Thai International Airways

[Griffo 1]

Can any of you boardies please recommend a good agent for Thai Airways please

Thanks

Griffo

[step 0]

 griffo

   I have used travel house my last couple of trips. They are based in swansea tel. 01792 483331

                         www.travelhouse.co.uk

I have only booked by phone so i am not sure how good the web site is for booking.I paid £497.55 including tax in april to come in october, price included an accommodation voucher for two nights at the jade pavillion hotel in bangkok which was very good last time i stayed there.hope this helps

             regards

                 step

[Guest]

Griffo,

 

When are you travelling?  With or without accommodation in BKK/PTY?

 

Tom

[Griffo 1]

Hi Tom,

good to hear from you and many thanks for your info.

I will be travelling out on or about 20th November and returning in either April or May. I will be staying in Pattaya and will organise accomodation on my arrival.

Kind regards

Griffo

[Guest]

Griffo,

 

There are still seats on the evening flight (TG917), the morning flight (TG911) is fully booked in economy, and a six month ticket (M Class) is generally about £660 incl tax from the main agents (Travelbag, Trailfinders, Travelmood etc).  Your return date can be changed for free.  You may also wish to check any offers with Thai consolidators such as Far East Travel Centre (0207 262 2665) or Lees Travel (0207 437 8164).

 

Hope this is of some use.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

[Griffo 1]

Tom,

you are a mind of information. Thanks for your invaluable help on this and other postings.

Kind regards

Griffo

[Captain_C 28]

I travelled out TG917 a few weeks ago and got 2 tickets for £620 each.

Regards

C

[Guest]

Colin,

 

You can still get an H Class (3 Month validity) on some departure dates in Nov for circa £590 at the main agents.  It is circa £550 for departures up to 31 Oct but showing little, if any availability, on the dates I checked.  This would have been no use to Griffo since he wants to stay in LOS for more than 3 months - a luxury you have to pay extra for.  See Stevoh's excellent, earlier post on the subject.

 

http://www.freelancerbar.com/cgi-bin/yabb/...;num=1016539578

 

I'm sorry to say that I wasn't able to get any agent to go within £500 of the £700 Business Class deal that you got on EVA ..... they were wanting that for Evergreen Deluxe so it looks like I am stuck with China Airlines for the next trip.  I guess I'll just have to cry in my rice ...    :'(

 

I'll see you in the RG at the end of Nov if you are there... I think there are quite a few Boardies around at that time.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

[Guest]

Unless the £700 is a special fare for industry workers I'd say the skipper is mixing up economy deluxe with pukka business  ???

[Captain_C 28]

Hi Richard W

I have to confess, youve got me going on that one, as im still waiting for the paperwork. I know I have a reserved seat at the front with extra leg room and dedicated check-in with extra baggage allowance. It certainly looks like business class but to be honest this is my first time with Eva so not to sure. For what Im getting compared to my last trip with Thai which was £620 and down the back, Im not complaining either way.

Also, from a selfish point of view being airline staff, I know from talking to colleagues that Eva are staff friendly, so Im hoping for a further upgrade anyway, which is more than I got with Thai.

We'll wait and see.

Regards

C

[Guest]

Skipper it's sound as if you're in economy deluxe which is not business class.

You won't get an upgrade either as EVA has only 16 pukka biz class seats and these are always full of proper fare paying passengers such as me.

 

Regards,

 

Ricky

[Captain_C 28]

We shall see!

[Guest]

Captain C,

 

The number of your reserved seat will tell you what class you are in.  If it's 6-9 incl then you are in Super Business; if it's 20-33 then you are in Evergreen Deluxe.  Richard is right in what he says about the difficulty getting upgrades on EVA, particularly Evergreen to Business, apart from anything else there are normally quite a few Silver/Gold/Diamond FF card holders in Evergreen who have gotten to know the small EVA team at LHR and they will normally get allocated the infrequent upgrades - particularly helpful if you can speak Mandarin.    There are normally at least a couple of Frequent Flyers looking to exchange their award cheques for standby upgrades as well.  EVA's army of loyal, repeat customers ensure that this is normally the rule rather than the exception.

 

There was a previous thread on the subject that you may find useful:

 

http://www.freelancerbar.com/cgi-bin/yabb/...;num=1024776627

 

Regards,

 

Tom

[Captain_C 28]

Hi Tom

Yes I appreciate what you are saying.

In the 22 sectors as passenger I have done to Thailand with various airlines, only 3 times have I failed to upgrade, even if it's to the crew section (which is very nice I can assure you). I'm sure you understand we tend to look after each other in the industry.    

[Steptoe 429]

to give hope to financially challenged non-industry types on one glorious occasion I got an upgrade to biz from evergreen, even better it was on the way home, so the usual miserable trip passed in comfort....if I hadn't been so eager to sit down it would have been first as that is where the passenger whose boarding card had the same seat number was put!

 

unfortunately, next month, due to the stockmarket doldrums, I will have to go to the bottom of the class and look for a circa £350/£400 trip....so if Tom or Colin have any suggestions for the best of the cheapies I will be for ever grateful...

[Captain_C 28]

Hi Steptoe

It really is a case of shop around, but a lot of guys I speak to still think going with China from Amsterdam is a good deal, its just a case of where you start from in the UK and which airline to use from UK to Ams and return.

As a rule I always fly from Heathrow, because its only 65 miles by road and I can go non-stop. The journey is knackering enough without stop-overs as far as Im concerned.

Regards

C

[Guest]

Steptoe,

 

All of the major airlines are pretty much sold out on their cheapies through till Xmas.  I would have to concur with Colin that it is a case of shopping around - get a good independent and sit down with them for half an hour trying to pick through the options.

 

The only other suggestion I would make is to try Priceline - I've never tried it myself but basically you put in your dates and what price you are happy to pay and they come back with the flight ....... it could be any airline but they say that they only use world-class airlines so think carefully about how much you would pay for the pleasure.  I would say to start low and keep your expectations realistic.  You can always go back with a higher bid if you get a nil offer.  This is the link for the UK site for flight bidding:

 

http://www.priceline.co.uk/travel/airlines...642609620036387

 

Let us know how you get on.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

[Captain_C 28]

Nice one Tom

Hadn't thought of that one.

A number of colleagues use it for other things and reckon its good fun and value.

I'd be interested to know if anyone gets a bargain from it.

Regards

C

[Guest]

Steptoe,

 

Opodo http://www.opodo.co.uk/otpbvpl/Homepage/Pa...e.jsp?Locale=uk is showing flights with Swiss next month (I queried on 16-30 Oct) at £484 from Heathrow and £507 from Manchester.  Flights are via Zurich and include taxes.  The Zurich-Bangkok and return legs are actually operated by Thai which makes the price pretty good especially if you are travelling from up north.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

[Steptoe 429]

Tom & Captain C.

Thanks for your very helpful suggestions. Priceline sounds great but I would like to see a list of airlines that they use as I would think that by default you will end up with the less popular ones. The internet was supposed to usher in an age of last minute availability and booking and this site seems to hit the mark. I would guess for a flight in the next couple of days it would work well and you could end up with a bargain.

 

As I only live a few miles from Norwich I used to be a regular on Air UK ( as it was then ) and CI 066 before  I visited airsafe.com.....hmmm, since then I've bussed to Heathrow, 3 1/2 hrs & £26 with my pass, and gone with the best non-stop offer.

 

I usually book through Trailfinders as I find their prices hard to beat, plus no ccc, but I am going to try Tom' s earlier suggestion of the Thai consolidators. This time, unfortunatly, I cannot be flexible with my departure date.

 

Thanks again, I will phone around tomorrow & will post if I come up with a gem    

[Guest]

i was planning a trip for later this year. i got my quotes from travelbag, ebookers etc and was all set. i then tried to book about 3 weeks later.(10 weeks in advance of my trip) and i was in trouble. even ba/qantas was coming up fully booked. the only flight i could get was thai £700 econ. i was informed eva was fully booked, and had been for months. the rep at travelbag even laughed and said it was not worth checking, as he knew they were booked up solid around that date. i tried west east travel, and they offered me thai for £520 and eva for £480. both with tax included and non stop. at this paticular time they pissed all over every other company i tried by a long way.

[valentinoxxx 4]

Hey Capn

 

I would say it's almost certainly Evergreen  Deluxe as the numbers from the front of the aeroplane on the lower floors start at 20, before that the seats(First and Biz) are on the upper floors.

 

The first few rows on EVA deluxe are on a 2:2 formation at the very front, so I wouldn't baulk if is I was in rows 20-23.

 

I bought tickets for girlfriends from Uk and they were in row 22 to Bkk and 21 to London.

I went to the EVA office in Euston and made friends with the staff there. :-)

 

£618 for a January dept to Bkk was what I paid last year. It would have been less(£598) if I had hadn't taken the option to hold the tickets for some months, to ensure that the girls were coming.

[Guest]

Colin,

 

If you are going for Rows 20-23 you should be aware that the fittings for baby bassinets are located in Row 20.  Remember to take your rattle!  ::)

 

Regards,

 

Tom

[valentinoxxx 4]

Has any one got the details for West East Travel?

[Steptoe 429]

They have a web site which is being ' reconstructed ', it does, however, give a phone number; 0870 220 1001 and fax; 0870 220 1039 to contact them  

 

They had a seat available on Thai for my prefered departure date @ £537 inc taxes, they apologised for it being so expensive, but the cheaper seats had sold out, this one being for a maximim of three months stay, with a flexible return date.

 

I was also tempted by Lee's Travel offer of £440 + £45 tax on Singapore Airlines with an option of a stopover in Singapore  but in the end I took the non-stop option as the seat pitch of 34" on Thai suits my length better.

 

Thanks to all for these suggestions, if you're in FLB during November I'll do the necessary