Upgrade Thai Airwas ticket with bonuspoints

[Vandk]

I live in Pattaya and have a return ticket home to Danmark with Thai Airways, now i want to upgrade my ticket with my bonuspoints from Thai Airways but nowhwere i found usable information how to do, the Thai webadresse i contactet do not even reply to my request.

Any body have a clue how to do ?

[Upnotover]

You should find what you need on here;

https://www.thaiairways.com/en_TH/rop/Redeeming/Redeeming_Award_UpgradeAwards_onTHAI.page?

[JackGats]

I had the same problem. The Royal Orchid website had a button to upgrade a Star Alliance flight with miles, but no button for redeeming miles with respect to a Thai Airways flight. An absurdity.

Edited September 6 by JackGats

[Upnotover]

It is suggested elsewhere that if you enter 'Manage My Booking' the option to upgrade exists somewhere in your booking.  Worth a look.  Hopefully you booked direct.  Failing that call them, I always found their phone service was pretty good.

[MajorTom]

Avoid Thai Airways. Or any star alliance. I have been on gold tier in 4 different systems over the years.

Including Star Alliance: Never a free upgrade with Thai Airways. Not possible to use miles to upgrade from one carrier to another etc. And, its a lot harder to earn any status in star alliance vs. Emirates Skywards or Qatar Privilege Club. Where its also a lot more common to receive free upgrades, if you have any tier status.

[Keeps]

13 minutes ago, MajorTom said:

Avoid Thai Airways. Or any star alliance. I have been on gold tier in 4 different systems over the years.

Including Star Alliance: Never a free upgrade with Thai Airways. Not possible to use miles to upgrade from one carrier to another etc. And, its a lot harder to earn any status in star alliance vs. Emirates Skywards or Qatar Privilege Club. Where its also a lot more common to receive free upgrades, if you have any tier status.

I am a Star Alliance Gold card member, originally from joining the EVA Air Evergreen Rewards program. 

 

I think the membership program is excellent. I fly EVA 3 or 4 times per year on the LHR-BKK-LHR route. I accumulate a lot of miles and also get them boosted by my membership tier level. I regularly use miles to upgrade cabin class. This is normally instant although there has been the odd occasion when I have been placed on a waiting list. However, I have never been refused the upgrade.

 

I have just redeemed 35,000 points to upgrade from Premium Economy to Royal Laurel class on the BKK-LHR leg of a return journey in March next year. When booking the original flight, I had to pay around £100 more for a booking class which allowed points redemption. The price difference between cabin classes would have been in excess of £1,000.

 

The one element I find pretty poor is when you redeem points against flight cost. For the 35,000 points I redeemed I would have only got maybe, £200 off the flight cost.

 

I used to get free upgrades on occasions but haven't since Covid. I wouldn't expect free upgrades just because I fly the same airline 3 or 4 times per year although it would of course be nice and gratefully received. I also find it extremely easy to maintain my Gold Tier status just based on my current frequency of flying with Eva. 

 

All in all I find it to be a worthwhile program. Points aside, the tier level provides priority check-in, priority boarding, priority baggage service and lounge access.