Talking Travel: Win Flights on Ctrip, Low Fare to Los Angeles on United

Just a few bits and bobs in this edition. Hopefully you are already booking your October 1 holiday. Where is everyone planning on going? Let us know in the comments section below.

Ctrip, the online travel booking site, is celebrating the addition of 80,000 new international flights to its system by offering the chance to win free flights every week on various routes. As the site says, they now fly to places including "Papeete, the Maldives, and Maputo." To win, you'll have to answer a few easy questions, and then not only forward the promotion to three friends, but also subscribe to their promotional emails. Anyway, if you want to try, click here.

For anyone with friends or business associates in Los Angeles, tip them about a great deal on United Airlines: United will fly you from LAX to Beijing, departing August 25 to December 10, with a minimum six-night stay and maximum three-month stay, for USD 758, including tax. October 3-12 are blacked out. I wish that deal were available going the other way. I'd love to tell you how much the Beijing to Los Angeles fare is on United, but repeated attempts to get a price were met with the response that no fares could be found. That's certainly not the first time I've had trouble with United's website.

The new Beijing airport will be completed in 2017, and expected to open in 2018. The terminal building will be 50 meters high, for what purpose I really don't know. 

In case this piece of information is helpful to anyone: US citizens need a visa to visit or transit Kazakhstan, even if you are only changing planes and not leaving the airport, and even if your final destination, somewhere like Kyrgyzstan that is visa-free for citizens of more than 40 countries.

Until Thursday, one road flat safe.

Photo: Wikimedia