other important locations and a separate full-day tour to the Great Wall of China and the Ming Tombs, including lunch. Call Japan & Orient at (800) 377-1080.

I find all these opportunities rather heady. Though all of us hope for an end to the Asian financial crisis, the current depressed level of travel by Asians has created remarkable travel opportunities for adventuresome Americans.