A Guide To Air Asia Fees,compare Against Thai Airways

[roamer]

This is a followup I thought I would start a new thread on as the existing thread is getting older and is all over the place. This is not a post about the merits of AA and Thai or other domestic or SEA carriers, its aim is to make some information available to let people decide whats best for them.

Air Asia in common with many other LCC's (Low cost carriers) have supplementary fees that are added onto the booking process as you go leaving the end ticket price higher. The new charge that people have been complaining about is the baggage handling charge introduced this year. The rights and wrongs of it are one thing but in the link below you will see clearly these and other charges fully detailed. Do things right on your booking, not just clicking through and you will find that although it costs you 214THB to check one bag up to 15K if you prebook you can actually take 30k for a mere 535THB. Turn up with 30K not pre booked then get ready to pay excess charges. Personally I find it hard to see when booking a flight how its possible to miss this but judging by complaints on the other thread people do. You can use the chart below to calculate this and other fees without having to go through the motions of making a booking.

AIR ASIA FEES

Flight prices. Another common argument is how X airline is often cheaper than Y, often in this case Thai versus Air Asia. Try using the flightscanner below and you will be returned the best prices for any airline. Its very handy as it covers LCC's which most other scanners do not. Although I find Kayak best for long haul flights this is definitely the best for SEAsia as it covers airlines like AA, Tiger, Lao as well as the major carriers.

Skyscanner

Hope the above links and info useful. Plenty of other open threads for those who want to gripe ad nauseum about the way LCC's go about their business.

[ricardofel]

That's fine if you are only flying domestically on AirAsia. If you are connecting from overseas and have 2 checked bags....then prepare to be charged outrageous fees for the 2nd bag.....I believe 83 baht per kilo....so for a 20 kilo bag you are charged an additional 1660 baht on top of your ticket price plus the 535 baht fee for 1 bag. That's over 3000 baht for a one-way ticket!!!!! I now fly Thai!!! No problem checking 2 bags!

[PattayaParent]

^Why not book 2 checked bags?

[britmaveric]

Travel light and no problem

[roamer]

That's fine if you are only flying domestically on AirAsia. If you are connecting from overseas and have 2 checked bags....then prepare to be charged outrageous fees for the 2nd bag.....I believe 83 baht per kilo....so for a 20 kilo bag you are charged an additional 1660 baht on top of your ticket price plus the 535 baht fee for 1 bag. That's over 3000 baht for a one-way ticket!!!!! I now fly Thai!!! No problem checking 2 bags!

^Why not book 2 checked bags?

Ricardofel, That's not the case with the new system if you have prebooked your bags.

"Less for more - that’s what Supersize baggage is all about. Coming into effect from 13th January 2009 onwards, Supersize Baggage will allow guests to check-in more weight for greater value.

What’s cool about Supersize

1. Now instead of paying for your baggage by piece, you’ll be paying for the accumulated weight of your bags.

2. You’ll have greater flexibility in your baggage weight with Supersize Regular, Supersize Medium and Supersize Large.

3. You’ll be able to Supersize your baggage up to 24 hours prior to the scheduled departure time.

4. You can carry more at much greater value and you can save up to 50% when you book online! "

Air Asia FAQs

So if you have prebooked your 20 Kilos doesn't matter if its in 1 or 2 bags, don't see where the connecting internationally bit comes into it ? I fly LHR-KUL on MAS with 2 bags then transfer to Air Asia fly to Langkawi and BKK with two prebooked bags.

[Millard]

Thank Roamer, especially for the Skyscanner link.

[roamer]

Thank Roamer, especially for the Skyscanner link.

Your welcome. Hope it gets you as many bargains as it has for me.

[needforspeed]

Travel light and no problem

Yes you have if you are a tall person, except if you where working for Cirque Du Soleil so you can put your legs behind your neck

[madmitch]

That's fine if you are only flying domestically on AirAsia. If you are connecting from overseas and have 2 checked bags....then prepare to be charged outrageous fees for the 2nd bag.....I believe 83 baht per kilo....so for a 20 kilo bag you are charged an additional 1660 baht on top of your ticket price plus the 535 baht fee for 1 bag. That's over 3000 baht for a one-way ticket!!!!! I now fly Thai!!! No problem checking 2 bags!

Are you sure?

I have never had a problem checking two bags in with Air Asia, provided the combined weight is within the allowance.

It may have changed but I have not seen anything about this.

[needforspeed]

That's fine if you are only flying domestically on AirAsia. If you are connecting from overseas and have 2 checked bags....then prepare to be charged outrageous fees for the 2nd bag.....I believe 83 baht per kilo....so for a 20 kilo bag you are charged an additional 1660 baht on top of your ticket price plus the 535 baht fee for 1 bag. That's over 3000 baht for a one-way ticket!!!!! I now fly Thai!!! No problem checking 2 bags!

Are you sure?

I have never had a problem checking two bags in with Air Asia, provided the combined weight is within the allowance.

It may have changed but I have not seen anything about this.

Also never had a problem, they started on 1 March with only one handbagage only maximum 7 kg policy.

[fishhooks]

Re post #10

I think we are mainly discussing checked baggage.

The 7kg 1 piece per person is fairly universal for "carry-on" on all airlines including Air Asia, but is probably the most ignored rule except when they have an occasional crackdown.

Also some airports, apart from the carriers themselves enforce this rule at times, by checking bags just prior to Immigration.

Flying out of Phnom Penh last month on AA, I saw passengers carrying on to the plane cases and bags that would have exceeded the 15 or 20kg normal checked allowance.

Dangerous also, if a hel_l of a lot of carry-on well overweight winds up on board, I wonder what that does to the take-off weight calculation for the bus.

[roamer]

That's fine if you are only flying domestically on AirAsia. If you are connecting from overseas and have 2 checked bags....then prepare to be charged outrageous fees for the 2nd bag.....I believe 83 baht per kilo....so for a 20 kilo bag you are charged an additional 1660 baht on top of your ticket price plus the 535 baht fee for 1 bag. That's over 3000 baht for a one-way ticket!!!!! I now fly Thai!!! No problem checking 2 bags!

Actually the only way this makes any sense was that he flew in on a non AA flight with 2 bags, transferred to AA but had not prebooked any baggage and was over the 15k limit.

LCC's like Air Asia work fine for many of us but are less flexible or forgiving if you don't follow the rules carefully. Often when I fly AA it is with my wife and daughter so the savings have been really significant over the years. Scary to think what THAI fares would be if they didn't have competition!!

Also worth signing up to AA newsletter to get advance notice of promotions as some nice bargains to be had then.

[siam2007]

another one:

unless you book your flight just a few days ahead, do NOT book any "extras", such as luggage allowance, Meals, ground transport etc.

in case u book long in advance, and then find out you can not make the flight, those add-ons will not be refunded.

you can still book all that until 48 hrs before your flight departs, by going to "manage my booking" on their website.

and there is no extra "convenience fee" when booking add-ons at a later date....

[roamer]

I recently booked the following flights for August.

Bangkok_ Ubon Ratchathani-Bangkok

Bangkok-Hat Yai

(Boating it over to Langkawi)

Langkawi-Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur-Bali

Bali-Singapore

Singapore-Bangkok.

Total cost for 3passengers little over £600. About $800 at time of booking, @31000THB.

Could have done it quite a bit cheaper if I booked even earlier,.....the promo had been going for weeks, or picked dates that were cheaper but limited time so wanted our dates. Add-ons, chose our seats....probably added less than £20 to the whole deal, supersized baggage on from Langkawi onwards because "her indoors" likes to shop.

For 3 people this is a ridiculously cheap amount of money to pay for that schedule but thought I would check prices using Skyscanner...if we had chose to fly the Thailand sector on Thai Airways then that sector alone came to more than the whole of our schedule on the chosen dates!!!

For that sort of saving I can handle the "niggles" that AA seem to cause people.

[MisterBean]

This website: http://www.airasiaplus.com/ will let you check fares over a 2 week period. Its handy if your travel plans are flexible.

[roamer]

This website: http://www.airasiaplus.com/ will let you check fares over a 2 week period. Its handy if your travel plans are flexible.

Just tried the link, does what it says on the box, very handy

[siam2007]

This website: http://www.airasiaplus.com/ will let you check fares over a 2 week period. Its handy if your travel plans are flexible.

Just tried the link, does what it says on the box, very handy

I know the guy who runs the website, he is from Slovenija. I usually feed him with Airasia's schedule-updates. I know that AirAsia is not overly happy about the existence of this website, but not much they can do, even their lawyers sent him a couple of threatening letters...... he told me he replied politely that he loves AirAsia so much and want to help them to attract more business, so that was all what happened.... in the end, they are indeed benefiting from his work....

unfortunately, the website is not working during the first days of the big-promotion-periods, cause the servers can't handle the traffic..... but for the rest of the year, this website proves to be extremely helpful

[up-country_sinclair]

This website: http://www.airasiaplus.com/ will let you check fares over a 2 week period. Its handy if your travel plans are flexible.

Just tried the link, does what it says on the box, very handy

Thanks for sharing the link to that site. Should prove to be very helpful indeed.

[Chunky1]

Don't use the link. It is unethical. He is profiting from AirAsia and using their information without their permission. Mods, please delete this thread. It'd be the same if I cut and pasted "The Thai Visa Daily Cliff notes".... You can't create a website that steals info from another site without permission.

[MisterBean]

Does anyone know if you can take flights out of sequence with AirAsia. I know with most airlines if you are flying from A-B return and you miss the A-B then the B-A is canceled. Is AA the same? If I have a round trip from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and if I miss the flight from CNX to BKK do they cancel the BKK-CNX flight? I looked through some of the fine print but I don't see anything. Has anyone done this?

[Lizard2010]

Thanks for all the above information.

Add this link to the ones you use.

Enjoy

http://www.flyous.com/

[roamer]

Don't use the link. It is unethical. He is profiting from AirAsia and using their information without their permission. Mods, please delete this thread. It'd be the same if I cut and pasted "The Thai Visa Daily Cliff notes".... You can't create a website that steals info from another site without permission.

I think you should stay out of the sun. This thread is about way more than that link so why should it be deleted ?. Secondly, the link is to a screenscraper site, 100% legal, there are thousands of them from the giants like Kayak to the babies like this one. Your talking crap...again.

[MisterBean]

Thanks for all the above information.

Add this link to the ones you use.

Enjoy

http://www.flyous.com/

That one is cool too. There weren't any of these around a couple of years ago and now they are popping up like crazy. The real test will be how they are during seat sales. I found this one, momondo.com which looks good and shows Bangkok airways and Thai right along so you can see which is the best option. They all do pretty much the same thing so it boils down to which is easier to read for you.

I also noticed that some companies are booking AA flights for a fee. It is something to watch out for if you use one of these sites to price out the cheap flights. Some of them direct you to AA's website but there are ones now that direct you to their own site to make the booking. I suspect this won't be a problem to many but there are also many who already have trouble with AA and this adds another possible frustration layer. Imagine finding out after you didn't pay attention when you where making a reservation that you paid an extra 500THB, that is certainly grounds to come on TV and voice your displeasure with AA!