bkkrox

Air India and Kenya Airways are usually the cheapest.....

And, in my view, with good reason.

Air India,Kenya Airways and even Ethiopian Airlines all fly BKK-HKG, They are considered full service airlines but with their high delay/cancellation rate, old aircraft and awful service I would seriously think twice about booking with any of these airlines.

Actually, the Air India planes are not that old,but their delay rate is very high,possibly a knock on effect from India as the airport in Delhi is highly congested and shuts down at the slightest hint of fog.

You already contradict yourself by stating first that Air India has old planes, but at second thought they're not that old after all... The congestion at Delhi airport is hardly Air India's fault.

Kenya Airways operates either the Boeing 767 or 777 on the Nairobi-Bangkok-Hong Kong route. While the 767s are not very young, they are newer than the average A310 Air India uses. Their 777s are almost brand new. After South African Airlines, Kenya Airways is regarded as the most reliable African mainline carrier and they have an alliance with Air France / KLM.

I think I acknowledged the contradiction by writing the word "actually" at the beginning of my second sentence. Perhaps I should have written "on second thoughts" or some such other qualifier to show I am ,intentionally,removing Air India from that criticism.

And you are absolutely right that it is not their fault if DEL is congested, nor did I say it was.The fact remains they have a huge delay rate.Check out HKG and BKK airport arrival/departure times and seek out AI see for yourself.

My point is simply that given the ticket price is not that different from say,Emirates , Gulf Air ,China Airlines or Finnair,why take the risk of messing up your travel plans..plus I think they are flying A310s which can get pretty cramped.

I didnt realise Kenya Airways were using a 777 on this route,last I noticed it was a 767. Good to know they are doing so well,right after SAA on the most reliable mainline African airline list. Who was third?

Air India and Kenya Airways are usually the cheapest.....

And, in my view, with good reason.

I've never flown with Air India or Kenya Airways, are they nutoriously bad then?

I'm thinking of flying to Kilimanjiro with Kenya? Dont have bamboo seats do they?

Air India,Kenya Airways and even Ethiopian Airlines all fly BKK-HKG, They are considered full service airlines but with their high delay/cancellation rate, old aircraft and awful service I would seriously think twice about booking with any of these airlines.

Actually, the Air India planes are not that old,but their delay rate is very high,possibly a knock on effect from India as the airport in Delhi is highly congested and shuts down at the slightest hint of fog.

Hong Kong airport,unlike alot of competitors in the region,is not giving a discount to budget airlines on landing rights,service charges etc. Even though some airlines (Air Asia) have offered to park at remote locations,use awful arrival/departure slots and buy their own buses to shuttle passengers,HKG will not budge.The airport is very expensive to use and therefore few 'no frills 'will fly there.

They're probably trying to earn back the construction costs as quickly as possible... The Philippine airline Cebu Pacific flies there, and then there is of course the HKG-based long-haul airline Oasis Hong Kong. Oasis currently flies to London Gatwick and plans to launch its second route in June, to Vancouver.

HKG has a few discount airlines operating there...they are just not able to offer seats at the price they would like because the costs are so high.

Jetstar and Valuair both operate a few HKG-SIN roundtrips daily but the prices are on par with full-service airlines because the competition is so high that the full-sevices airlines are already offering seats at a very low price.

You will occasionally see Jetstar and Valuair offering cheaper seats but it is usually just a few seats at that price and designed only to attract the buyers attention.

Would be great if HKG would loosen up a bit allowing some no-frills in,but from what I have heard it is doing very well and doesnt need the extra business.

I flew Emirates a few weeks ago. got two return tickets for 14,000 THB total. Great service and great food. Air Asia only goes to Macau and 12go may not be reliable. Fin Air also have some deals, but Emirates use good777-300 planes with PTV's.

If you want to avoid travelling on older aircraft, definitely avoid Orient Thai / 1-2-Go...

Yes avoid Orient Thai,they use very old aircraft and delay/cancel alot on this route. I have seen their HKG-BKK flight delayed up to 12 hours on the departure board in HKG..be warned!

Orient Thai seems to be the only discount airline flying this route non stop although I remember a few months ago there was Hong Kong Airlines (airline code N8) flying to BKK aswell. Not sure if they still do but check their website. They use ultra modern 737-800s and market themselves as low cost, flying mainly to mainland China.

Hong Kong airport,unlike alot of competitors in the region,is not giving a discount to budget airlines on landing rights,service charges etc. Even though some airlines (Air Asia) have offered to park at remote locations,use awful arrival/departure slots and buy their own buses to shuttle passengers,HKG will not budge.The airport is very expensive to use and therefore few 'no frills 'will fly there.

Planning a trip to Knog Kong next month and I was wondering if anyone got any experience on this? What airlines fly there relatively cheap and comfortable. I would prefere non-budget airlines.

You could try booking with emirates at emirates.com,they often have roundtrips between 6 and 7k to HKG. The only drawback is their late departute out of HKG at around 10pm so gets you to Suva after midnight.

Gulf Air,China Airlines and Sri Lankan airlines have good deals on the same route.Finnair flies it but not daily so youll have to check their website.

Thai and Cathay fly it of course but are almost double the price unless you manage to nab one of TGs "super saver fares" off their website,but those trips normally depart within 3 to 4 days of booking(and can be as cheap as 7k).

Good Luck.

how should i say "what else can i do" or "i don't know what else to do"?

thx steve

phom mai ruu waa ja tawng tam arai eek...should do the trick...roughly translates ....but better wait for further suggestions!!

i just got a copy of "Thai Reference Grammar" by James Higbie and Snea Thinsan. can't recomment it more. by far the most comprehensive guide to thai grammatical structures i've seen. it covers all the hard to find stuff like "sak tee" which i've never found in another book. it also has a great index for searching stuff. i also really like the way they show tone marks of the translitterations, ther have bars above and below words to indicate the tone.

steve

Yes,couldnt agree more.I just bought that book and so far have found it very good.Also like the phonetic system they use,makes a lot more sense than the usual system.

Of those I have looked at Shrewsbury International on Charoenkrung and Patana on Lasalle seem to offer fantastic facilities and the school leavers results seem to validate that.Have also heard that Kesinee International is excellent but have not seen it in person.

...Well, there's only one intial 'N" sound in Thai,so it should be น...

Don't forget ณ eg NEN เณร - Novice monk.

ah, right! forgot . Probably forgot because besides เณร I've never seen any word with this letter as an intial consonant. Do you know any other word with an intial ณ?

Looked it up and just found 2 more:ณรงค์...campaign,competition n.

and ฌ....at,by,on,near prep.So with novice monk only makes 3 with this initial consonant.

Alot of Thai people ,instead of calling him Pi Bird,call him Pa (aunty) Bird...seems they know full well for which team he bats...

Right, you just have to remember it. Deriving the initial consonant from the tone is difficult, but it could help to reduce the number of possiblities. And even if you know the consonant, you're often still not sure how to write the words.

For instance: how would you write NAA (falling tone)?

Well, there's only one intial 'N" sound in Thai,so it should be น.

But even if you know this you still have 2 possibilities:

หน้า: face

น่า : should

ศ is much less used than ส, and is often used in words that don't have a pure Thai root. If you break up the borrowed words into parts and remember the parts it might help you to write other words.

โทร(ะ): far or remote.

ศัพท์: word.

If you remember these 2 words you already know how to write many other words (the Thai words for: television โทรทัศน์, telegram โทรเลข, vocabulary คำศัพท์, meaningless ไม่ได้ศัพท์,....).

Knowing which final consonant you've to use is even more hard, because Thai has only 3 final consonant sounds: "p t k" and there are many consonants.

There's a very good reason why Thai children spend so much time with dictation exercises and why many adult Thai people can't write very good.

Thanks so much for the reply..those two words will be a great help. I am also glad you brought up the final consonants...I didnt want to sound like a major whiner bringing that up too but they are as you say,alot more difficult to remember/workout for the reason you give and also because some words/syllables have consonants thrown in on the end that are not spoken (chiefly ร) often without the consonant killer(ร์).

Will keep practicing!

Yes I had worked out it would be a low class consonant,based on the tone when hearing the word but even then was left with four choices. Of course discounting the least used and considering "ท" is most commonly used for this sound,my best "guesstimate" was to use "ท". But that "method" by no means guarantees correct spelling.

Will soldier on with this...learning to read Thai was a piece of cake when compared with learning to write it. Hoping the spellings begin to stick with me the more I read!

I just got through learning how to read thai. My vocab is sketchy so I can often read a word but have to look it up to find out what it means!Not too worried about that as my vocab will increase with time.One problem I am having though is trying to figure out which consonant to use when writing thai. For example,if you need to write the word,"toh-ra-sap"(telephone),how would you know which T consonant to use...I mean which of the 4 low class T's ,or maybe you have to use one of two 2 high class T's .I have asked a few thai friends who tell me that they "just know" and have learnt it over time.

Was wondering if anyone knows of any specific rules governing this area.Cheers for any advice!

Thanks for your positive comments...Not sure how your freinds find the energy for 2 kids!!

I guess for us the biggest issue is the school thing aswell. We have explained everything to him and (so far) he thinks it is cool to have two dads. He is now almost finished with Year One and the has told all the kids in his class what his situation is...almost boasting! He is a very funny ,talkative and popular kid,a born leader is how his report cards describe him,so I think he will be able to handle himself as he grows older....kids aged 6 have yet to learn predjudice and bigotry...those are things he MAY need to deal with when he grows up,and we will do what we can to give him the tools to deal with it.

To those of you that PMed me off this board, I will get back to you just as soon as I get back to Bangkok.

The death penalty has never worked as a deterrant to crime. The U.S is a perfect example of its failure.

The very "logic" of it,i.e you must not kill anyone,ever,if you do we will kill you,is flawed.

Morally,disallowing redeption and the oppurtunity for the offender to try to rectify his/her wrongs.....or even just to allow them to live to realise the severity of their crime,and live with the guilt, seems a better way to me.

Good for you. My Thai and I would be doing likewise if I wasn't so aged and likely dead when my child would be in high school.

My Thai fathered my grandchild for a year in Australia last year and showed a unique talent for it. We were much sought after by my daughter to "baby sit", if half day of care giving every day fits that description.

She has a Nanny now for the times we served in that capacity, as she works in a big job.

Gender has nothing to do with care giving and loving of children and it is a given that those who think two males or two females can't be good parents due to their same sex gender will go the way of the dinosaurs in a generation or so.

Granted, community attitudes can affect children adversely, but usually to those not prepared by their parents for the bigotry. Bigotry takes on many forms including ethnicity, economic strata and educational level of the parents, but there are remedies to minimize the effect of bigotry on children and certainly such adversities, like any adversity, should not be allowed to operate to prevent such parenting, and it rarely does.

Hi ProThaiExpat,thanks for your comments..judging by the parents at our sons' school I would say we are either the same or maybe younger than some of them!I am 36 and my TBF is 43.

I think we have been very,very lucky in terms of the way we have been treated by other parents and pre/schools here. We have had nothing but support from them and he has been and is presently in one of the top international schools in BKK (the fees hurt mind you!)

Hopefully putting this out there will encourage others who have the desire to have a family to go ahead and do it...our experience has been positive on almost every level (financial and energy being the exeptions!!!)

Take care and thanks for the reply!

Hi,my partner and I have a 6 1/2 year-old adopted son. We adopted him when he was only 3 weeks old...have been living in BKK all this time and still seems we are the only ones (at least I havent seen/heard of any others).Anyway ,just posting here to see if there are any others out there so we could talk about our experience.Feel free to PM me if the public forum makes you uncomfortable.

I did not start this topic to debate gay parenting....if thats what you want to do then please start a new thread..cheers!!

Have you noticed than the folks who profess to have bought this card

never, ever specify exactly what benefits they got !

And I do not mean the usual blurb ... discounts at golf courses, spa's etc. ...

unspecified discounts by the way ... blah, blah, blah.

There again I guess anyone who has actually bought one

would be too embarrassed to tell exactly what they got

for their million Baht.

Naka.

Naka,not sure exactly what you are trying to say. I can be as specific as you need and since you mentioned spas I will tell you ,specifically what the benefit is.The spas (and there are ALOT of them around the country in the programme) each offer one free product(massage ,facial or some such thing) and then discount on any other products they offer.The free product and percentage discounts vary from spa to spa and all info is in the booklet issued upon membership activation.It is possible to use the free product offered from each spa only..and then have a spa service everyday...but would probably get a bit boring!

The details about hands free shopping and vip services at malls,restaurants,hotels,immigration fast track and transfers,golf,banking,TG discounts (25% off domestic fares) and automatic TG gold status and other benefits have all been discussed at length so either you didnt search correctly or are just posting to be objectionable. Let me know if you need specifics on another benefit and i will gladly fill you in.

I am not sure why some posters on this forum seem to bash the Elite programme (and its members) whenever the name is brought up.I am not going to waste time trying to figure that out..I do think though that it is worth considering the many reasons why people chose to join this programme.

Some people who are members are wealthy enough that if the programme collapsed tomorrow they simply would not miss the money.Thats a fact pure and simple.

Some members found that they did not fit into any available visa category and were unwilling to "create a business" for a visa or a sham marriage or any other form of deception to make themselves "legal".

Some members are able to legally obtain a visa, they simply dont have the time or energy to figure out this months rules...i.e 90 day reporting to the parole officer,when and how,how much do I have to have in the bank and for how long,is it income or balance or both,what letter from which embassy and notarised by who etc etc etc....not to mention the...is it 30 voa + 30 voa + tourist visa and if so which consulate is issuing them this week and once I get one can I get another one when it expires and which land border will allow me to return when I do my visa run???...etc etc.

I also do not doubt that there are people who became members of Thailand Elite for the spas,golf,transfers etc,I think though it is fair to say they are the minority.

For these reasons and many more people bought and are continuing to buy into Thailand Elite,but I do not believe anyone did so thinking it could not all end tomorrow....it just works for them now. If you are bashing the programme because YOU see no benefit for YOU then thats ok,but at least be open to the possibility that it does work for others...

this is the part that does not compute with me

I had a very successful business in Sydney for eighteen years and accumulated

a nice fortune - but because that fortune represents sweat and tears over that 18

years I simply cannot relate to anyone with such a wasteful attitude ? And I believe

the many astute other businesspeople I've known over the years equally respect

their fortunes.

making a purchase of any kind these days requires an extra element of

" caveat emptor " - but in the case of Thailand Elite the fact that they attracted

so few genuine buyers ( as opposed to those who given the card ) compared to their

target that this in itself should raise the question - how long in reality can its keep going ?

Absolutely Midas, it is a very wasteful attitude.Unfortunately though life is filled with examples to demonstrate that people who think this way exist. As an example,how do you justify the hi-so woman who buys the latest Chanel suit,shoes and bag (minimum 100 000b for the three),knowing full well she will wear it very few times and certainly not when next years collection is released!!She simply doesnt care because she looks great at that time and has plenty of money to buy more...you get the drift...some people just think of Elite as a prestige thing.

I also agree that Thailand Elite,left as-is will be in big trouble. Although still attacting members I dont believe it is enough to offset the cost of running the programme.Having spoken to a sales rep from TE this week,the idea of an Elite "lite" programme is still very much being considered.The 60 000 baht per year figure is still being thrown around. The issue now is how to differentiate it from the Thailand Longstay programme.So,seems they are at least trying to adjust their business model...only the future will tell.

Dont get me wrong,I am not throwing a blanket support for this programme or its members. I am just saying that for some people it is a viable solution to the visa issue...with a few benefits.

I'd just like to introduce myself: arrived in Bangkok on a "longstay" visa to live with my boyfriend (yes, I am over 50). I'm not a girl to I think I'm in the right forum here . Anybody interested in the process of getting the visa with a gay slant, please let me know. Also I was already an expat, i.e. I applied for the visa outside my home country and outside Thailand. Otherwise I'll check back regularly and see what I can do to contribute.

Cheers,

LD.

Hi welcome...and congrats on the longstay visa!

I am not sure why some posters on this forum seem to bash the Elite programme (and its members) whenever the name is brought up.I am not going to waste time trying to figure that out..I do think though that it is worth considering the many reasons why people chose to join this programme.

Some people who are members are wealthy enough that if the programme collapsed tomorrow they simply would not miss the money.Thats a fact pure and simple.

Some members found that they did not fit into any available visa category and were unwilling to "create a business" for a visa or a sham marriage or any other form of deception to make themselves "legal".

Some members are able to legally obtain a visa, they simply dont have the time or energy to figure out this months rules...i.e 90 day reporting to the parole officer,when and how,how much do I have to have in the bank and for how long,is it income or balance or both,what letter from which embassy and notarised by who etc etc etc....not to mention the...is it 30 voa + 30 voa + tourist visa and if so which consulate is issuing them this week and once I get one can I get another one when it expires and which land border will allow me to return when I do my visa run???...etc etc.

I also do not doubt that there are people who became members of Thailand Elite for the spas,golf,transfers etc,I think though it is fair to say they are the minority.

For these reasons and many more people bought and are continuing to buy into Thailand Elite,but I do not believe anyone did so thinking it could not all end tomorrow....it just works for them now. If you are bashing the programme because YOU see no benefit for YOU then thats ok,but at least be open to the possibility that it does work for others...

I for one am very happy with the service I have received as a Thailand Eilte member.Do I KNOW the programme will last forever or even stay as is...no I dont, but my options are very limited.

Heres why..I am under 40,not married,and have a job outside of Thailand that requires me to be there 3 to 4 times a month for about 4 days per time.You see,a tourist visa would not even work for me as it would need to be multiple entry as I leave several times per month.

Anyway,I use the airport transfers(often),airport lounges,fast track,have had the free med chech up at Bumrungrad(get 10% discount on any other visits there),have used a few of the spas/restaurant offers and of course the free roundtrip TG business class regional ticket.

Given my age and the frequency with which I use the services I figure I will more than get my money back over the long term...IF the programme survives.For now ,however,I am very happy with the service....and when I read the stories on TV of what some people are having to go through with immigration etc I am thankful I am fortunate enough to be in the position to buy this card.

You cannot put a price on your peace of mind.

Domestic at Domestic.... I wonder how many fools will slip thru the doior to reach the walk wat to Int'l 1 and start looking for a taxi at the departure level......I wonder??/

Yes according to an update on Thai Airways' website they will be flying out of the old domestic terminal....also the website says that the lounge at DMK will be for Royal Silk Class passengers only....gonna upset quite a few Star Alliance/TG Gold passengers.

Anyone know of any cheap airlines that fly direct from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City?

You could try United Airlines.They have a flight leaving for HCM around 8pm and back to HKG leaving HCM around 630am.I took them once and it was around 150USD.Think its only them and the Cathay/Vietnam Airlines code-share on that route so not alot of room for cheap fares but good luck anyway.

Yes!I couldn't agree more..this book is a God-send.I quit a month ago and though the first 3 days were tough ,the book really showed me the way to quit for good. Sadly the books' author,Allen Carr,passed away a few months ago from lung cancer primarily as a result of allowing those he was treating(thousands!) to chain-smoke in his office.

RIP