mister_handy

I've never paid $30 for a drink in the US, although I think I have paid in the $20s for a tumbler of very very nice scotch once, and if you go for fancy brands in mixed drinks it is pretty easy to pay over $10 for a drink in my part of the US... BUT if you go for well drinks or beer the only place I have ever seen prices hit $10 are at ballparks or similar events. Even with that $6-7 is a very pricy beer.

Has anyone stayed here since high season started? Is the construction noise around there and the backside of the Areca any better?

Arriving Suvarnibhumi at 11:50pm on Jal, so through customs around 12:30-1AM, in Pattaya around 3AM. Anyone want to share a cab?

Wouldn't that be cookies in brown (beef) gravy to us yanks?

My impression is that a lot of non-US airlines don't allow everyone to book their seats in advance - sometimes only higher fares or elite FF members, or sometimes only very limited pools of seats available in advance, or sometimes no advance seats at all in coach. Exactly. "Time is money" is true for relatively few people I know; if you're on salary, you don't get paid a dime extra for staying late, it's just for the goodwill of the boss at best. Further, an extra hour of your time would have to be pretty darn valuable to make the regular $100 or GBP75 change fee that you'd be risking cheaper than the extra time at the airport (and, as a hint, most people with time that valuable find ways to work on the road via mobile phone or notebook computer.) Pretty much every single airline in the US bar one (Southwest, which has no preassigned seats at all.) All of the international ones I've flown do, bar the couple of Asian cheapies on the Southwest model (Tiger and Air Asia.) Well, now you know better. Sorry to hear that it was such an expensive and disappointing lesson! Sure, but it's gambling. Also, some of them may have elite status with the airline and be able to use priority lines, etc, which make it less of a gamble for them. I haven't seen them do that with any regularity in years in the US; they stopped, or at least mostly stopped, when the lines got long in late 2001. I guess they're more lenient on your side of the Atlantic, but there is an old saying "poor planning on your part does not make for an emergency on our part." Once again, I assume the airlines must be nicer where you are. This might have been true once in the US but has long since ceased to be in this day of the TSA and very tight airline budgets. Always best to know the T&C you're flying under! One thing to be aware of on this side of the Atlantic is what's called the "flat tire rule" - a lot of fares which are otherwise only changeable in advance (for a fee) and which expire without being changeable if you're a no-show can be changed (sometimes for free, usually for the regular fee) rather than expiring if you show up close to the right time at the airport and make a good excuse... Or by the security guys; we don't have customs or immigration on the way out of the US, but the security checks after you check in are quite bad enough and those guys generally have no flexibility about the lines. Indeed.

American style "Hamburgers" (or "Frankfurters" though we usually just call 'em "Hot Dogs" these days) are only tenuously related to the original German dishes. As an aside, while as a yank can't claim to know what a "proper" English roast beef is supposed to be like, but I know what I like, and I'm surprised that no one's mentioned The Sportsman on Soi 13. I thought the roast beef at both the Queen Vic was good, but I like the Sportsman's a lot better, usually get it when I'm in town.

It was a nice enough place at about 1000 baht for the regular rooms last year, but I can't imagine paying 2000 there even for a suite. Rather basic room, small rooftop pool, OK service, nice to have all no smoking but for a few hundred baht more each night the Areca is better pretty much all around. The Dynasty has a similiar location and better rooms, although they can't guarantee non-smoking all that reliably.

Presumably continuing on from Tokyo...? Hard to imagine going on from Shanghai, and those are their only transpac routes. That said, it would at least beat having to connect to a JAL codeshare in some respects - the whole trip would be upgradeable (right now only the AA metal part is), you'd be able to preselect seats (including the good ones if GLD or better), and it would be eligible for promotions which exclude codeshares. Plus, if it's the same aircraft going on the normal crap that is connecting in Tokyo is avoided. Downsides are the much better service and food on JAL.

If you fly American airlines, they have a bunch of double-miles deals, both for earned frequent flier miles and for elite-qualifying miles. The bonuses are only on American flights (not codeshares) but that covers US-Tokyo or US-Shanghai flights that you can connect on from. Good now through like June 15th... just the thing if you needed any extra encouragement to take a low-season trip :) http://www.aa.com/apps/netSAAver/ViewPromo...romotionContent for the double elite qualifying miles (code is AADER) and http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=814210 for the double earned miles (code is CDR02) although since it's a targetted and not public offer it's possible not everyone can use it.

I liked the Areca better than the Residence Garden, and it's right in the middle of town albeit a long block east of Second Road. Being on the far side of 2nd road (also a minus for the RG although there is less traffic down there) which is a pain to cross, and lack of wifi (even for-pay) are the only minuses for me! Oh, it's all no-smoking which is a BIG +++ for me but obviously guys who like their tobacco would find it a ---.

They used to be guest friendly, and I stayed their my first several trips to Pattaya. On one of my trips (early 2004?) they gave me a major hassle about bringing a girl back and have not stayed there since. Avoid.

American, which is part of OneWorld, so I can use: - AA - British (with the exception of US-UK flights) - Qantas - Malev - JAL - Cathay - Finnair - Iberia - Royal Jordanian From http://www.aa.com/apps/AAdvantage/ViewMile...partnerType=Air ; I'd forgotten FinnAir and Iberia. Was seeing some fares on SFO-(some US connection)-LHR-BKK (AA connecting to Qantas) or SFO-(some US connection)-LHR-BUD-BKK (AA connecting to British connecting to Malev) which were close enough the usual AA/JAL (via NRT) or Cathay (via HKG) fares to be worth it given the extra 6000 miles each way. Right now I can't seem to replicate them, although the separate US-BUD/BUD-BKK fares are low enough that it might be tempting just to stop over for a few days and see a little of Eastern Europe.

Possibly, although they mostly only fly from the US East Coast (possibly LA also?) They're not part of the airline alliance I've got my miles with (although Royal Jordanian is) so I don't follow those options. The fare I saw would have been good either changing over in LHR (to Qantas) or LHR (to Malev, also stopping in Budapest.) Interesting, didn't know it went in that direction! Coming from the West Coast, that's definitely the longer way.

Just curious - have any of the US-based board members tried doing a US-Europe-Thailand routing? Or have any of the European ones here tried going via the US? Right now, I found a fare is basically the same either way, but tons of extra miles (22,000 vs. 16,000) going via Europe. It would also give me a stopover in one of a couple of European cities, which is potentially interesting :) Whether I want to subject my rear to an extra 6 hours of flying each way is another question...

Singapore does "Executive Economy" on the direct LAX-SIN and (ny area)-SIN flights on their new Airbus planes. OTOH, there's no regular economy section on those flights - the alternative is regular economy on one of their 747 flights via NRT or another stopover. Depending on the scheduling, I've seen the EE flights out of LAX as low as about $1000-1100 into SIN, which is $300-400 more than the comparable low-end fares, but I've also seen the sifference be $900 vs $1800.

Nice. Wonder if the Bay Area fares will drop similarly.

Saw similar fares to Sa-teef - Cathay was around $1100 in K (non-mileage earning) or $1283 in H (mileage earning). The latter # was departing 8/31 returning 9/11

21 days, 3 hours til wheels up as currently planned.

Tropicana is pretty good orange juice for a supermarket brand in the states given all the nasty made-from-concentrate stuff, but... orange juice/"nam som" (probably mispelling it and maybe it's actually tangerine juice for all I can tell) in Thailand tastes so much better in Thailand than most American stuff, even the cheap Malee stuff they have at 7-11.

Just tried Limoncello, and fh is right ... very very good pizza. Little pricy for Thai standard (480 baht for a pizza and two cokes) but the pizza is big (had 7 of 8 slices and ate too mutt - probably about right for one heavy plus one light eater, or two pizza between three guys). Planning to try them and cosa nostra this trip, will report back.

Prices slightly higher and maybe less stock of obscure stuff (and probably no non-brand imitation of viagra) but for antibiotics I'd recommend the Boots in Royal Garden Plaza.

Yes. For AA miles earned: * American gives 100% of the miles on all their own flights or codeshares with AA flight numbers. * Cathay gives 100% of the AA miles on their own flights but only in H class or higher - cheap classes (most of their cheaper deals are in K) earn 0 AA miles. Most of those classes earn fraction miles on their own Asia Miles program. * JAL (not in Oneworld yet, but about to be - rumor has the exact date as of 1 April) is 50% of the miles in most of the cheap classes (M is the usual one I hit). Don't know how their own JMB (Jal Mileage Bank?) program works. * Qantas also only gives fractional AA miles for cheaper fares, but I don't recall the percentages or even what their own program is called. http://flyertalk.com/ is great for this information

Works for me. I'm at Majestic suites that day, was going to book cab through them unless you have a preference. Was 1350 baht last time I used their car, which isn't too bad, but happy to use whatever other cab service you prefer. What time are you doing to Eden? I've never yet been, one option would be to meet up there and then grab bags and the cab.

Most of the US-based ones, the miles are good 3 years from your most recent flight, rather than the flight where you earned the miles - so as long as you fly that airline or alliance once every three years, you keep the miles. Also, most major US/European and a good number (but not as many) of the Asian airlines are in one of the three big alliances: Oneworld - American, Cathay, LAN, Qantas, British Airways, Finnair and about to be adding Malev, Royal Jordanian, and JAL Star Alliance - United, Lufthansa, Singapore, others SkyTeam - Delta, Air France, not sure who else And in general if you belong to the program for any one of the airlines in an alliance you can get at least some miles for flying any of the other airlines in an alliance. For example, I usually fly Cathay Pacific to Asia and earn most of my miles that way, but have my miles on American. It's about 8000 miles to LOS from the US (I think slightly shorter from western europe) but around that, or 16000 round trip. A free ticket to Asia is 70k-75k miles. So even without status with the airline, you earn one free trip after every five. Flying 3 trips to Asia from the US is about enough to earn most airlines "second tier" frequent flier (50,000 total miles per year usually) which gives you doubled miles as a bonus. So with that, it's one free trip to Asia every two and a half trips.

Pattaya: Sportsman (roast beef) The Pizza Company (small pepperoni) Bier Kutsche (saurbraten or goulash) Benihana (for a splurge, though Nami at the JW Marriott is much much better) King Seafood (actually can't stand it but keep ending up there with Tilacs and they like it. Wonder if they get kickbacks?) Bangkok: Nami Teppanyaki at JW Marriott Majestic Suites Coffee Shop for ABF The Pizza Company Gullivers (where the burgers suck but the view of the freelancers makes it all worthwhile)