Hi all! I've been getting inquiries about this MEGA trip my friends and I came from a few days ago. We traveled to 5 countries in 12 days, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, all by plane, and all we spent was Php 12,500 for the fares.


You can travel around Southeast Asia by land, but these trips, although more scenic, often take too much time. Probably my favorite thing about our trip is that we didn't have to endure long hours on the road, which meant more time to go around and explore.

Php 12,500 can easily be a roundtrip ticket to one country, like Japan, Korea or Australia, or maybe two nearby countries like HongKong or Taiwan, but we managed to do FIVE. How did we do that?

The backstory

Last year, I met up with Leendolph, Mark and Emman (my travel buddies) because the latter two were in Manila for a seminar. Leendolph was working there, while I was there to review for the board exam. We got to talking about going around the Philippines. The plan was just to go arount the Philippines, but the next thing you know, we were booking this trip around Southeast Asia!

I even remember how, when and what happened while we were booking those tickets. It was around midnight one September day. As a member of AirAsia's BIG Loyalty program, I was informed of their Zero Point Seat Sale so I shared this to my friends. I thought they wouldn't be on board, but after  booking a "test flight" (I know that a lot of us do this! ;) ) and showing them how little one flight could cost, before I knew it, we were scurrying to find the best routes we could.

(In case you didn't know, during zero point seat sales, AirAsia members only have to pay for the fees of the flights they booked)


That night, we booked tickets from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Siem Reap, Cambodia for only Php 2000 each. That's 2 plane rides for Php 2000!

It's a good thing that AirAsia offers so many seats, so we didn't quickly run out as we would have during Cebu Pacific seat sales.

Why our route?

AirAsia offers so many destinations, but why did we choose those destinations? Well first, we wanted to! :) Mark had been telling us about going on a backpacking trip around French Indochina, so when we saw that some of the destinations in the sale included that, we gave it a go!


Second, logistics. Here are the actual screenshots I used to show my friends about the destinations.





When you look at it, most of the zero point fares come from Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, which are AirAsia hubs, so we decided to look on from there.


If you think about it, we can literally book from anywhere Cebu Pacific can fly us to that AirAsia also does (Singapore, Siem Reap, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur) and just go from there, but we chose Singapore as the first stop since both Davao and Manila fly directly to Singapore, and because we saw that the Singapore to Kuala Lumpur route was also included in the zero point promo.

From just wanting to get to Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, flying to Singapore and then Malaysia meant getting additional countries in, aside from the fact that it would be easier to fly to Singapore from Davao.

Tip:
If you're booking using a different airline (like we did with Cebu Pacific to get out of the Philippines), it's better to get on their popular flights like Hong Kong and Singapore, since those would end up cheaper than say, flying in directly to one of the rarer ones like Siem Reap. (Flights to those destinations seldom have seat sales that are in the low Php 1000's they're always Php 2000 and above)

Tip:
New routes like the Davao-Singapore route (which was fairly new then), could fetch low fares should a seat sale come up.

Tip:
Look at major airline hubs, like Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok for AirAsia, because these usually have the most zero point destinations.

Getting the Cheapest Flights

Other Means

If you want to go on an ASEAN trip like we did but have less time to prepare, you can actually travel to other countries by land. Just book a ticket to and from different enter and exit points. I believe it's cheaper than buying a plane ticket last minute. I haven't done it, but there are several blogs online that tell you how to. The most famous Indochina route is called the Banana Pancake trail. Just Google that.

As far as I know, you can travel to Malaysia from Singapore via bus.

And Bangkok is still a great starting place for land trips. From there, you can get to Laos, Malaysia and Cambodia. From Cambodia, you can get to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. There are several travel agencies around that can arrange that for you.

Total Cost

TO AND FROM DAVAO

Davao to Singapore = Php 1500
Manila to Singapore = Php 2000
Singapore to Kuala Lumpur &
Kuala Lumpur to Siem Reap = Php 2000
Siem Reap to Phnom Penh = Php 825
Phnom Penh to Bangkok = Php 1800
Bangkok to Hanoi = Php 1900
Hanoi to Manila = Php 3400
Manila to Davao = Php 999

Total = Php 12,424 from Davao

TO AND FROM MANILA

Manila to Singapore = Php 2000
Singapore to Kuala Lumpur &
Kuala Lumpur to Siem Reap = Php 2000
Siem Reap to Phnom Penh = Php 825
Phnom Penh to Bangkok = Php 1800
Bangkok to Hanoi = Php 1900
Hanoi to Manila = Php 3400

Total = Php 11,925 from Manila

(Personally, I spent Php 13,738 for me cause my ticket was Manila to Singapore but I had to fly to and from Davao (Php 1813). My friends thought I would be based in Manila when they booked my ticket)


Are you planning on a Southeast Asian sojourn too? Watch out for the other posts in this series!
I hope my tips were able to help! :)


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