Us To Phuket .. Clear Immigration & Customs On Phuket?

[pumper]

is it possible to fly from the us to phuket without clearing immigration & customs in bkk?

luggage checked through to phuket .. no lugging luggage around bkk airport?

thanks

i prefer to fly eva evergreen class transpacific.

i posted to the thai travel forum but got no responses in 4 days

[choppychugger]

Phuket is an International airport, if you are booked through to it, then it is there that you will clear through customs/immigration.

[ade100]

Yep, customs and immigration would be done at Phuket. However whether or not you have to reclaim your baggage and check it in again at BKK depends on whether both legs of the flight are with the same airline (or at least airlines that are code sharing)

[Quero]

is it possible to fly from the us to phuket without clearing immigration & customs in bkk?

luggage checked through to phuket .. no lugging luggage around bkk airport?

thanks

i prefer to fly eva evergreen class transpacific.

i posted to the thai travel forum but got no responses in 4 days

Sorry to be a voice of dissent from the other responses, but I travel back and forth to the US several times a year, and things have changed since Suvarnabumi opened. The information the others have given you is outdated.

Unless Phuket is your first port of entry into Thailand, you will NOT clear immigration here at Phuket airport. Only passengers to Phuket on flights originating outside the country (Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, charters, etc.) clear immigration here. If you are on a flight that transits through BKK, you will clear immigration as you go to the domestic-side gate for the flight that will bring you from Bangkok to Phuket. However, if your luggage is inter-lined (tagged HKT and checked through) you will clear customs here! I know, it's bizzarre, but that's the way it is. Your luggage transits as international baggage, but you transit as domestic passengers.

After you deplane in Bangkok, it's important that you NOT use the regular immigration lines (which will take you to BKK baggage claim). Rather follow the signs in the International Terminal that direct you to Domestic Transfers (look for signs that list domestic destinations in a short column). You will come to a transfer desk to the right (get your boarding pass here if you don't already have one) and an escalator that goes up to lounges and commerce, and I believe some international gates. Beyond the escalator and the transfer desk is the immigration section where you will officially enter Thailand and get your passport stamped and then walk into the domestic terminal.

There's one other little bit of BKK airport information you should have: you may only go through immigration shortly (an hour or so) before your flight boards. If you arrive at BKK several hours before your domestic flight, find a nice place to relax in the international terminal (EVA lounge upstairs?), and present your passport when passengers from your flight are permitted to pass through. You will be asked to put a sticker on your clothing that indicates you must clear customs with your baggage on arrival at Phuket.

Finally, when you arrive at HKT (Phuket), you will walk out of the baggage claim area you first enter when you deplane (this is only for domestic passengers) through a set of glass doors, turn left, and then walk into the international baggage claim area next door (through a matching set of glass doors). This means you pass the customs officers on the way in, get your stuff from the carroussel and then walk past them to exit, again through the same glass doors you passed through to get in.

[pumper]

thanks guys!

I'm going to call eva (they have excellant support for evergreen club members) to see what they suggest for the BKK - phuket hop.

it's been a while since i used a travel agent .. been booking through eva's site for several years now.

a travel agent will probably make things easier .. & maybe I can still fly 'evergreen class'.

i'll be bummed to fly economy again .. the evergreen class trans pacific is the best $200 I spend.

maybe eva has a suggestion taipei - phuket..

I'll post the results o my calls.

[pumper]

eva evergrren support says go through a travel agent.

they have an 'arrangement' with thai airlines .. but no way to make connection arrangements through direct booking.

which means eva evergreen will be priced much higher ..

i guess overcomiong the obsticles are 1/2 the fun

seems i remember cathy pacific has connections to phuket without going through bkk..

[geriatrickid]

I think there is a different treatment for people that fly the whole trip on TG or a Star Alliance partner. All of my previous flights have been on TG tix and the transfers went like clockwork.

Last month I flew LAX-TPE-BKK arriving at 11:05 and making the 14:05 connection to HKT. This was on EVA/Thai BR15-BR211-TG213. EVA will tag the bag to HKT using TPE-BKK-HKT. Read mfiskong's post again as it is good advice. It was a bit of a screwup for me though. I went to the Thai desk to get my boarding pass and was told, no sorry, go through customs and checkin upstairs in terminal for my TG pass. And that's what I did literally scurrying to the other end of the terminal, after exiting at the BKK arrivals and baggage gate with everyone else and then going to TG checkin. It's about a 15 minute quick pace hike.

Was it a screw up on my part, maybe, or perhaps I had to do this because I had booked my EVA ticket off of one website and my Thai tickets from Exp....., so had two seperate tickets. (Yes that's right, I snagged better deals for once on non airline sites.)

Please pay close attention to where you pickup your bags. I had thought my bag was lost since it was priority tagged and wasn't coming out (but then my bags never seems to get priority handling) After nearly crapping myself and worrying for 10 minutes I finally found a baggage person who said, no silly man go to International pick up.

Usually when I come in via SFO I overnight at the Novotel since it's 1:40 and the next flight out is at 7:30 I think. Unfortunately, this strategy sux at times since the flights are all sold out until the afternoon, which is the case for me next whiparound on the 16th.

As an aside, I am impressed by EVA. The 777 service from LAX is cheaper and more comfortable than TG's (plus you can get that 16:30 flight). Beats EVA's 747 clunker service from SFO anyday.

[Quero]

I think there is a different treatment for people that fly the whole trip on TG or a Star Alliance partner. All of my previous flights have been on TG tix and the transfers went like clockwork.

Last month I flew LAX-TPE-BKK arriving at 11:05 and making the 14:05 connection to HKT. This was on EVA/Thai BR15-BR211-TG213. EVA will tag the bag to HKT using TPE-BKK-HKT. Read mfiskong's post again as it is good advice. It was a bit of a screwup for me though. I went to the Thai desk to get my boarding pass and was told, no sorry, go through customs and checkin upstairs in terminal for my TG pass. And that's what I did literally scurrying to the other end of the terminal, after exiting at the BKK arrivals and baggage gate with everyone else and then going to TG checkin. It's about a 15 minute quick pace hike.

Was it a screw up on my part, maybe, or perhaps I had to do this because I had booked my EVA ticket off of one website and my Thai tickets from Exp....., so had two seperate tickets. (Yes that's right, I snagged better deals for once on non airline sites.)

I think it was just a screw up, not a difference in treatment because you weren't on a Star Alliance flight coming in. About 10 days ago I arrived on a non-Star flight originating in Sao Paulo (and transiting a third country, of course) and connected to a TG flight for which I had booked passage via the TG website while I was still in Brazil--so two different ticket records. It was simply a matter of presenting all my e-tickets at the counter in Sao Paulo, checking my bag all the way through to HKT, picking up an orange (transit) TG boarding pass from the transfer desk at BKK, waiting 4 hours in TG lounge upstairs, clearing immigration on the way to the gate, clearing customs at HKT, and then driving home! All in all it took 32 hours