Round-trip from US to Thailand with European stop

[Srshort38]

My husband and I are planning a month long trip to Thailand and are considering trying to fly out of Thailand to somewhere in Europe on our way home. Any ideas of what the cheapest European city to fly into?

[bwpage3]

Ok, so we are going to Thailand in December this year. 

 

Miami, Florida to Zurich Switzerland to Bangkok on Swiss Air (Flight was booked through United)

 

Return trip is ANA Airlines Bangkok to Norita, Japan non-stop to New Jersey USA, then Miami

 

Round trip fare was US $920 per person

[Srshort38]

5 minutes ago, bwpage3 said:

Ok, so we are going to Thailand in December this year. 

 

Miami, Florida to Zurich Switzerland to Bangkok on Swiss Air (Flight was booked through United)

 

Return trip is ANA Airlines Bangkok to Norita, Japan non-stop to New Jersey USA, then Miami

 

Round trip fare was US $920 per person

Thanks for the reply! How long are you staying in Zurich and Japan or are they just layovers?

[CNXexpat]

1 hour ago, bwpage3 said:

Ok, so we are going to Thailand in December this year. 

 

Miami, Florida to Zurich Switzerland to Bangkok on Swiss Air (Flight was booked through United)

 

Return trip is ANA Airlines Bangkok to Norita, Japan non-stop to New Jersey USA, then Miami

 

Round trip fare was US $920 per person

Zurich is one of the most expensive cities in the world. 

 

1 hour ago, Srshort38 said:

Any ideas of what the cheapest European city to fly into?

Do you want to visit a cheap or a beautiful city?

[Puchaiyank]

Of all the reasons to fly to Europe...looking for the cheapest city to visit would not make my list of things to do...????

[Chelseafan]

Dollar is pegging strong against the pound at the moment so London might be a good bet. Plenty to see of course.

Loads of cheap flights from the US. I take it you are based on the east coast?

 

[phuketrichard]

that $920 is a great deal!!!

[elgenon]

13 hours ago, bwpage3 said:

Ok, so we are going to Thailand in December this year. 

 

Miami, Florida to Zurich Switzerland to Bangkok on Swiss Air (Flight was booked through United)

 

Return trip is ANA Airlines Bangkok to Norita, Japan non-stop to New Jersey USA, then Miami

 

Round trip fare was US $920 per person

Swiss Air and ANA were booked through United? How do you do that?

Could I do something similar with EVA?

[AAArdvark]

2 hours ago, elgenon said:

Swiss Air and ANA were booked through United? How do you do that?

Could I do something similar with EVA?

It is a common code share..  Swiss Air and ANA flights were booked with United flight numbers.  Or, it could be the other way around. On flight search engines you will often see flights with the exact same times and destinations but different airlines.  These would be code share flights.  You have to do a bit of research to figure out who the actual carrier is.

EVA air is Taiwan based so it would probably be hard to find a code share through Europe.

[bwpage3]

17 hours ago, Srshort38 said:

Thanks for the reply! How long are you staying in Zurich and Japan or are they just layovers?

Just layovers

 

I think about 7 to 8 hours in Zurich

[bwpage3]

1 hour ago, AAArdvark said:

It is a common code share..  Swiss Air and ANA flights were booked with United flight numbers.  Or, it could be the other way around. On flight search engines you will often see flights with the exact same times and destinations but different airlines.  These would be code share flights.  You have to do a bit of research to figure out who the actual carrier is.

EVA air is Taiwan based so it would probably be hard to find a code share through Europe.

Yes correct. The flights were booked with United code sharing with Swiss Air and Ana

 

One thing I learned, is the price can be drastically more depending on the exact departure day and return day.

 

I basically sorted through December and found a departure date and return date that was the cheapest.

 

If I was confined to an actual date, I think the price could have been much higher

 

[Blue bruce]

Norwegian air flys BKK to Denmark & Copenhagen than on to US

[AAArdvark]

14 hours ago, Blue bruce said:

Norwegian air flys BKK to Denmark & Copenhagen than on to US

Careful with them.  They are in a lot of financial trouble.

[elgenon]

21 hours ago, AAArdvark said:

It is a common code share..  Swiss Air and ANA flights were booked with United flight numbers.  Or, it could be the other way around. On flight search engines you will often see flights with the exact same times and destinations but different airlines.  These would be code share flights.  You have to do a bit of research to figure out who the actual carrier is.

EVA air is Taiwan based so it would probably be hard to find a code share through Europe.

Thanks. Is that within an alliance then?

[treetops]

Choose somewhere because you want to go there, not because it's cheap.

[AAArdvark]

2 hours ago, elgenon said:

Thanks. Is that within an alliance then?

Yes

[gk10002000]

Over the years I have flown to Thailand from California and a handful of times from Florida (Palm beach area).  I looked over flying eastward and connecting through Europe but that always involved 7 or 8 or 10 hour layovers at some airport, be it Heathrow London, Charles De Gaulle France, Germany etc.  So each time I instead flew westward to Los Angeles and went to Thailand from there.  Time wise it is about the same.  And departing LAX on the midnight or 1 AM flights makes it easy to get to LAX from Florida, and taking those late night flights from LAX can get you into BKK at 11 AM BKK time which makes it easy to catch day time busses, take the BTS etc. 

[Nyezhov]

37 minutes ago, gk10002000 said:

Over the years I have flown to Thailand from California and a handful of times from Florida (Palm beach area).  I looked over flying eastward and connecting through Europe but that always involved 7 or 8 or 10 hour layovers at some airport, be it Heathrow London, Charles De Gaulle France, Germany etc.  So each time I instead flew westward to Los Angeles and went to Thailand from there.  Time wise it is about the same.  And departing LAX on the midnight or 1 AM flights makes it easy to get to LAX from Florida, and taking those late night flights from LAX can get you into BKK at 11 AM BKK time which makes it easy to catch day time busses, take the BTS etc. 

I just get on a plane in Atlanta and fly to seoul and thence to BKK, 22 hours total, done. Going though Europe is too expensive and takes too long.

[gk10002000]

1 minute ago, Nyezhov said:

I just get on a plane in Atlanta and fly to seoul and thence to BKK, 22 hours total, done. Going though Europe is too expensive and takes too long.

oh I agree.  That is why I never did it.  And once I think I went to Chicago and then on to Narita or Osaka then to BKK.  been a while since I did that.  The reason I did the LAX thing was that often I would stay over in the LA area because I have friends there.

[sirineou]

We have friends and family in Greece and in Italy, last year we flew to Thailand with Turkish airlines, we  chose a multi-destination option when doing the search for a ticket.

We flew from JFk to Istanbul Turkey, caught a short connecting flight to Athens, spend a week there then connected back to Istanbul and from there to BKK,  return was BKK to Istanbul ,Istanbul to NYC

The ticket was about $1200 usd each . Our stay in Greece was very inexpensive because we have friends there to stay with, but because of the economic conditions there I am sure accommodations there are relatively inexpensive. 

I did a search for a similar attiniary as above and got the below attinery for $963 on priceline

 

 

Edited August 14, 2019 by sirineou

[CNXexpat]

On ‎8‎/‎13‎/‎2019 at 4:39 PM, AAArdvark said:

On flight search engines you will often see flights with the exact same times and destinations but different airlines.  These would be code share flights.  You have to do a bit of research to figure out who the actual carrier is.

Which search engines do you use? I like Momondo.

Edited August 14, 2019 by CNXexpat

[AAArdvark]

11 hours ago, CNXexpat said:

Which search engines do you use? I like Momondo.

That is a good one.  I also like skyscanner and kayak.

[elgenon]

On 8/14/2019 at 2:29 AM, AAArdvark said:

Yes

This may be a difficult question to answer briefly, but do you need an agent to mix airlines like that or how does one do it? Thanks.

[AAArdvark]

1 hour ago, elgenon said:

This may be a difficult question to answer briefly, but do you need an agent to mix airlines like that or how does one do it? Thanks.

No agent needed.  You can use the airlines website or just use a search engine such as skyscanner.  I just booked a flight to the Philippines from CM.  Skyscanner made it very clear which flight combinations were code share/alliance flights and which were not.  On their website they will prominently list list non-code share flight combinations as "self transfer" and require two separate tickets.  In my case, I used Cathy Air Dragon flights with a layover in HK.  The flights were actually listed three different ways with a small difference in fares but they were all the same physical aircraft.  I actually booked directly with Cathy Pacific.  It cost me a couple of hundred baht extra but for me the convenience and peace of mind was worth it. Other search engines will list the "self transfers" differently but they make if obvious, in one way or the other, what the combination actually is.

Caution has to be used when using the "self transfer" option.  I was offered significantly cheaper flights with transfers in Hong Kong, Macau or Taipei but the layovers were in the 2 hour range.  The problem is that I would have to collect my checked baggage, go through customs and immigration then return through immigration and security.  I did not believe that 2 hours would have been doable.  With a single ticket code share, this would be a simple transfer and automatic baggage transfer.

[elgenon]

On 8/18/2019 at 9:04 PM, AAArdvark said:

No agent needed.  You can use the airlines website or just use a search engine such as skyscanner.  I just booked a flight to the Philippines from CM.  Skyscanner made it very clear which flight combinations were code share/alliance flights and which were not.  On their website they will prominently list list non-code share flight combinations as "self transfer" and require two separate tickets.  In my case, I used Cathy Air Dragon flights with a layover in HK.  The flights were actually listed three different ways with a small difference in fares but they were all the same physical aircraft.  I actually booked directly with Cathy Pacific.  It cost me a couple of hundred baht extra but for me the convenience and peace of mind was worth it. Other search engines will list the "self transfers" differently but they make if obvious, in one way or the other, what the combination actually is.

Caution has to be used when using the "self transfer" option.  I was offered significantly cheaper flights with transfers in Hong Kong, Macau or Taipei but the layovers were in the 2 hour range.  The problem is that I would have to collect my checked baggage, go through customs and immigration then return through immigration and security.  I did not believe that 2 hours would have been doable.  With a single ticket code share, this would be a simple transfer and automatic baggage transfer.

I appreciate the reply. I think HK is not an option these days. No Cathay. My friend saw a flight LA to BKK on Cathay for around $600!

 

Anyway, I was having trouble with the Air Asia website as usual (BKK to CNX) and tried to figure out how to book w Skyscanner and got nowhere. Someone on TV had said they did it. Possible?

[AAArdvark]

6 hours ago, elgenon said:

I appreciate the reply. I think HK is not an option these days. No Cathay. My friend saw a flight LA to BKK on Cathay for around $600!

 

Anyway, I was having trouble with the Air Asia website as usual (BKK to CNX) and tried to figure out how to book w Skyscanner and got nowhere. Someone on TV had said they did it. Possible?

HK airport had two days of protest issues which will not happen again.  I have booked with Skyscanner multiple times without issue.  What problem were you having? They do not actually do the booking themselves; they use other companies to do the booking.  One problem is that most search engines compare prices to other search engines.  These other search engines pop up making it hard to see which engine you are looking at sometimes.

Below is a sample flight of BKK to CNX.  You will see the skyscanner cheapest flight and then a list below of places where you pick who to book with along with their prices.