Cebu Pacific offered ₱1 fares for all its domestic and international flights on Friday (August 17, 2012), causing its website to experience technical difficulties.
The Gokongwei-led budget carrier opened its "Juan You Love ₱1 seat sale" for all Philippine and international flights at midnight Friday. It offered 111,111 seats for ₱1 each, for travel from June 11 to December 10, 2013.
Heavy traffic on the Cebu Pacific website caused some people to complain about difficulties in booking their tickets, and by mid-morning, tickets were selling out fast.
Cebu Pacific's ₱ 1 fare promo refers only to the base fare. Customers actually pay ₱ 313.12 for a one-way domestic flight -- which includes the P1 base fare, P100 admin fee 12% VAT of P12.12 and terminal fee of P200.
For international flights, the actual one-way fare costs ₱ 101, which includes the P1 base fare, and ₱100 admin fee. However, this does not include the P550 terminal fee, ₱1,620 travel tax and other country-specific taxes.
Many took to Twitter to proudly say they booked cheap fares for destinations such as Seoul, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur and Taipei.
One Twitter user Becky Ignacio (@bekwalakwatsera) tweeted: "@CebuPacificAir the #JuanYouLove paid ₱ 1600 each RT to Seoul, South Korea with the #JuanILove."
Twitter user ( @hikot_ ) tweeted: "@CebuPacificAir paid ₱1,396 back in fort Manila to Coron Palawan #JuanYouLove"
Another Twitter user Nikko Lim (@nikkolim) tweeted: "@CebuPacificAir paid ₱ 1,250 for 2 pax Manila to KL RT #JuanYouLove"
However, the heavy traffic caused the Cebu Pacific website to bog down at times. Some tweeted their complaints about the slow loading time of the website and problems in booking.
But Cebu Pacific reminded people to refresh their browsers so all cache settings to be cleared to make it easier to book.
But by mid-morning, most of the promo seats were already unavailable.
Blogger Tricia Gosingtian (@tgosingtian) tweeted: "Ack, I missed the piso fare again. You guys are all ninjas! The tickets ran out so fast. ;_;"
Cebu Pacific currently offers 63 domestic routes to 32 domestic destinations.
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