Since the launch of the promotion, many people have been encountering problems in making the online booking. When i logged on to Air Asia Web site today, it was shown that there was 1.5 million free seats left. This means that within a week since the booking started, 500 thousands free tickets were taken. That was on average about 71 thousands tickets booked per day, not including those booking for the normal tickets (i.e. non-promotional tickets). So i guess Air Asia's databases couldn't handle such huge transactions.
To get the tickets, a bit of luck is needed, and of course the right timing as well. I couldn't be sure what time would be the off-peak hours, but we did the booking at around 7.30pm last evening and it took us less than 10 minutes to get through it successfully. So we managed to grab two promotional tickets for April'06.
Of course, when we talk about "free" tickets, it isn't really $0 entirely. We still gotta pay for the administrative charges and airport taxes. Despite that, i still think it's a good bargain. For instance, we got two round trip tickets for JB-Penang at RM120 nett (including all the fees and taxes). This means that we are paying RM30 per person, as opposed to a bus ticket that costs RM40. Throw in the travelling time that was saved, i reckon it was worth it.
Then this afternoon, i did another booking again for September'06. 贝 figured that since the tickets are so cheap, he might as well go back home more frequently. And that wasn't all. We are contemplating of visiting Kuching during the Singapore National Day holiday next year, which i had checked and free seats were still available. I guess we gotta make up our minds soon before the seats are sold out.
Ok, so i admit it -- i'm a kiasu cheapskate who thinks that the Air Asia 2 million free seats promotion is too good to be missed. Hey, can't blame me for that. I also wish that i can fly everywhere in first class or maybe even charter my own flight. Just too bad that i wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth or a lucky horseshoe up my ass.
