GinBoy2

The reason they do this, to offer the lower fares they separate the subsidiary from SQ so they can do all the cost cutting exercise's I've described. If you started then adding in the benefits, what do you think those lower paid flight crews would say? Well if you treat the pax as if they are on SQ, what about us? Then you just turn Scoot into SQ

It's not Stockholm Syndrome, it's more a case that some of us understand the financial realities of the industry. Try to get your head around 'why' that LCC can offer tickets at that price. Jet A fuel costs the same globally, with local taxes varying, and fuel is a huge part of that cost per seat The price for the aircraft, either purchased or wet leased is roughly the same If the route is at major airports the landing fees are the same for all. So where do you cut the costs to make the cost per seat lower? Firstly you pay the crew less, and remember they aren't salaried, they only get paid hourly from D -40 (widebody) when boarding starts to arrival. Then start nickel and diming. Bags. Well you will pay for everything. I've told you this before, but airlines subscribe to worldtracer. Your bags are scanned at checkin, in the bag room then at loading. Then at arrival, bags off and for connections scanned on again. Thats how, when things go wrong we find them and get them back to you. There is huge infrastructure involved in that which isn't cheap. LCC's, none of that. They simply counts bags on and off, and if they go missing they are lost forever no way to trace them. Interline. Airlines negotiate agreements with other airlines in the event they have to move pax to other airlines there is a cost, but it's not cheap. If I move a United pax to an American Airlines flight it costs several times the original ticket price. So LCC's don't sign up to that either. On board amenities. Well, thats the easy stuff to see. You don't seem to get that no matter what you may think to be true, airlines operate on wafer thin margins, and the graveyard of failed airlines is testament to that So this is the pact with the devil you make with LCC's. Don't get me wrong if you are doing a simple point to point they can make sense, but their business model which you accept for those super cheap flights come with risk. Not much to do with ethics more a case of harsh business reality

And if you decided to sign a purchase agreement with the T&C's that stated if the company couldn't provide you with the car they would refund your money, with no alternative car? Thats what you do when you buy these tickets. READ the damn conditions before you hit the purchase button

He got exactly what he paid for. A flight with no guarantee of rebooking, since they just can't and at best a refund. They are cheap because they don't have interline agreements. You can't magic these things out of thin air, and you just have to accept the T&C's you signed up for when you booked the lowest possible fare you could find

But thats the terms and conditions you sign up for whenever you book a flight on an LCC. There is a risk involved for that basement price. For regular airlines there are basic rules. Anything that is within the airlines control, mechanical, crew issues etc you will get rebooked on the next available flight, and if necessary on another airline with an interline agreement, and hotel and meal vouchers. These are real costs which the airline has to shoulder. The reason the LCC are cheap, is they strip out these costs, among many others, and even though folks 'maybe' they read the T&C's they just ignore them, then bitch when things go south. The old saying 'you get what you pay for' is just as relevant to the airline industry as any other

I think this thread is getting bent around the axles regarding definitions. B1/B2 are non immigrant tourist visas. These are processed solely at the embassy K1/K3 visa's are temporary entry visa's with the intension of unmarried couples marrying within 90 days to achieve immigrant status. These are processed by USCIS and after marriage in the US an adjustment of status is applied for to grant permanent residency and a conditional 2 year green card IR1/CR1 are immigrant visa's. CR1 is for couples married overseas for <2years, IR1 for those married >2 years. These are also processed by USCIS. After approval the woman has a single entry visa stamped in the passport and a green card shows up in the mail approx 2 weeks after landing. For a CR1 the green card is a two year conditional, the IR1 a 10 year green card. Anything processed by USCIS today is going to take around 12 months, and the only embassy involvement is the final interview, which is a formality. The notion that being married to obtain a B1/B2 makes thing a slam dunk is misleading. For some it works great for others, for others not at all. There is no such thing as a 'spousal' tourist non immigrant visa, and the woman applies in her own right. As I've stated non-immigrant visa's are highly subjective and you are very much subject to the whims of the embassy staff reviewing the application. Immigrant visa's are highly objective and USCIS simply processes the documents, and if no glaring errors or red flags, for example criminal background, they are a slam duck

So did we come to any conclusions or just lots of navel gazing?

You might like to read my previous post. That's the risk you take when you take a point to point LCC. They have no alternative solution to offer other than give you your money back. No interline agreement, means no other options. Just be aware of that and if you're OK with the risk go for it

As some of you know I work for Delta and at my station we service United as well. I've lost count how many times I've stood in front of passenger explaining to them, when stuff happens and they booked through a third party there is little we can do to help and they need to contact the 'website' they booked through. Most of these website booking tools don't even have an option to call anyone, just send an email, and "we'll respond with 48 hours" That really helps when you are at the airport staring at a cancelled flight. Thing is you don't even save any money using these folks. Use them as a price comparison tool then book directly with the airline. The other think to note is when you use a Low Cost Carrier(LCC) they are point to point carriers. Part of the whole model of LCC's is they don't have interline agreements so they can't put you on another airline. At my station we have Allegiant, if they cancel no way you are getting on any UA, DL or AA flights outta here, you're on your own. So, sucks to be him, but these are the choices he made and now it's time to flex his credit card and buy another ticket. 'Trapped' is just a ridiculous tabloid headline, no one here is trapped, just unfortunately out of pocket Oh I forgot another gem with LCC's. Never lose your bags with them. If your bag gets lost or delayed we use a tool called Worldtracer and your bags once found get put on any airline to get them to your destination. LCC's not so much. They don't participate in Worldtracer and if they get lost they are probably lost forever

This rings a bell with me too. My Dad was a GI in England during WW2 and told me stories of various bar brawls with the local men over women. They had more money access to stuff local women hadn't seen for years and it just drove the local guys off a cliff. Same stories, different countries, different times. Male testosterone stupidity never evolves it appears!

I hate to be negative to this as well, but tourist visas for Thai's, especially women are notoriously hard. I kinda gave up with it after we wanted to go visit my daughter who had just had a baby. My wife professional woman, money in the bank, we weren't married at the time, but I thought we ticked most of the boxes. Of course she was denied! Several years later when we wanted to move to the US with her an an immigrant visa, couldn't have been different. There's the rub. A tourist visa is highly subjective, but with an immigrant visa is objective and all you have to do is tick boxes and it's a done deal. Hope it works out, but it's a toughie for sure

But equally unless you are retired and can basically decamp to Thailand for the winter, for a normal family it'll be at best a couple of weeks turning the heat off. I don't think that equation works out so well, especially given the price of airfares right now

So lets take out the Chinese, the CCP is still clinging to its zero Covid policy, so they ain't traveling for a least another year. If everything I read is true, the Brits and Europeans are looking forward to a winter of soaring energy prices just to heat their homes. I wonder how many of them are planing to vacation in Thailand rather than heat their homes? For North Americans just based on the travel time it's always been a bit of a secondary vacation destination. For we're back to the Indians! Good Luck with that to boost revenues

Damn those hunky farangs, seducing these poor vulnerable Thai maidens with their testosterone fueled manly wiles. Who could blame a poor Thai guy for losing it

Alright I'll take the bait. Now I've heard Brits say all of those with the exception of 'Sunbeam' What does that mean, other than the obvious literal meaning?

Well that is true, and of course I'm being facetious when I call it a lisp, we do it to <deleted> them off, and I know it's just a dental fracture in the same way 'th' is in English. But all part of the joys of language. My English is different from the Brits or even our North American cousins the Canadians with their damn 'A'. And contrary to popular myth my Californian Spanish is subtly different to my family in Mexico, we can all nearly always tell where we are from. Now do I write like I talk? I think so. It spews from brain to the page as if I was talking in every language I speak and can write

think it helps if you are bilingual from birth. I grew up with English and Spanish swirling in my head effortlessly and they could spew from my mouth in either language even if I was thinking in the other. In later life I never found learning another language hard, and I've added Thai, Lao and Mandarin. There is a difference to my learned languages, I don't think in them. I know I translate them in my head before I speak very different to how I speak English or Spanish. Now back to the OP. Should expats speak Thai well, thats up to the individual. I've always found speaking the language of where I live very enriching, but I've know folks that have lived for decades in a country without the ability to say much more than Hello and Thank You without a problem

So back to the OP. Does anyone here fess up to obscuring their nationality, and if you do why? We are a product of where we are born, no escaping that. Few nations can claim to to be squeaky clean, even the whiter than white Canadians have their demons with the treatment of native Americans. So I don't know if my written English betrays my origins, but I could also write in Spanish to 'betray' my Mexican origins, neither of which I am embarrassed or ashamed of. My spoken Spanish, the Spaniards think is ugly Spanish since all North and South Americans don't have their snooty 'lisp'

I just looked at that. Curious small, huge country with most of the population in a few cities

Hmm, I've lived in a couple of the mega cities, Shanghai, Taipei, and although Singapore doesn't hit the list the whole island is simply one city, and not sure looking back they are the best places to live. Now I am not trying to defend Des Moines, I've been there, but size isn't everything. Sometimes a smaller city, you can just kinda feel more at home. I look back fondly at the time I spent in all those places, but that was then and now I'm much more comfortable in a small city where i know my neighbors and there is just less pressure. We went to one of my other locations, San Diego where my youngest daughter still lives. Showing my wife around my old haunts it just struck me I couldn't deal with the people or the traffic anymore. We went to visit some old friends in Rancho Bernardo just north of San Diego where I used to work. Coming over the hill on I-15 past Miramar (think Top Gun) it struck me 8 lanes of traffic going south into the city, all crawling, nah I'm done with it. We now live in sedate Rapid City SD, where 5 cars at a stop light is enough to trigger a 'red' on google maps! As for the OP, why would anyone want to try to hide their nationality in an online forum? Nobody knows you, I don't think you need to prove anything. Now if I was a call center operative in Bangalore, maybe trying to pass myself off as 'Kevin' might make sense!

Well all of us are different, don't think it matters where we are from. I've only had one relationship with a Thai woman, my wife of over 20 years, so I can't comment on the Thai female nation as a whole! But I've been around enough Thai women to believe they not so different than a similar American female population. Fiercely vocal, to tightly guarded, which is a good thing, because we all make our own way, and the same could be said of men. My wife is most certainly in the fiercely vocal category

It's funny how these things work out. The contrast between my American and Thai wife couldn't be more extreme. My American wife was/is very in control of her emotions. Reticence isn't in the toolbox of my Thai wife. I'm made abundantly and instantly clear whats going on in her head!

My wife who earns a <deleted> load more money than me regularly raids my wallet for cash. Definitely a Baaaaad girl

Interesting perspective. Depends where you are in life. Now if I had a short term girlfriend, I probably wouldn't give a rats ass about her feelings. Now if I'm talking about a wife/partner of 20 years of course I want to know and understand her feelings, as I hope she would mine

My wife is an oddball having grown up in the US as a teenager. But she's a helluva lot more willing and able to verbalize her feelings than I am. And of course as any human would she uses this power dynamic to her advantage. She outpours her anger, I capitulate, problem solved lol. But seriously I think we both express feeling equally to each other, the good and the bad, albeit she does it more loudly!