I love to travel. However, the increasing prices of air tickets can be a real deterrent. So when AirAsia announced their AirAsia X Amazing Low Fare Promotions, I was immediately on the alert.

Just in case you are wondering what is the difference between the normal AirAsia and AirAsia X , the difference lies in their destinations. Whilst AirAsia covers mainly the nearby countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, AirAsia X is the more premium branch of AirAsia, covering the further destinations including London, Melbourne, Perth, Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

Booking for the AirAsia X promotion was on 15 November 2011 at 12 noon.

For those who have booked tickets during AirAsia promotions before, you would know that time is of the essence and you have to act Very Very Fast if not all tickets would be gone before you know it, sometimes, within the first hour of launch.

Unfortunately, when the promotion started, I had no access to my computer. Thus I asked Ms Black to help me standby at 12 pm sharp to book my tickets to Taiwan., which Ms Black was happy to assist. Ms Black, being an experienced "booker" (link to her Korea Booking and Phuket Booking Review) was quick to select the dates and complete all the information required for the booking of 2 tickets to Taiwan for me and hubby. However, due to the heavy website traffic, Ms Black kept encountering “error” messages at the payment stage and could not complete the booking transaction = (

Desperate and panicking, I suddenly recalled that AirAsia had a mobile website and I decided to give it a try from my iPhone. The mobile platform was very easy to navigate.

There are 6 steps to complete the booking and at each step, the instructions were very clear and the interface was very user-friendly.

After I had selected the destination (Taiwan in this case) , the different rates, including the promotional rates were clearly displayed for my selection.

Throughout the whole booking process, I did not encounter any of the lagging or error messages that I usually encounter from the main AirAsia website during the peak promotional periods. Once I keyed in my credit card details, I immediately received a booking confirmation number although the payment status was still pending.

When I logged on to my phone again 15 minutes later, the status was updated to payment confirmed. Within the hour, I had received the invoice and confirmation email from AirAsia confirming the itinerary and flight details.

The whole booking process from the mobile platform was a breeze and definitely one of the fastest and smoothest booking that I have experienced for AirAsia promotions. I would definitely recommend the mobile platform for future booking of AirAsia promotions.

So Taiwan, here I come next year! Sure, it seems a long time away, but I guess this is the norm for AirAsia promotions as normally the promotional tickets have to be booked at least half a year in advance if you want to get the very good promotional rates.

The total cost for 2 tickets from KL to Taiwan including all taxes and additional luggage requirements came up to just S$380.00. How often do you come across such a great deal????

* All the above images (except the ones we personally shot) belong to  Airasia  unless specified otherwise.

Website : mobile.airasia.com

Delivery: Immediate confirmation but to get the best promotional rates, tickets normally have to be booked at least 6 months in advance.

Ease of Website: The mobile platform was very easy to navigate and I did not encounter the usual error messages which I often encounter from their normal website bookings.

Price: Cheap if you mange to book during promotions. You can get tickets for 2 pax from KL to Melbourne from S$500, tickets from KL to London for 2 pax from S$750, inclusive of all taxes. That is about ¼ of the normal SIA pricing.

Rating : 6.5 out of 10

Thanks to Ms Chocolate, I found that Air Asia has launched a promotion to travel from KL to Seoul for only $40 (inclusive of all taxes!) .

Guess what ? I have managed to book a pair of tickets for RM530. How cheap are the tickets ? That is only like SG$230 !!! Can you believe it? SG$230 for two tickets to Seoul !!!! That means that my Seoul honeymoon dream is coming true !!! YIPPY !!

It was definitely a hard fight for me to get these tickets. Airasia has recently launched promotions to Seoul and Tokyo (Ms Chocolate and I wanted to try the Tokyo promotion but we couldn't find the dates we wanted and by the time we did, we were too late. All the promotion tickets were sold out! There were lesser tickets offered for this Tokyo promotion than Seoul as the frequency of the flights going to Tokyo was fewer) . For such promotions, you must really be very very kiasu and very fast or else you will never be able to get the tickets!

The tips of getting these tickets:

1. Check the launch date and time and make sure you standby a few minutes before the launch time!

2. Plan how many seats you want and the exact dates you want the night before.

3. Decide on your backup dates the night before ( so that you will not be too indecisive on the launch date !)

4. Be Fast and choose the exact dates you wanted on the launch time.

5. After you have made your selections, skip all the parts that require you to enter more details (e.g. insurance details, select seats) and go straight to payment part  (You can go to "manage your booking" after you have successfully booked the tickets)

I wonder what is the next promotion we should look out for ? Airasia to New Zealand or Airasia to Paris?

Website : http://www.airasia.com/

Delivery: Immediate! You have to be one of the first to start browsing the fares when they launch the promotion!

Ease of Website:  Might experience many incidents of timeout errors or dates no longer available ! Have to be really lucky and fast !

Product Range: Airasia is expanding their flights to more areas , from Kuala Lumpur !

Price:  Cheap ! But only can buy when there is a promotion! For regular price, it isn't really worth!

Customer Service: Poor! Tough to get through the number and email response is slow !

Rating : 6 out of 10

Ms Chocolate and I are always online. We are soooo... addicted to online surfing that we must turn on our computers the moment we reach home. So our facebook status are is constantly updated and email responses are very fast. Today , we were happily chatting online when we received this "Friday Fare Frenzy deals from $0+$28 tax" newsletter from Jetstar that airtickets from Sg to Phuket is only $28 tax one way ! That is one thing I love about Friday Fare Frenzy from Jetstar ! Jetstar always have nice surprises for their customers on Friday !

The two of us decided to book 4 tickets to Phuket to surprise our hubbies ! Well, sometimes, it would be nice to surprise our hubbies with nice and cheap tickets to somewhere and who knows, they might surprise us to much better trips after getting those presents from us ! We managed to book tickets at $70 each to Phuket for a short weekend trip in September !  I am now so looookingggggg forwarddddddd to Phuket ! That means that my dream of going snorkeling at the place that Leonardo Dicaprio filmed "The Beach" is coming true !!!!

Website : http://www.jetstar.com

Delivery: Immediate! You have to be one of the first to start browsing the fares when they launch the promotion!

Ease of Website:  Might experience many incidents of timeout errors or dates no longer available ! Have to be really lucky and fast !

Product Range:They cover some really good places directly from Singapore.

Price:  Cheap ! But only can buy when there is a promotion! For regular price, it isn't really worth!

Customer Service: ! Tough to get through the number and email response is slow ! But once you get to them, they act fast to your enquiries or complaints!

Rating : 7 out of 10