If you do a public radio broadcast be prepared to receive a never ending stream of junk SMS. I know, its your phone that was lost, but you're going to have to give a number so the person who finds it can get in touch (perhaps a friend's mobile). Once you broadcast a phone number on public radio your SMS inbox will never be the same again. We did that a couple of years ago when I stupidly left baby pushchair in the boot of a taxi. Never got it back but did get a lot of sales SMS/calls.

ah thats interesting about edreams, most don't require passport number.

by the way, be careful with edreams. I used to use them a lot and haven't personally had bad experience with them but then I've never had to actually contact them - I've been lucky that my flights have never been cancelled or I've never had to make changes. There are some horror stories online about edreams customer service so beware.

@Geezer - only in China. I've never had to give a passport number when booking a ticket from an international website. Sometimes the airline's site has requested it for online check-in but not for booking.

Only chinese ticket agents require passport numbers. Since you're booking an international flight you have no reason to buy from a chinese agent unless you absolutely have to pay in RMB. If you're happy to pay in dollars, euros or pounds with an international credit card then just book from any number of online ticket agencies, its often cheaper than elong or ctrip anyway. Or you can book from an airline's site directly. Only the chinese ones require passport numbers.

Some airlines require you to give your passport number online but crucially NOT at the time of booking, that's only required later on if you want to reserve seats and do online check-in etc.

By the way I've usually found www.skyscanner.net is good. It isn't a ticket site but a flight price search engine which will redirect you to the ticket sites, most of which will take your booking without passport number.

It doesn't matter that you have a year's contract. You can still pay per month. Think about if you have an employment contract for a year - you can still quit your job if you give notice.

With the internet its the same. They should be able to cancel the contract. If they won't then just don't pay. They'll cut you off. It may (although I don't think they have this level of sophistication) affect your credit rating but if you're only here 6 months why would you care?