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Air Mad has changed and - unfortunately - tightened up the regulations on discounts on their domestic flights.

If you take a long-haul flight from Europe with Air Mad, the reduction on domestic flights is now 30% instead of 50%. The same reduction also applies if you fly with them into Madagascar from Bangkok, Johannesburg or La Réunion.

If you fly in from Kenya, Mauritius, the Comoros or Mayotte, you get a 20% discount on the domestics.

A pretty unpleasant change is that you now apparently have to book the domestic flights at the same time as your international flight if you want to get the discount. That means that the previous practice of giving a 40% discount on domestic flights booked within Madagascar has been discontinued. This was explicitly confirmed by the Call centre in Paris, but it would be useful to hear from someone who has actually been given - or refused - a discount when booking domestic flights in country since the new system came into force with the timetable change on 26 October.

On the plus side - for anyone travelling between 1 January and 28 March 2009 there's a special offer from Paris to Tana and back. The website says "from" 827 euro.

Also interesting is a young people's fare offering a reduction of "up to 60%" for people aged between 12 and 28 (on the Air Mad website click "Nos offres" and then "de 7 à 77 ans"). For that you'd presumably have to contact a call centre - the still not very confidence inspiring online booking facility doesn't offer any such discount.

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1

this is terrible news! i just booked my long-haul flight with air mad and i specifically did so to take advantage of the discount.

yrstruly.

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2

I agree it's terrible news, and I can't help thinking that Air Mad have shot themselves in the foot with this one. Before, the discount on domestics easily cancelled out the price advantage offered by Corsair on the long-haul flight. Now Corsair may be more favourable more often.

There is something else that I was made aware of this week which is also a bit strange. I've just booked a domestic flight together with a long-haul flight and got the 30% discount. This week a friend in Madagascar with no entitlement to a discount of any kind bought a ticket for the same domestic stretch in Madagascar and paid a price in ariary which almost exactly matched my discounted price.

What are they playing at? The prices charged for domestic flights bought in Europe have gone up substantially recently. Are they charging a premium price in Europe and using the "discount" to bring the price back down to the level they charge at home in Madagascar? It looks a bit that way at any rate. What kind of marketing adviser thought up this stroke of genius?

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3

i recently heard that if you book your flight at least two weeks in advance and you have a saturday stay, then you get the 40% discount.

i'm hoping to get my act together to be able to take advantage of this and go down south (i am not sure where, i'm thinking ifaty or fort dauphin) for new year's.

yrstruly.

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4

This would be very good if it were true. What's your source?

Otherwise, check out [http://www.airmadagascar.com/offres-reduction.html]

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5

marogisa: i talked to the airlines and they pretty much confirmed this. though, it seems to be only friday - sunday trips. so, only short weekend trips. perhaps a friday to the following week's sunday would work as well - i'm not sure.

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