22/3/24
I’ve been looking to book a trip to Bangkok in February 2025 but it looks as if the flight prices have gone through the roof.
Initially I thought I could us my Avios points to keep the price down. I’ve got about 161,000 and I had hoped that would allow us to go some where really nice for a month.
The problem is that Avios only allows flights with British Airways or their Partners, which seems to be mainly Qatar airways and strangely BA don’t route to Bangkok from London*.
There are lots of options if we are prepared to change planes somewhere like Doha or Dubai but that comes with some baggage. You either have a very short stay in the airport and that horrible risk of missing your connection if anything goes wrong, or even worse, catching the connection without your luggage.
Or you have to have an overnight stop.
Now, I’m not unhappy with that but if you’re gonna stay somewhere you may as well make it for a few days not just a night. By the time you leave the airport, get a taxi find and find your hotel, you aren’t gonna get much sleep, then you are back up and doing everything in reverse the next day.
Not very relaxing.
We stayed in New Delhi for 10 days when we last went to Bangkok and toured around the Golden Triangle. We saw the Taj Mahal and experienced a tiny bit of India, and it was great.
This trip we only have a month, max so we won’t have the luxury of a 10 day stopover. and bear in mind you have to do the same on the return flight.
It’s also an additional cost. Staying somewhere for 4 nights on each leg adds 8 x Hotel bills, 8 x days food and drink. Taxis and other sundries which add up to a significant amount.
So a direct flight might be £300 more expensive but you can easily spend £300 by stopping some where en route.
I have managed to find a map which shows the routes BA fly and their destinations which has proved helpful. At least now I can see where I can go non stop using my Avios points.
It is clear I can’t get to Bangkok this way, though Trail Finders have offered me a flight with EVA Air including airport transfers and 6 nights accommodation in a double room with river views at the AVANI HOTEL , Bangkok. But their total bill is £2414. However, they didn’t itemise the bill, so I don’t know what they have changed for the flight or for the Hotel.
The hotel web site is offering that room at £114 or £106 with a City View so I assume 6x 114 = £684. That means the flights are £1730 but some of that is the airport transfer. I’m trying to compare Apples and Bananas. It just doesn’t work.
Plus EVA Air have some restrictions on seating and luggage which might mean we can’t choose our seats and we end up with a carrier bag each for a month’s clothing
So I was back on the laptop trying to work out the Avios web site.
It’s complicated because it’s linked to the BA website but it also has BA executive club so I get confused which site is which ?
So I decided to contact BA direct.
Now this was a mine field. There is a contact us page on the site but they try to pre-guess what issue you wish to discuss with them and anything that falls outside of that remit is too complicated . I tried the live chat (why do they call it that when you’re talking to a Robot?) but that couldn’t understand my request either.
BOT.” What Can I help you with today”?
Me: “I want help booking a flight”. I thought that would be a fairly common request to BA?
BOT:” Do you want to order a Vegan Meal on your Flight”.
Me: ” No, I want help with a booking”.
Bot: “Do you need to change your seat”?
Me: “No, I don’t have a seat”.
Bot “Well, why are you wasting my time. F**K off and bother some one else.”
So I phoned, I pressed a series of numbers to help BA ‘get me to the correct person who could help me’ and eventually spoke to a guy with blocked sinuses and a heavy cold.
He explained he could help me but if he gave me any advice, he would be forced to charge me £50 for the privilege.
He suggested I go on the web site, Ignore the section that offers me upgraded seat’s and the section where I pay cash and add Avios as an extra. He said these were a Con.
He suggested I just purchase a flight with my Avios points and ignore the others, which is lucky as I don’t really understand what the difference is between the options?
What he did tell me which was useful was that BA were operating a Non Stop service from *Gatwick to Bangkok starting in November this year and he suggested I look at getting seats on that?
So I tried but the Avios/BA/ Executive site (which ever one I ended up on) didn’t recognise that flight option and kept telling me it didn’t exist.
I was at a loss.
So I logged on to Gatwick Airport and searched for flights to Bangkok and sure enough a BA Non Stop flight came up and it appeared to be reasonably priced.
later that evening I tried again and sure enough I was offered the Gatwick flight option.
If I used 154,000 Avios points it saved me £660 which brought the price down considerably.
Result
However, when I looked at that seat it didn’t come with any baggage allowance so Jaki would have to survive for a month in the clothes she stood up in!
The next option which was about £50 more expensive gave us a baggage allowance of 23 Kilo which isn’t a lot, but we can probably survive with that.
Then we were offered the option of choosing our seats which started at £39 for a bog standard seat or £70 for something with a bit of leg room or space.
By the time we were ready o pay our bill was £1112.56 .
So we are going.
We have almost a month in Thailand in Jan/Feb next year.
Initially we will spend a few days in Bangkok ( I have been collecting information about places to visit, Bars and Restaurants as well as interesting venues ) and then decide where we go from there . I think we will head for Phuket and then visit some of the islands in that region.Phi Phi, Krabi, Koh Santa Koh Yao Now and Koh Yao Yai are all just a ferry ride away.
The next major task is to source accommodation.
We have in the past stayed at The Chatrium Riverside which I love and they have offered us a price of 6,280 THB per room per night, (booked direct with the Hotel) and they will give us an upgraded room. with River views and Breakfast for that price.
The breakfast is utterly amazing, there are so many different dishes available and it’s served on the balcony over looking the river. That is something we usually treat ourselves to at least once so to have it thrown in is a good deal.
However, the Chatrium is quite a way out from the centre of Bangkok. There is a River taxi from the Hotel which links to the water Taxi system at Sathorn where you can also get the sky train but the water taxi’s stop running at 11pm so if your having a good time on the Koh San Rd, you have to leave to get home before the taxis stop running.
This year we might source a Hotel a bit nearer the action.
At least we have plenty of time to do our home work before we have to book anything.
So the trip is on.
It seems a long way off but I’m sure it will come around quickly and it gives us some thing to look forward to.
Which makes this a busy year. Madrid, Mojacar, Christmas In the Cotswolds and then Bangkok.
Not bad for a couple of Oldies!
Stay safe Chums.
Bill and Jaki go Travelling 