Air Tickets Prices Higher When Bought Inside Thailand

[Marvo]

Who can sort this one for me?

A couple of years ago I noticed that it was a little cheaper to buy my return air tickets in baht in Thailand so I just bought a single from (Birmingham-BHX) the UK to BKK, followed by returns to the UK from BKK.

Just checked Emirates flights from BKK to the UK:

BKK > BHX return fare 54,805 baht = £869

But if I enter the same travel dates (or any dates!) for doing the trip the other way round (ie starting in the UK)...

BHX > BKK the return fare as quoted = £598 - that's a £271 difference for doing the same legs of the journey but the other way round!!! This is obviously no good to me as I want to start departing from Bangkok, but why the HUGE difference in fares between the same two destinations?

[bartender100]

I just brought a return ticket for November Lon-Bkk direct with BA/Qantas for £540 on this Australian website.Which I thought was a bargin.

https://www.bestflights.com.au

You can use them wherever you are, my e-ticket was issued immediately

[onethailand]

There are a number of reasons that could cause this - the most common being that the booking class is different, even though it still results in an economy class seat. There are usually 4-5 booking classes for economy.

In order to narrow it down, you'd have to say which booking class was used for each ticket.

[Marvo]

I just brought a return ticket for November Lon-Bkk direct with BA/Qantas for £540 on this Australian website.Which I thought was a bargin.

https://www.bestflights.com.au

You can use them wherever you are, my e-ticket was issued immediately

Thanks for the link BT, but the cheapest flight there is Swiss International at $1,969.

Guess it's not my day/week/month.

[Briggsy]

The link in post #2 will be removed, I predict.

[PennyFarthing123]

The difference could be whether it is considered low, high or shoulder season for where you are going. So if you bought a ticket in the UK going to Thailand it could be low season where if you bought the ticket in Thailand going to the UK it might be high season. It all depends on where you originate that determines the season used.

[onethailand]

OP said same travel dates.

[wileycoyote]

I get riled ,when I am in the UK & try to TG/Air Asia Domestics & taxes start appearing because booking outside Thailand.

[Marvo]

Update:

OK, I been talking to Emirates. In the past I've changed flight dates free of charge (if they fall within the validity period of the ticket) so I thought I'd look for a crafty solution to the problem. I asked for a quote over the phone, with the Emirates office in the UK, for a return flight: Bangkok(BKK) to Birmingham (BHX), and rtn to BKK.

Price given £869.

I then set up a booking for a return flight on the same dates (flight numbers exactly matching the above enquiry) the other way around: FROM Birmingham(BHX) to Bangkok(BKK) and rtn to Birmingham.

Price quoted £598. So far so good.

I then asked if I could change the dates after this ticket had been purchased and was told "yes I can".

So, I said I wanted to change the outward date to the inward date and change the inward date to the outward date. Simple.

"Oh I'm sorry sir you cannot do that" was the reply, of course. I got some explanation that "the originating airport/country could not be changed and the huge difference in the fares was down to the fees and taxes charged differently at the two different originating airports". But come on... £271 for goodness sake!

So there you have it. It seems it's still no problem for Europeans to fly TO Thailand, but those of us based here all going to be forking out extra to get back to see the folks over there.

[onethailand]

Haha - good try But reversing the dates, as they pointed out, is tantamount to changing the origination point.

Each country has different rules relating to pricing structure - whether it involves simple supply and demand, or various taxes or surcharges imposed by the airport, regulatory authority, or government, this is usually set by the airline.

The fare that is charged in the end is tied to the origination of the first leg.

I must admit, however, that there is a huge gap there, and to be honest I highly doubt that the Thailand side charges more for origination than the UK side. If anything, taxes and fees should be less.

[lomatopo]

You playing with several variables, some of which have been highlighted:

Where is the ticket to be issued?

In which currency?

Are the fare bases exactly the same?

I suspect OP is comparing two different economy fare buckets, as has been pointed out by a previous poster, owing to availability.

Airlines price city-pairs individually and you need to accept the fact that BHX-BKK-BHX is different than BKK-BHX-BKK. Just for grins I priced these two city pairs, and while it is physically impossible to interchange the dates I came up with a small difference. Note that I opted to have the ticket issued in BHX in GBP for both.

Birmingham, United Kingdom to Bangkok, Thailand: 6525 miles 15 hrs 45 min

Emirates Flight EK40 on a Boeing 777 (jet) in coach class

(meal)

Departs Birmingham, United Kingdom (BHX) Mon, Oct 27 1:20p 6 hrs 55 min

Arrives Dubai, United Arab Emirates (DXB) Tue, Oct 28 12:15a

1 adult in booking code B, covered by fare (A1) below

Layover in Dubai 3 hrs 0 min

Emirates Flight EK384 on a Boeing 777 (jet) in coach class

Departs Dubai, United Arab Emirates (DXB) Tue, Oct 28 3:15a 5 hrs 50 min

Arrives Bangkok, Thailand (BKK) 12:05p

1 adult in booking code B, covered by fare (A1) below

Note: The flight from Dubai (DXB) to Bangkok (BKK) leaves early in the morning.

Note: There is an overnight stop in Dubai (DXB).

Bangkok, Thailand to Birmingham, United Kingdom: 6525 miles 17 hrs 10 min

Emirates Flight EK385 on a Boeing 777 (jet) in coach class

Departs Bangkok, Thailand (BKK) Wed, Nov 26 1:30a 6 hrs 30 min

Arrives Dubai, United Arab Emirates (DXB) 5:00a

1 adult in booking code M, covered by fare (A2) below

Layover in Dubai 3 hrs 5 min

Emirates Flight EK39 on a Boeing 777 (jet) in coach class

(meal)

Departs Dubai, United Arab Emirates (DXB) Wed, Nov 26 8:05a 7 hrs 35 min

Arrives Birmingham, United Kingdom (BHX) 11:40a

1 adult in booking code M, covered by fare (A2) below

Note: The flight from Bangkok (BKK) to Dubai (DXB) arrives early in the morning.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Booking details

If you want to buy this ticket, contact the airline (Emirates: 1-800-777-3999) or a travel agent. If you use a travel agent to buy this ticket:

If your travel agent is online and has an e-mail address, e-mail this itinerary to them

If your travel agent is not online, print out this page and fax/give it to them

It is very important to use exactly the same booking codes and fare codes that we've used on this page in order to match the price we've found.

Fare (A1): EK BHXBKK BBP1YGB1 fare (rules) , psgr type ADT £268.00

Fare (A2): EK BKKBHX MBP1YGB1 fare (rules) , psgr type ADT £316.50

Tax: United Kingdom Air Passengers Duty £40.00

Tax: United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge £11.10

Tax: Thailand Passenger Service Charge THB 700

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total for 1 adult passenger: £646.40

(as of Saturday, September 6, 2008 4:33am)

Fare construction (sometimes useful to travel agents):

BHX EK X/DXB EK BKK 525.24BBP1YGB1 EK X/DXB EK BHX 620.29MBP1YGB1 NUC 1145.53 END ROE 0.510239 FARE GBP 584.00 XT 40.00GB 11.10UB 11.30TS

Bangkok, Thailand to Birmingham, United Kingdom: 6525 miles 17 hrs 10 min

Emirates Flight EK385 on a Boeing 777 (jet) in coach class

Departs Bangkok, Thailand (BKK) Mon, Oct 27 1:30a 6 hrs 30 min

Arrives Dubai, United Arab Emirates (DXB) 5:00a

1 adult in booking code M, covered by fare (A1) below

Layover in Dubai 3 hrs 5 min

Emirates Flight EK39 on a Boeing 777 (jet) in coach class

(meal)

Departs Dubai, United Arab Emirates (DXB) Mon, Oct 27 8:05a 7 hrs 35 min

Arrives Birmingham, United Kingdom (BHX) 11:40a

1 adult in booking code M, covered by fare (A1) below

Note: The flight from Bangkok (BKK) to Dubai (DXB) arrives early in the morning.

Birmingham, United Kingdom to Bangkok, Thailand: 6525 miles 15 hrs 45 min

Emirates Flight EK40 on a Boeing 777 (jet) in coach class

(meal)

Departs Birmingham, United Kingdom (BHX) Wed, Nov 26 1:20p 6 hrs 55 min

Arrives Dubai, United Arab Emirates (DXB) Thur, Nov 27 12:15a

1 adult in booking code M, covered by fare (A2) below

Layover in Dubai 3 hrs 0 min

Emirates Flight EK384 on a Boeing 777 (jet) in coach class

Departs Dubai, United Arab Emirates (DXB) Thur, Nov 27 3:15a 5 hrs 50 min

Arrives Bangkok, Thailand (BKK) 12:05p

1 adult in booking code M, covered by fare (A2) below

Note: The flight from Dubai (DXB) to Bangkok (BKK) leaves early in the morning.

Note: There is an overnight stop in Dubai (DXB).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Booking details

If you want to buy this ticket, contact the airline (Emirates: 1-800-777-3999) or a travel agent. If you use a travel agent to buy this ticket:

If your travel agent is online and has an e-mail address, e-mail this itinerary to them

If your travel agent is not online, print out this page and fax/give it to them

It is very important to use exactly the same booking codes and fare codes that we've used on this page in order to match the price we've found.

Fare (A1): EK BKKBHX M3EBATH1 fare (rules) THB 19000

Fare (A2): EK BHXBKK M3EBATH1 fare (rules) THB 19000

Tax: Thailand Passenger Service Charge THB 700

Tax: United Kingdom Air Passengers Duty £40.00

Tax: United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge £11.10

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total for 1 adult passenger: £677.40

(as of Saturday, September 6, 2008 4:35am)

Fare construction (sometimes useful to travel agents):

BKK EK X/DXB EK BHX 575.47M3EBATH1 EK X/DXB EK BKK 575.47M3EBATH1 NUC 1150.94 END ROE 33.016 FARE THB 38000 EQU GBP 615.00 XT 40.00GB 11.10UB 11.30TS

[libya 115]

Fly to London with Qatar Airways for 535 quid and pre-book a Virgin Train London-Birmingham for 3 quid special advance purchase.

[helitool]

25 years ago air tickets were 1/2 the price here in LOS than in the USA. So when I needed a ticket to get back from there to Thailand I would call the wife and have here buy it in Chiang Mai and have the airline issue it at their terminal at LAX. Boy, was I PO'ed when they finally plugged that loop hole!

[Marvo]

You playing with several variables, some of which have been highlighted:

Where is the ticket to be issued?

In which currency?

Are the fare bases exactly the same?

I suspect OP is comparing two different economy fare buckets, as has been pointed out by a previous poster, owing to availability.

It can't have anything to do with availability. Book to fly next week or next year, it's the same.

[Marvo]

Airlines price city-pairs individually and you need to accept the fact that BHX-BKK-BHX is different than BKK-BHX-BKK. Just for grins I priced these two city pairs, and while it is physically impossible to interchange the dates I came up with a small difference. Note that I opted to have the ticket issued in BHX in GBP for both.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total for 1 adult passenger: £646.40

(as of Saturday, September 6, 2008 4:33am)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total for 1 adult passenger: £677.40

(as of Saturday, September 6, 2008 4:35am)

Thanks for your detailed breakdown lomatopo.

If you don't mind, could you do the same exercise for the two city pairs traveling:

Thu 30th October '08 returning Thu 26th Feb '09

Using flights EK038/EK372 & EK385/EK039

Cheers.

[lomatopo]

Sorry I didn't take the time to explain fully as it is a fairly complex subject but airlines have many Economy fare buckets, and when one sells out you need to move to a higher priced bucket. Hence book this week to fly this week, low priced fare bucket sold out, book this week to fly in 6 months low priced fare bucket still available.

Note these two:

Fare (A1): EK BHXBKK BBP1YGB1 fare (rules) , psgr type ADT £268.00

Fare (A2): EK BKKBHX MBP1YGB1 fare (rules) , psgr type ADT £316.50

The less expensive bucket, in this case "B", has sold out for A2 BKK-BHX, so you have to pay more for the next fare bucket up, an "M"..

You can price airfares yourself, use the QPX engine here:

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch

log in as a guest.

[toptuan]

This same issue was discussed some time ago on ThaiVisa, and I remember a fairly good work-around, assuming you go back to your home country at least annually:

Step 1: For your next trip back to the home country, buy a one-way ticket departing from BKK. This may be a little higher than normal, but you only have to do it once, using this scenario.

Step 2: When arriving in your home country, buy a round-trip open-end return ticket to LOS at, hopefully, the lesser price usually charged outside LOS.

Step 3: Fly back to LOS on the first leg of the round trip ticket, and hold the return ticket for the next time you want to travel to your home country. Most open-end return tickets are good for up to a year.

For each successive trip repeat steps 2 & 3.

See any flaws/pitfalls I'm not seeing? (Other than the big money up front for 3 trips?)

Edited September 6, 2008 by toptuan

[onethailand]

Step 3: Fly back to LOS on the first leg of the round trip ticket, and hold the return ticket for the next time you want to travel to your home country. Most open-end return tickets are good for up to a year.

Most likely this is not correct. A one-year ticket is at the top of the booking classes, or fare buckets as lomatopo referred to. The discounted tickets will have a 3-month validity (rarely less for this distance, but there may occasionally be a 1-month validity fare available).

More than likely the fare being quoted has a 3- or 6-month validity max, and may carry other restrictions such as penalty for change of date, no open date, etc.

[Marvo]

Emirates have a 3 month validity ticket in the special offers section for 38,000 baht but I'm staying for 4 months so I need the regular 1 year ticket that is going for 55,000 baht. You can change flying dates FOC anytime within that year. A one way ticket is 39,000 baht BTW

Edited September 7, 2008 by Marvo

[IMA_FARANG]

Who can sort this one for me?

A couple of years ago I noticed that it was a little cheaper to buy my return air tickets in baht in Thailand so I just bought a single from (Birmingham-BHX) the UK to BKK, followed by returns to the UK from BKK.

Just checked Emirates flights from BKK to the UK:

BKK > BHX return fare 54,805 baht = £869

But if I enter the same travel dates (or any dates!) for doing the trip the other way round (ie starting in the UK)...

BHX > BKK the return fare as quoted = £598 - that's a £271 difference for doing the same legs of the journey but the other way round!!! This is obviously no good to me as I want to start departing from Bangkok, but why the HUGE difference in fares between the same two destinations?

I've been traveling from Europe to Bangkok for the last 20 years about twice a year, and I've found just the opposite to be true. There is one caveat...that out of the U.K. cheap fares are available but with important restrictions. If you want to travel on a certain day, and can't modify your travel the best deals are usually with travel agents. If you are flexible enough to travel on one of those 'special' cheap flights you may be able to get a better fare. but always remember...as they say.... 'special flight seating or requirements may apply'.

Thai International fares quoted on the Thai websites are outrageouly high. My local travel agent here in Greece can book Thai International flights for about 20% less than the quoted Thai International flight rates on the Thai website. I'm not sure why.

The biggest savings I've found about buying tickets in BKK from the travel agents is that many times you pay either low or non-existant sales taxes and other national taxes. for example, when I used to travel from Copenhagen to BKK, I usually bought a return ticket from my travel agent in BKK instead of buying that ticket in denmark. The reason was the EU tax on tickets I had to pay in Denmark.

The one caveat, as I said, is that the U.K. has an active low fare air travel industry. That isn't the case in other parts of Europe. Getting a fare at 200 pounds lower to BKK from England is of little use to me if it costs me 150 pounds to go from Athens to London first. And then if I have to select only certain dates or accept fare and travel restrictions it is not a bargin I need. Example: a special low price fare that requires me to spend at least 14 days in Thailand is no value if I have only a 10 day vacation break, and I must return to work on the 11th day, is it.

[londonthai]

Thanks for the link BT, but the cheapest flight there is Swiss International at $1,969.

Guess it's not my day/week/month.

check the other dates:

1145 AUDs = 529.93 GBPs

Qantas Airways (QF2)

11h 10m London - Heathrow [LHR]

21:45 18-Nov-2008 Bangkok [bKK]

15:55 19-Nov-2008 $1,135

($720 +$415 taxes)

Book This Trip

FLIGHTS

BACK

Qantas Airways Qantas Airways (QF1)

12h 50m Bangkok [bKK]

00:35 02-Dec-2008 London - Heathrow [LHR]

06:25 02-Dec-2008

for those same dates I have booked directly with EVA for £572 - advantage, that I can change a return date and can earn airmiles. If you are booking with the travel agents you don't have this rights

Edited September 7, 2008 by londonthai

[onethailand]

If you are booking with the travel agents you don't have this rights

This is not correct. Any ticket that the airline can change, the agent can change, and vice-versa. If an agent cannot change the ticket but the airline can, the change will incur a penalty.

Edited September 7, 2008 by onethailand

[zorro1]

cant comment about UK but Thai Air is around the same whether booked ex Sydney or BKK. major difference is no penalties if booked ex BKK for date changes and no shows and only 2000 bht to Cancel ticket. Big difference ex Sydney. $100 for date changes and non refundable tickets. I'm talking the basic cheapest class here

[bartender100]

The link in post #2 will be removed, I predict.

Why would my link be removed, its a viable option to book a flight, i believe i have got a real bargain on BA for £540, and wanted to pass it on.Since i posted the Pound has tanked so that now might a difference to the final price

[Meg_2003]

You playing with several variables, some of which have been highlighted:

Where is the ticket to be issued?

In which currency?

Are the fare bases exactly the same?

I suspect OP is comparing two different economy fare buckets, as has been pointed out by a previous poster, owing to availability.

It can't have anything to do with availability. Book to fly next week or next year, it's the same.

This is not true, A friend needed a flight to the UK Urgently last week. She paid 62,000 baht for a flight leaving 2 days after she booked it. This was for a normal economy class flight to Manchester.

[bartender100]

For those that are looking to book in Nov, the site i posted still is showing around £540 for BA direct from Lon, no other direct flight with a major comes close.

[Ricardo]

For what it's worth, I just got 31,000 Baht for BKK-LGW-BKK with Qatar Airways mid-week in November, that's about GBP500 at the current exchange-rate. But it took a lot of searching to obtain this price ... which is close to UK-BKK-UK prices.

Thai's web-site quoted 60,000 Baht ... guess that nobody actually books direct on that always-expensive site, unless the company is paying.

[egg]

Who can sort this one for me?

A couple of years ago I noticed that it was a little cheaper to buy my return air tickets in baht in Thailand so I just bought a single from (Birmingham-BHX) the UK to BKK, followed by returns to the UK from BKK.

Just checked Emirates flights from BKK to the UK:

BKK > BHX return fare 54,805 baht = £869

But if I enter the same travel dates (or any dates!) for doing the trip the other way round (ie starting in the UK)...

BHX > BKK the return fare as quoted = £598 - that's a £271 difference for doing the same legs of the journey but the other way round!!! This is obviously no good to me as I want to start departing from Bangkok, but why the HUGE difference in fares between the same two destinations?

l think recently there was a post on here somewhere about special fares from London/Bangkok return for 399 pound,, use before end of Sept, , l didn't know if it was cheap or not then,,,, seems to be now ,,,, not sure of the airline ,,, think it was Ettihard or something like that ,,,,, sorry l cannot be more specific

cheers

egg

[Marvo]

Sure there are some good deals around for flights returning within 1, 2 or 3 months. But if you want a 4-6 month stay in Blighty then the fare, when booked in Thailand, really jumps.