Your Guide on Piso Fare Booking Cebu Pacific and Airphil Express

There are 2 budget airlines in the Philippines that are making waves online because of their frequent launches of airfare promos making it possible for more Filipinos to travel to the many beautiful islands of the Philippines, and of course we are talking about Cebu Pacific Air and Airphil Express.

UPDATE 2014:  There is no more Airphil Express, this company has been absorbed and changed  to “PAL EXPRESS”

Cebupacificair and Airphil airline ticket deals usually starts midnight, so expect lots of Filipinos are online waiting for midnight to come when these budget Pinoy airlines announces a new promo, and that includes me.Usually they announce these special deals and promo a couple of hours before the intended promo start date.

Promo price shown on their websites are only the base fare, so take note that there will be additional charges including Philippine travel tax,  fuel fees, service charge among others.

Booking Tip No. 1: If you want to be updated with their latest airfare sales you can “like” their respective Facebook fan pages or follow their Twitter accounts as they usually announces ticket promos there. Regularly check your facebook or your twitter accounts. Once there is a ticket sale, I recommend that you book the soonest you can since these promo fares sells like hotcakes. As in!!!

To make your life easier without liking many fb pages, you can choose to like this Facebook Fan Page  of  Piso Fare and Airline Promos – they update their site very fast with the latest promo, this makes you alert if  Cebu Pacific, Air Phil Express, Zest Air or Philippine Airlines has a newly launch promo so you can check the soonest you can.

Booking Tip No. 2 : Have your credit cards or ATM ready.

Booking Tip No. 3:  Plan your booking while you wait for their midnight promo launches.

Booking Tip No. 4 : A good internet connection is a must so you won’t be frustrated. These airlines’ websites gets loads of web traffic especially an hour into the promo, and their booking pages becomes so slooooow. It can get really crazy; just check the comments on their fb walls during launch times. Lol.

Booking Tip No 5: Usually special promo tickets are available during major events in the country or national holidays. I was able to booked P15 base fare when PNoy was inducted as the 15th president of the Philippines, P113 base fare when the country celebrated its 113^th Proclamation of Independence etc, just watch out for those important dates. 🙂

The most favorite of all these airline ticket promos from both Cebu Pacific and Airphil Express is of course their “Piso Fare” or P1 promo fare. But these piso seat sale has evolved. I used to booked piso fare for round trip ticket from Cebu to Manila and pay only a total P82.00. Yep, those were the days when you can get piso seat sales that were really cheap and simply fantastic!

An old booking of mine from one of the ticket promos of Cebupacificair (1) shows a promo base fare of P599, yet the additional charges for the taxes and surcharges is just P94.68!!! Just imagine how cheap the taxes and fees for a piso fare back then! (2) Web admin fee one way is just P50 pesos per booked ticket, today Cebupac has increased this fee to P80 per ticket, so a round trip web admin fee for one person is now at P160. (3) Passengers have automatic 15 kilos of free baggage, if you want to forego it, you will get a discount of P100. Today, you have to pay P150 for a 15 kilos baggage allowance and P250 for a 20 kilos allowance and so forth.

But in fairness to Cebu Pacific, they were instrumental in bringing down airline ticket prices in the Philippines, and for that I am so grateful since it made me and more Filipinos afford to travel and explore the cities and tourist destinations of the country.

Back in early 2000 I used to booked for Manila – Cebu – Manila flight via Philippine Airlines and pay P4,500 one way, arayyyy. There really was not much choice then because PAL rules the skies of the country. Then entered Cebu Pacific and nationwide airline travel was revolutionized and their year long budget fares were a big hit to money conscious Pinoys.

So I am trying not to remember how cheap it was to book your airline tickets during Piso fare seat sale of Cebupac at its early stages. But sometimes I can’t help but still remember lol.

Anyhow this blog post is supposed to compare the current piso fare details and prices of both Cebu Pacific and Airphil Express, sheesh sorry about the lengthy discourse above, I’m just reminiscing hehehe.

Piso Fare Prices Comparison for Cebu Pacific Air and Airphil Express

*Mock booking for Airphil, actual booking for Cebupac.

Based on my personal airline bookings  during piso fare seat sales of both budget airlines, total cost to avail of the piso fare promotions ONE WAY PER PERSON in Cebu Pacific is P383.62 while with Airphil piso fare you will only pay P354.00 with free 15 kilos baggage allowance (see picture below) .

Price wise, Airphil is cheaper compared to Cebu Pacific when it comes to piso fare promo tickets. And Airphil’s  free baggage allowance sweetens the deal even more!

The major advantage of Cebu Pacific versus Airphil is that they serve more routes both domestic and international. You can pay for your Cebupac online ticket via credit cards, ATM and over the counter payment.

Airphil Express allows you to pay for your online booking only via credit cards. With Cebupac you can make online reservation and then pay for your promo tickets the following day. With Airphil you can’t reserve your tickets online during promo fare launches but you can go to their booking offices the following day. Unfortunately if you choose booking offices, you run the risk of missing out on Airphil promo tickets since people will be scrambling online the moment the promo starts on the website.

After you book, you can print your airline tickets right then and there or you can also access your booking at a later date via “Manage Booking” tab of Cebu Pacific. Or access your email since a copy of your booking will be emailed to you.

Anyhow, I hope this mini guide on how to book your piso fare ticket can come in handy.  Now you know the total cost of piso fare promos, it’s up to you whether you will book your ticket via Cebupacificair or via Airphil. They may have price changes in the future so I suggest you check on their website for their latest ticket prices and additional charges.

Hope you’ll get your promo tickets come 2018!

Pahabol: How I wish Cebu Pacific Air will bring back their original honest to goodness cheap piso fare P1 promo fare of years before, you know when Taxes and other Fees were really minimal. Oh well. Hopefully hehhehe.

Don’t miss this updated 2017 Video Tutorial on How to Book for tickets during promos of Cebu Pacific provided by our friends in 1Pisofare. Thanks TD!

FAST FORWARD TO AUGUST 2017. Cebu Pacific tickets can now be paid in cash in outlets like LBC, 7 Eleven, Cebuanao Lhuillier, over the counter banks and more. So start looking for peso fairs promos now!

Piso fare 2017 to 2018, rather. 🙂