A campaign run by the Hong Kong International Airport offered round-trip flights to the region from LAX, SFO, BOS, and JFK. (They did other locations such as Korea, mainland China, Europe, Asia, etc.)
It was the hunger games. Before 8pm, I was on the webpage that would refresh into the queue. I went to the page a few minutes early because I set multiple alarms for myself. Then at 8 o’clock on the dot I refreshed the page. Nothing happened. I refreshed again. Same result. Finally, at about around 8:03pm EST, I was in the queue. My position was #6065.
Fun note: I was at a party while all this was happening. So amid drinks and conversation, I was feverishly checking my phone to see how far I was in the queue. It ended up taking give or take 2.5 hours before I was able to get to the booking page. For context, at this point I was ubering home from the after party.
After securing my free tickets to Hong Kong, I realized if my friends got in on it, we could all go together! So I went back to the start page so I could send it in the group chat, but then I saw this:
Whomp whomp. Even though the promotion was going on until the 23rd of May, tickets were gone within less than 3 hours! I didn’t think this would happen. I was genuinely shocked, because I never win things.
How Did It Work?
Once you got on the booking site, you were given a 9-month window to book your flight as well as a discount code. Some dates showed limited availability in comparison to others. The initial dates I wanted which was February 10 – 17, 2024 not an option by the time I got to the page so I had to pick something else.
Then you select your dates, you were left to pay for non-fare related fees and taxes. Instead of paying a total of $1,152, I paid less than $350. I have always wanted to visit Hong Kong so this is an absolute steal.
How Did I Find Out About This?
I follow a number of travel newsletters! My email gets thousands of emails with news, promotions and articles about different topics across industries. I try to get through every email so I don’t miss anything. That is why my inbox slowly approaching 4,000 unread emails. See the list below for the travel newsletters I subscribe to.
Travel newsletters: Going, The Points Guy, Thrifty Traveller, Travel With Vikkie