Heading Xi'an to Chengdu

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Today we headed to the Xi’an airport under the assumption that we had airline tickets to Chengdu. We had booked them the night before on chinaair.com. Unlike most Western online airlines, the ticket was not issued right away. When we arrived at the airport we were given the run around of who to see, we got the “you have no reservation”, or “you have a paper ticket not electronic” or “your reservation was cancelled”. Finally I called Air China’s US 800 number and told them the scenario. They cancelled the ticket and I repurchased tickets. The run around actually ended up saving us money (tickets went from $97 to $80 each).
In Chengdu we found a good budget hotel: Ibis, it is part of the Accor hotel group, it is mainly used by locals just outside the second city ring. They had a decent restaurant/coffee bar that had a cheap, good (a bit hot) nightly special. It cost about $25 a night and a cab to the city was only $1-2.

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