No more hidden charges!

This is not a spoof entry of someone famous. It is NOT. NOT I say.

The thing I love about living in Thailand, is that what you see, if what you pay and what you get.

Unlike Starbucks back home, go to any coffee shop, say, Doi Tung Coffee (spotted in Hua Hin).

doitung coffee
Doi Tung is like Starbucks to the Thais, they serve cheaper and really nice coffee and ice chocolate.


And order a cup of ice chocolate, like I always do in Starbucks Malaysia.

doi tung coffee in hua hin


The menu says large cost 65 baht (around RM6.90).

So I would take out 50 baht note, 10 and 5 baht coins and place it on the counter.

When the cashier cash in the payment, it is exactly 65 baht, no extra charges. No tax, no service charge. 65 baht means 65 baht.

no tax receipt
No wonder the Thais like to say “Same same”


As a traveler, I hate it when I have to stretch my budget further by accommodating myself to these hidden charges everywhere, it hits you when you least expected. It’s annoying you know.

Hence, the one pet peeve I have when booking a flight is to do research on the cheapest flight to a certain country and have to go through all the hassle of finding out what is the full fare even when it displayed clearly to your face on the main screen that it’s RM0.90 one way flight to Tawau.

I mean, doesn’t that get to you? Almost every month I have to spend hours, sometimes DAYS just to look for the cheapest flight available, on different flights, on different dates, even on different location to land in that country!!

booking flight


Do you know how much work that can come up to?

With so many different airlines around the world, you are easily looking at 5 to the power of 10 times of clicking!

It doesn’t help that whenever one has to go through 90% of the booking process just to find out what is the EXACT pricing of that flight?!

Baggage fee la, insurance fee la, airport tax la, fuel surcharge la~ bloody hell!! All the hidden charges and before you know it, what was RM1 flight turned out to be a RM126483xxoo worth of flight.

ARGH!!!

Which is why MAS is great! When you try to search for a flight on their booking engine, they don’t show you the flight fee alone, they show you the All-inclusive low fares.

That means that when you search for a flight and confirm, it will automatically show you the final price of the flight inclusive of all taxes.

So convenient ok!!

That’s so easy to compare prices between destinations!! I did all these three searches for the full fare (from KL to Melbourne, Perth or Brisbane) in less than 1 minute!! That includes the time took hesitating between the dates!

1 minute!!! Can you believe it?!

Can you imagine how many flights I can research up to in an HOUR?!

Recently, they are pushing this MAS All-inclusive Low Fares Campaign which means instead of advertising a flight to Langkawi …

"from RM0.99 one way"
*not inclusive of taxes and surcharges.

they will advertise
"from RM63 one way"
*inclusive of taxes and surcharges.


Personally I think this is sending the most honest advertising message to all travelers!

According to their press release, MAS took a step further by slashing their Low Fares by a further 50-73% on domestic and ASEAN destinations. Imagine, from RM63 nett to fly to Penang, land of food food food.

all inclusive low fares


Or even RM734 nett to Melbourne for all the gorgeous wineries and vineyards – those sweet unlimited wine. Mmm…

all inclusive low fares screen shot


You don’t have to be afraid of what might be hiding underneath that pretty RM0.99 one way ticket anymore, which would be another RM123 for fuel surcharge, RM35 airport tax, etc. UGHH.

Oh, you know what? Flying to Bangkok is only RM149 nett on my birthday!!!!!!

kl to bangkok all in fare


OMFG!!!! SO CHEAP!!! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!!! COME CELEBRATE MY BIRTHDAY WITH ME IN BANGKOK!!

I’M SERIOUS!

DON’T MAKE ME COME BACK AND GET YOU.

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11 kissed Nicole

  1. when's your birthday?

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  2. yeah...MAS is trying to hit AA below its belt. HHAHAHAA....good for ppl who likes traveling but dun have the big budget to. i'd always find the 'hidden' charges a bit of a nuisance, like, you'd never know exactly how much you're gonna pay for the flight ticket, coffee, burger...etc. why cant they just put it upfront and stop messing around with the coins??!!

    i am going a flying spree (not in relation to you...coz flying is your middle name) the first 2Q of next year, thanks to this price war between AA and MAS.

    is discussing with kelli and gang for a bangkok escapade soon, dunno if it'll work out. really hope it does!!!

    eh...happy birthday, happy everything, and god bless.

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  3. anon: 1st march :D :D :D got present for me?! :>

    sheon: ooo.... are u guys coming? i would love to have u here. we go eat pork chop!

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  4. 1st March - >>8-) will keep that in mind 4 future use. Anyway HAPPY BELATED BDAY GIRL.

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  5. still so far away

    teapls.wordpress.com

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  6. Actually ALL INCLUSIVE LOW FARE promotion is the first time MAS show sthe exact fare in their ads. It's really responsible act for them to do that. AirAsia should follow suit. I had deep interest in this airlines real fare topic that i listed 'exact VS advertised fare' in my 'Show Me The Real Fare' blog series at http://ssroslan.com. I will continue to do that until they come out with real/exact fare advertisement. At least MAS have done that though.

    Happy belated birthday anyway!

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  7. Eh.. on a irrelevant note, Starbucks Singapore also don include hidden charges, you pay what u see on the menu board...

    Flying is never cheap, especially now. So it is kind of comforting for an airline compnay to be so honest.

    If only every airline do that...

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  8. Hey
    We got the same birthday! No wonder I feel we're so much alike :). Happy birthday darling!

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  9. I think I had been there before 2 years back. Nice place!

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  10. hmm one thing that i dun really get it. i was trying to book a ticket to hong kong, MAS website shows MYR 249 one way. but when i enter the date of travel, it sums up to MYR700++. help? anyone?

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  11. yeah me too.. always can't get the fare that MAS advertised. try using airasiaplus.com and we can browse all ticket price that are still available.

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