Booking Online Thai Airways

[phayao]

On the Thai Airways web site there is NO POSSIBILITY of booking ex-Don Muang flights; are they going to be transfered again to Suwanaphum?

I was surprised that IT IS CHEAPER to buy tickets from their offices than on-line, any reason?

Also I booked a MAD-BKK flight last March for this last October and I choosed the seats to be surprised that the seats had been assigned to some others, next time I'll be the first at the check-in and I won't trust them.

[flightcrew1]

On the Thai Airways web site there is NO POSSIBILITY of booking ex-Don Muang flights; are they going to be transfered again to Suwanaphum?

I was surprised that IT IS CHEAPER to buy tickets from their offices than on-line, any reason?

Also I booked a MAD-BKK flight last March for this last October and I choosed the seats to be surprised that the seats had been assigned to some others, next time I'll be the first at the check-in and I won't trust them.

I'm not surprised. The TG website is just not user friendly. Very slow and always has high fares. Several times I've checked online for fares to find extremely high fares. Went to the office and they were able to give me a cheaper fare by calling yield management all within moments. Same with the seats. When booking my seats which I thought was confirmed but showed up at the airport and they were reassigned. One time I went to the office to be told if I went to Siam they were having a promotion that could only be done there. Go figure.

[Governor]

You can actually book flights from Don Mueang but only for domestic flights, you have to click onto the domestic tab then you can book all the flights they have out of Don Mueang.

I have often found that it possible to book flights through agents cheaper than the Thai website, this is of course not unusual with many airlines in many countries, but it is strange that the Thai call centre is often cheaper than their website as they often have access to deals not available n the web site.

[wileycoyote]

I agree,the problem is ,if you are "upcountry " and away from a TG office,you have to depend on the website.

I hope you are right about the transfer from Don Muang

Wiley Coyote

[lopburi3]

I don't know if it is still the case but Thai used to have a short validity ticket for sale in country cheaper than the normal one year fares of website so that might explain the web site/agent price difference.

[Rinrada]

I have booked with Thai on line but more hassle than it worth..prices are crazy. ..and had too many follow up arguments with them.......better to go with the likes of Airline N/W -Ebookers /West east..etc (in UK)

On occasions however I have nipped into thir offices down at Green Park (off Piccadilly)and negotiated with the guys and supprise got what i wanted..usually with a combination of birthday awards/upgrades etc....all down to the when they cut the air miles for 'cheapos' to 50 %

Convinced that TG cheap tic offers in London contribute to pay off and must be part of the national debt....

Last jolli from CM however we booked a good one (at CM airport) to Bangers on TG for 1300bt each..incl.taxes.....so

case of swings and rounda...b......

[Martian]

On the Thai Airways web site there is NO POSSIBILITY of booking ex-Don Muang flights; are they going to be transfered again to Suwanaphum?

I was surprised that IT IS CHEAPER to buy tickets from their offices than on-line, any reason?

Also I booked a MAD-BKK flight last March for this last October and I choosed the seats to be surprised that the seats had been assigned to some others, next time I'll be the first at the check-in and I won't trust them.

Just this past October I booked a 3-leg flight itinerary within Thailand with my best friend's wife (Thai Airways ticket agent) and even she couldn't arrange for my seat choice to be guaranteed. Moved after booking. Somehow, somewhere, somebody has the authority or know-how to bump people around and they do it all the time. She couldn't get tickets any cheaper than the "Discover Thailand" promo going on at that time.

Martian

[onethailand]

Thai Airways actually has some good fares online - the trouble is that if the flight is quite full, you won't see the good fares, only the most expensive ones. I can confirm that I have had a similar ticket by Thais' site, at the airport, and from an agent, all at nearly equivalent prices within the past year.

As for seating - if you do not book at least 72 hours in advance, your seat will not be confirmed, the only way is if you go and check in online within 24 hours. Sometimes, however, they will still change your seat depending on their requirements, and unfortunately, they have the right to do so. If they do, however, just bitch and moan, you might end up with a seat in a higher class if the person you get handling the case is in a good mood.

[wudangtiger]

Anyone had any issues with using air miles for booking through the website? I had to email the service desk and of course they told me no seats were available.

I too have found the site extremely slow.

[onethailand]

Redeeming your FF points online was actually really good, until last week when the minimum advance time changed from 2 days to 6 (coincidentally, the same day I was making a booking, and delayed a wee bit too long).

And yes - seats were available - so I surmise the quota for your particular flight was used up. Best thing is to call Reservations and tell them you want to redeem an award - it worked very well last week when I had no other choice - and even with only a day's advance warning.

As for the site being slow - there are a number of reasons, unfortunately, which cause this, and it has been a nuisance for over a year.

One of the problems is going to thaiairways.com - try to avoid this - go to thaiair.com and that will solve many of the speed problems. The other speed problem is when making the search in the first place, as it has to connect externally to e-travel.com (which belongs to the Amadeus reservations system) - and e-travel.com is often overloaded. No way to avoid this, unfortunately.

Couple more notes - when you cannot get a decent fare on their site it is always worth trying to call them, as flightcrew said - I suspect this may be because the automatic cutoff for a fare class is a bit lower than what is actually available.

Also - if you can't get a cheap fare, and the system says that one of the legs is in business class - try to book the whole trip in business class and it might actually end up cheaper! Today I tried to book to Manila - and got quoted just over 40K baht for economy outbound and business inbound. Completely outrageous, of course. So I said "the hel_l with it" and went back and tried the whole trip in business - and was shocked to find that this only cost 36,400 baht...

In the end, though, I didn't book it - because I got business class on Philippine Airlines, round trip, for 20,800 baht...

Edited December 11, 2007 by onethailand

[phayao]

Thank you so much to all for the information provided. It's very useful to have a forum like this. I wish I can provide you with my findings in the future.

[stiffoak571]

I tried to book online - said the flights were ok but there was no way to pay! then got message that I had to go in person to a Thai office to "confirm" and pick up tickets.

Luckily I was in London the next day so made detour to the office off Piccadilly and paid and got ticket with seats assigned but seems very longwinded compared to Easy Jet - what if I lived miles away and never went to London!

[geriatrickid]

Interesting. The international server usually provides same price for all 5 fare classes as any of the major and not so major search engines. What I have found is that some of the large monolithic engines will provide seats on a flight that can show as unavailable or sold out on the TG website. This is noticeable on the BKK-HKT route in particular.

One thing to keep in mind though is sometimes seats are put aside for the "feeder" routes and are made available only to foreign purchasers. TG is tied into the Star Alliance ticketing program and I believe that what you see is also done by other Star Alliance member carriers.