Scoot 787 at Changi Airport

While Scoot is a low carrier, they do offer something they call ScootBiz, which implies it is a business class product. The front of the cabin has five rows of 2-3-2 ScootBiz seating. These seats can be either outright purchased or through a “bidding” options whereby one can offer an amount starting from SGD80 up until 25 hours before departure. I’ve previously done so on the China red-eye flights which usually had a sector length of 4-5 hours in the middle of the night. Hence, I didn’t really experience much of the service but slept the whole way.

The “ScootBiz” seat

On today’s flight to Amritsar, India I again scored a “Biz” seat for SGD82 which came with a check-in luggage (for which I would have had to pay SGD30 anyways) as well as an overpriced meal and drink worth SGD17. While the product as such is fine, I can’t help but to notice that the marketing and product management teams at Scoot seem to have a disconnect. I think the product management team ordered a premium economy product and this somehow didn’t get through to marketing since they are selling business class. See, when a product is marketed as business or similar, I have certain expectations. Below is an overview of my “business class” expectations and what Scoot delivers.

Now don’t get me wrong, I know this a low cost carrier and this extends to the front of the cabin. The only thing I trying to point out is that the product offered resembles more of a premium economy class than business class. Call it premium economy and I’d find it 100% appropriate. But for calling it “Biz”, it does fall short of expectations.

I’ve had far better Mutton Biryanis in the air

Probably I just shouldn’t pay attention to what the marketing folks call it and instead judge it based on the price I paid.

For a while I’ve been intrigued by the Chinese Transit Without Visa (TWOV) program that let’s selected nationalities transit at selected airports from 24 to 144 hours (depending on the airport). It is only available if you fly non-stop into and out of China. Passengers must have confirmed onward tickets to a third country (not the PRC, and not the country from which they arrived). There is a very good thread on Flyertalk explaining the rules.

Back in April, AirAsia announced that they would start flying from Johor Bahru (a few miles north of the Malaysia-Singapore border) to Guangzhou. This could be combined with a return flight from Guangzhou back to Singapore on Scoot and I would fulfill the requirements for the TWOV. I ended up booking the following itinerary:

AK1394 JHB2200 – 0200+1CAN

TZ127 CAN0345 – 0815SIN

AirAsia started promoting the new route with introductory pricing of MYR96 (SGD32) for the four hour flight. The return on Scoot ended up costing CNY418 (SGD87) including an annoying SGD10 credit card surcharge…

So for an overall SGD119 per person we booked our Guangzhou trip.

Maybe not the most direct transit through China that has ever been booked.

I traveled with a friend and our trip started out by taking a Malaysian taxi from Ban San St. Taxi Kiosk at Rochor Rd Friday evening across the border to Senai Airport north of Johor Bahru.

Senai Airport entrance

We were slightly worried whether there would be any complications at check-in since we did not have visas and the Guangzhou flights just started two weeks prior and probably there had not been many guys with an itinerary like ours. But we did not encounter any issues and spent the next two hours waiting for our flight. We arrived quite a bit early since traffic at the border is unpredictable on a Friday evening.

Check-in hall at JHB

Not too much action at JHB on Friday evenings.

Our ride to Guangzhou

The flight was a typical non-eventful four hour AirAsia experience and we arrived at an empty Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport on time. At immigration we were directed to the “Special Needs” lane and were processed without any awkward questions within a few minutes. Having a printout of your onward ticket does help! We hopped into a taxi and reached our hotel, the New World Hotel just a bit over an hour after landing around 3.30am.

The New World Hotel entrance

The hotel was in a good, central location and clean. We paid around USD63 and got a nice room. Would I stay here again? Probably. Was it a classy hotel? Nope. They sure did have a good photographer for their website though!

After sleeping in Saturday morning, we went out to explore the city a little bit. We started out with a temple around the corner from our hotel, the Guangxiao Temple (光孝寺).

Entrance of the Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

From there we walked through some back alleys to another temple, the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees (六榕寺).

Guangzhou back alley

Resident door signage

Temple of the Six Banyan Trees

Temple of the Six Banyan Trees pagoda

That was then enough culture for the day and we hopped into a taxi that would take us to Qingping Market, the place to go for agricultural complementary products and traditional Chinese herbal medicines (not that we were intending to buy either of these).

It was interesting but didn’t manage to capture our attention for more than half an hour.

Inside Qingping Market

Inside Qingping Market

Tea on sale

Our next stop was the Baiyun World Leather Trading Center, the place to go for… leather goods. We took Guangzhou’s modern subway system to get there. I did not take many photos inside this complex – for obvious reasons sellers were not too keen on taking photos.

Entrance of the Baiyun World Leather Trading Center

After the short night we started to get tired and decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. Trying Uber for the first time in China, we drop to the “Party Pier”. This area south of the Pearl River (or Zhujiang) used to the location of the Zhujian Brewery and has now been converted into a bar and club area. Quite well done.

Crossing the Pearl River on the Liede Bridge

The Canton Tower (广州塔) – completed in 2010 and currently the the third tallest tower in the world (595.7 m)

View of the Guangzhou central business district

The Party Pier

Former part of the brewery now converted into shops and restaurants

All restaurants have a Western twist… American steakhouse, American seafood, Mexican, Italian etc. We got ourselves comfortable at McRocky, a Western-themed steakhouse with nice views on the river.

Pearl River Cruise

At 9pm the Euro Football Championship game between Switzerland and Albania started which we watched.

Switzerland (1) vs Albania (0)

After the game ended around 11pm we ordered an Uber and headed back to the airport, getting there just before midnight. By now we were very tired and check-in wouldn’t open for almost another hour. Needless to say, it was not the most pleasant part of the trip while we waited for our 3.45am departure to Singapore.

Scoot has a program whereby one can bid for an upgrade to their “business” class. I consider it more of a premium economy however it is a signficant upgrade from the 3-3-3 configuration in economy. As on my previous Scoot flights, I bidded the minimum amount possible (around CNY350 – SGD74) and ended up getting the upgrade.

Gate A106 at 3am

Scoot’s premium cabin

Back in Singapore

We landed at Singapore over an hour early and as always were quickly through immigration. Exhausted but happy, we were back from our Johor Bahru to Singapore via Guangzhou trip and had managed to transfer through China without a visa.