Kulula’s Specials
Yesterday Kulula announced their Spring Sale.
Have you ever tried to book a ticket on Kulula when they have a special?
Do you think it is possible to book a ticket while they run a special?
I have heard so many people say that they think the Kulula Specials are a sales gimmick because by the time they try to book the prices are the normal prices.
We tried it this morning and found that you can actually book a flight on the Kulula Special price – if have have lots and lots of patience.
Here’s the story….
Each time it is the same thing. It is a pity that by now they have not realised that their web server cannot handle the volumes, or is it a way to keep people from actually booking the special priced seats?
As Cathy has to go to Pretoria in October my wife thought that she would get up at six this morning to book one of the discounted seats.
But it seems as if thousands and thousands of other people also got up at six for the same reason. Kulula’s site was just so slow that you cannot do anything. One thing I can say about Elmi is that when se want to get something, she will persist.
I checked in any now and again and the words on the screen “hang on while we process your request…” became like a permanent feature for us.
When she eventually got to the payment details page 40 minutes later she was surprised with the following nasty message
“The booking/order has already expired 22 minutes ago” which meant that she had to start from scratch.
Later on in the morning I took over the daunting job to watch the screen.
I figured out that if you select the “pay Later” option you cut out one step in the process and you can actually get a ticket booked. Finally at 07h32 we managed to BOOK A TICKET. Can you believe it?
This was the second try and it took us only 90 minutes flat. I would like to see what is going to happen next year when all the soccer fans tries to book flights. I have a surprise for them, they won’t be able to.
I do not know if Elmi has something against me, but after I managed to book the one ticket (in 90 minutes time) she said that she needs another ticket for David in December.
By now it was 07h38 and I started the process of ordering another Spring Special Kulula ticket. I guess by now more people got out of bed because this time it is even worse. After you selected the date the system hangs for so long that it actually gives you a time out error.
We persisted and by 08h08 we managed to go from the first page to the second page where it gives you a summery of the available flights. Guess what, by 08h08 there were no more specially priced tickets for 17 December from Lanseria to Cape Town available. Only the normal R899 tickets (the special was R399). 17 December 2009 must be a very special day. While it takes you 90 minutes to book one ticket enough people managed to book seats for that day so that there are no more specialy price tickets available for that day.
So I just went over to Mango Air’s web site and booked that ticket on their web site at their normal non-special price of R445 all inclusive. What is more is that the whole process did not take 90 minutes, it took less than 7 minutes.
Conclusion:
Is it possible to buy a Special Priced Kulua ticket?
Yes, but only if you start the process at 06h00, if you are lucky and if you are willing to try for more than an hour without taking your eye off the screen.
This is exactly what happens. Whenever there is a special the site can not handle the traffic. From now on it might be best to use an intermediary
Seems like there is a little war going on now. I see this morning that Mango now offers 20,000 Guaranteed seats at R345 one way for Sept and Oct. Their R345 is of course not the true price since you still have to add Taxes. But even with Taxes added it comes to about R470 per seat one way.
You are 100% correct Hoes, the same R445 Mango ticket I talked about above is now only R942, 1 day later.
Mango’s normal price is a adjusted price in reaction to Kulula’s special..
Normal practice in Airline Industry
No, it is one way, we paid R798 for a return ticket from CPT to Lanseria and back on the special deal. Just have a look at Mango, I saw this morning that their normal price is about the same as Kulula’s special price.
Do you know if these tickets are one way or return? I haven’t been able to get onto their website to find out! Hoping for a miracle to get my husband from Joburg to Durban for his graduation.
Do you know if these tickets are return or one way? I haven’t been able to get onto their website to find out! Hoping for a miracle to get my husband to Durban for his graduation.