It’s airline promo season again and Air Philippines is offering Php 88++ to all local destinations for tickets bought from July 4 to 11. The promo is for travel from August 1 to Oct 31, 2007, any day of the week.

I noticed several problems with Air Philippines when trying to avail their promo:

• Air Philippines destination is very limited. There are only 13 destinations. I can’t even get a flight to Bohol
• Looking for that Php 88++ fair is difficult. I could only get the Php 568 as the cheapest fare
• The online reservation is faulty. The destination drop down would not display the destination for several tries

Philippine Airline’s Internet Ticketing is now fully operational. Travellers can now check ticket prices without having to register unlike the older system.

PAL has been lagging behind Cebu Pacific in terms of online ticketing. Cebu Pacific online booking generates 20% of the companies revenue.

PAL by the way has two ongoing promos. You can buy 1 and get 2 domestic tickets or avail of fares for as low as Php 2,500 roundtrip. The catch is that taxes and surcharges cost more than the ticket price. 

It took me over a month before PLDT approved my Plan 990 phone and DSL bundle application. By the time you are reading this, the promo has been discontinued and replaced with Plan 999 (without the phone bundle).

The Plan 990 was not advertised to the public. What was heaviy promoted is the Plan 888. The Plan 888 however is confusing. The PLDT customer service can not agree whether its up to 88kbps or 188 kbps. At 88kbps, it just like a dial up!

Plan 990 is up to 384 kpbs. I checked with www.speedtest.net and I get a consistend speed of around 300kbps. The speed is just enough to listen to online music, watch Youtube or use Skype.

Cebu Pacific just announced their new international destination, Taipei Taiwan. As part of their promotion, the airline is offering Php 888 fare one way. If you include the tax, the total roundtrip price is around Php 4,466.

Promo price is valid only from March 21 to 27 while travel period is from June 13 to Sept 30.