Can anyone recommend a good airplane ticketing service for Chinese domestic flights? Thanks!

www.elong.net

Unless you have some good contacts that can give you tickets from Beijing to Kunming for 3-400, just give this site a chance.

You can also try english.ctrip.com/. There are also many travel agencies around Kunming. A few have posted on gokunming. I can tell the numbers of a few more if you're interested (mostly random cards given to me on the street and one or two that I've actually used).

It is best to avoid buying tickets from one of the business cards handed out in the street unless you can actually go to their office. If they will only deliver to your door there is no way to verify if this company is for real and there have been many cases of fake e-tickets being sold. The 2 websites mentioned above are good, otherwise go somewhere that you are sure has a real business address.

I usually buy airplane tickets on this webseit: www.kunxun.cn. It is reliable and you can buy cheap tickets.

www.qunar.com
(去哪儿？means "where to?")
it's a very good ticket + hotel search engine (like priceline.com) which will help you compare almost every possible options on the internet.

My bank card doesn't allow me to purchase things online, so I'm wondering if there are any walk-in places to buy airplane tickets?

I called ctrip.com once to inquire about a flight. I'm not entirely certain, but I believe they mentioned that they can deliver the tickets to your place. In which case you wouldn't need a card. But call them to double-check. I could be wrong.

There are plenty of ticketing offices all over. There's one in the Think UK complex.

Our personal experience with elong.net was terrible, but the with ctrip it was outstanding. There are many options with ctrip including delivery to your door for cash payment, domestic (Chinese) credit cards and international credit card (there is % fee). Customer service in Mandarin and English is also excellent by ctrip.com. BTW, I don't for work for them nor do have friends or relatives who work for them. We just thought that the did a great job.

There is just one slight problem with Ctrip's delivery system...it only allows delivery to the place of origin. In my case, I'm booking the ticket for someone else outside of Kunming, but it Ctrip won't allow me to book for this person and deliver to my address.

@ Magnifico: do the ones near Think UK speak English?

Sorry, I meant to ask if there are any English speaking ticketing services.