ASEAN pass: Cheap way to travel?

I'm envious of people who seem to be always exploring new places.
Of course things aren't always as they seem.
Every once in a while, I get asked how I get to travel so much.

When I first started travelling I was on a tight budget.
Even now my budget has grown but is still tight.
In order to save money, a lot of research helps....
The more you know and all that.

When I first discovered AirAsia flights, I was truly shocking how cheap it was.
With all the economic fluctuations over the past few years, flights are not as cheap as they used to be
Good offers can still be found but good gems are hard to find.

Recently I discovered AirAsia's ASEAN pass.

It doesn't seem to be greatly advertised, and most information I could find online seems to be copy and paste from one another.

What is ASEAN pass?
Basically it is a one price pass that covers a certain number of flights limited by a points.
Each flight path has a point value given to them. Usually within the same country it is 1 point.
Between countries it can be 3 to 5 points.

 There are 2 passes...
1) 10 points and valid for 30 days.
2) 20 points and valid for 20 days.

Why ASEAN pass?
There are a few advantages to using ASEAN pass
i) Fixed base price (flight prices can fluctuate depending on offers and seasons)
ii) Able to travel to many locations on good value.

Why not ASEAN pass?
As good as it can be... there are many disadvantages to using ASEAN pass.
i) The more flights you choose the terminal fees can add up to being more expensive
ii) There is no way to know the terminal fee before buying the ticket
iii) There are limited seats on each flight.
iv) Each flight route cannot be repeated per pass.
v) The more destinations you choose, the more planning is required
vi) flights limited to ASEAN countries

So who is ASEAN pass for?
I would say this pass works best for certain types of travellers only.
It us for those who prioritise:
i) budget instead of comfort
ii) planning above convenience
iii) making informed decisions
iv) visiting multiple locations
v) flexibility rather than predictability

I have seen many complaints about the restrictions of the ASEAN pass and a few who buy the pass only to find out later that they cannot find seats that they want. All of these can be avoided with some forethought and planning.

Let's take a look at how it works..

I was looking at traveling to the Philippines at the end of the year.
So of course the first thing to do is to look at the flights that are available.
There are a few airlines from Kuala Lumpur that fly to Manila.
After looking through a few airlines, Air Asia was still the cheapest... (though not cheap.)

Looking at the dates going, (I have censored the dates for safety reasons)

and for flights returning


Not considering the time of flights but just the cheapest flights, the total comes up to RM800+
(about USD210)... That's about double the cost when I first started visiting 3-4 years ago.

Now let's see if ASEAN pass is a better deal....
so first thing I do is go to the AirAsia Asean Pass URL..

I do not log in yet and just go to check the availability.
Use the pull down window to select the route and dates.

once you have decided on the route and dates....
press Search

Going there looks good....

Oh no! there is no seats on the return flight.

I even checked the next day.... also no seats... :(

in fact there were no seats for the next 2 weeks and even the week before.

Now here comes one of the advantages of the ASEAN pass,
since a return flight would only use 6 points... I still can use 4 points in other routes to get back.
I looked at going through Cebu, Davao, Kota Kinabalu, Singapore and even Bangkok.
It was not looking good....
then the oddest thing happened... I stumbled across a flight from manila to Bali...
in fact there were flights available every single day.

And there are 6 flights back from Bali...

After giving it much thought, I decided to go for it...
The process after that is pretty straight forward...
Log in to you Big Shot account... (or sign up if you haven't yet)

and repeat the steps, after confirming the flights,

you will be given the choice of buying an ASEAN pass or using an existing one.

I only had the expired one I used on my previous trip to Cebu and Davao, 

I bought a new pass,
Payment can be made using Credit/Debit cards or even online banking.
I would suggest choosing the currency in MYR because ASEAN pass seems to be the cheapest even after doing conversions from other currencies. Maybe because AirAsia is Malaysia based.
 
 As you can see the 10 credit pass cost RM499
(about USD 125 as opposed to paying USD160)
  


After confirming the flights, you will be required to pay the airport taxes and fees.
This will be the only unknown cost with using the ASEAN pass.
The cost of the 3 taxes and fee came up to about RM150

So for 3 flights, it cost me RM650 in total... about RM200 less than a normal return flight.
Guess I'd be using the RM200 for my time in Bali....

Hope this helps anyone out there who is looking at using ASEAN pass.
Enjoy your trip