My wife and I would really like to take a trip to Chiang Mai in January but everywhere we look ticket prices are ridiculous for such a short flight. Almost 2000 RMB per person round trip on both English sites like Elong and Chinese sites like Qunar. Any tips for how to find some cheaper tickets for these flights?

airasia.com sometimes has seat sales to bangkok sometimes as low as 400-500 one way i believe, but not chiang mai. then you might have to look at bangkok airways web site for internal flights from bangkok. or railway?

Checked Air Asia to BKK around the dates we want and still very expensive just for the Bangkok segment, about 1700 even without the flight back up to Chiang Mai. Was really hoping someone might know a secret to getting cheap discounts on the direct flight to Chiang Mai.

As a side note. If this is for visa run, there is now a Chinese consulate in Phuket. I am not sure if the KMG to PKT flights are any cheaper.

Vacation, not for a visa.

1600 is the average price for economy class round trip per person to BKK (as well as HK) I have never seen better but there are occasionally sales I was planning to go to BKK in spring festival it is a little mroe expensive