Flying From Bangkok To New York: Is This The Best Price I'M Going To Get?

[DocHolliday2006]

Hey guys.

I'm heading back to the US (New York City) in May, and looking for the best ticket price.

My visa will be up by May 20, and I'm up for leaving up to a week before that. Flexible schedule. I'm Planning to leave from Bangkok.

So far, the best ticket price I've found is $679 via egypt air.

I'm wondering if this sounds like a good deal, and if I'm likely to find anything better.

Anyone have any suggestions for finding discounted prices, or should I just buy this one?

Thanks.

[Spaniel]

I haven't checked fares to NY lately but $679, o/w, sounds ok. I am flying r/t on Delta to Baltimore in April for $1615 and I thought that a pertty good price. Where did you get that price?

[craigt3365]

Let's try this over in the Travel forum.

Topic Moved.

[dddave]

I suspect the Egypt Air price is exclusive of tax and service charges. I recently flew BKK to LAX using my Thai Airways reward miles. One still has to pay taxes and service charges and for the round trip, they came to 15,400 Baht, about $475.

[4evermaat]

There are discounters who should be able to get you usa « » bkk for under $1200 r/t or $850 one way if you can give enough notice. 4 weeks? although i got a great deal $778 one way with only 1 week reservation. But i had to beg the lady a bit as that price was only supposed to be good the week before. She also gave me good deal on departure time.....allowed me to catch a later flight on the first leg, which gave me more time to do stuff.

If i wanted to go to phuket, they wanted another $150-200.

"2nd best time to plant a tree is today." Sent from TV android app.

Edited March 11, 2012 by 4evermaat

[rakman]

Holy cow.. that is including taxes. Great fare considering the price of oil now.

That's the restricted fare, compared to Delta BKK-JFK one way is just shy of $1200.

Returns from BKK to JFK are cheap, compared to going to BKK on a round trip.

If you want to fly the A380 on ICN-JFK segment, Korean Air has a one way for $982

[4evermaat]

Holy cow.. that is including taxes. Great fare considering the price of oil now.

That's the restricted fare, compared to Delta BKK-JFK one way is just shy of $1200.

Returns from BKK to JFK are cheap, compared to going to BKK on a round trip.

If you want to fly the A380 on ICN-JFK segment, Korean Air has a one way for $982

It wasnt one of those major consolidators with an instant booking. It was a private travel agency who does wholesale consolidation and specializes in se asia travel. you usually need to give them 30 days advance booking. I think it was usChinaTour.com. They manually contact you back with quote. Different airports may give you better rates. Ask for bkk first.....it will usually be cheaper, even if you want to go to phuket or chiang mai.

they pre-authorize your credit card over phone. You have to send a copy of your credit card and signature of a paper authorizing the travel/itinerary. Then they will issue ticket which is fully verifyible through whatever carrier they use. I got on with delta and had to switch planes in japan (i think). both legs were sold out. # This was two years ago.... Dont know the rates are today.... But using a few of those online discount consolidators to get an idea of the retail pricing. Then you use something like uschinatours.com to see what you can get really. A friend ofine remembered when a round trip ticket usa «» bkk was < $600. I think those days are long gone, unless you know someone with a genuine buddy pass.

18 hours or so from honolulu. if you can afford it, business class looked very comfortable. I think it was > $2000 one way.

"2nd best time to plant a tree is today." Sent from TV android app.

[el jefe]

I always fly CX for roundtrips between JFK and BKK. Fares in May are $1155 if starting in NY and 37755B from BKK. the one way fare BKK-JFK is almost identical at 36365, so I think the $679 on Egypt Air is a great deal.

[4evermaat]

I always fly CX for roundtrips between JFK and BKK. Fares in May are $1155 if starting in NY and 37755B from BKK. the one way fare BKK-JFK is almost identical at 36365, so I think the $679 on Egypt Air is a great deal.

$679 is EXCELLENT, if it includes all fees. I doubt it, but not impossible.

Edit: what is "CX" airline?

"2nd best time to plant a tree is today." Sent from TV android app.

Edited March 11, 2012 by 4evermaat

[el jefe]

$679 is EXCELLENT, if it includes all fees. I doubt it, but not impossible.

Edit: what is "CX" airline?

All airlines have an official two letter code.

[dddave]

CX is Cathay-Pacific.

[rakman]

I always fly CX for roundtrips between JFK and BKK. Fares in May are $1155 if starting in NY and 37755B from BKK. the one way fare BKK-JFK is almost identical at 36365, so I think the $679 on Egypt Air is a great deal.

$679 is EXCELLENT, if it includes all fees. I doubt it, but not impossible.

Edit: what is "CX" airline?

"2nd best time to plant a tree is today." Sent from TV android app.

The $679 is from EgyptAir's web site and says it includes all taxes.

Amazing, but I think Egypt is trying to raise revenue. The flights are on a 777-300 from BKK to Cairo, and a 777-300 on to JFK.

[WilliaminBKK]

On Vayama one way Egyptair is $708 and Qatar is $870 OW May 15th, if your budget can swing a few more dollars I would do Qatar over Egyptair. Check out Airline Equality for reviews.

With your agency make sure it includes their credit card fee which is often charged at 3/4/5% on top of the fare.

[UbonOz]

I just tried Egypt Air website and it does not seem to work.

The fare is very good, but, you have a long stop in Cairo. I was trying to get times on their site. See if you have any luck.

Not many people want to go to Egypt, hence the cheap fare I suspect.

[UbonOz]

Managed to get their site working. It is a long trip.

Their site quotes THB20,850 inclusive of taxes

Bangkok to New York Flight 1 Monday, May 14, 2012 Departure: 00:50 Bangkok, Thailand - Suvarnabhumi International Arrival: 05:40 Cairo, Egypt - Cairo International, terminal 3 Airline: Egyptair MS961 e Aircraft: Boeing 777-300

Change of plane required. Time between flights : 3:50. Flight 2 Monday, May 14, 2012 Departure: 09:30 Cairo, Egypt - Cairo International, terminal 3 Arrival: 15:15 New York, USA - John F Kennedy, terminal 4 Airline: Egyptair MS985 e Aircraft: Boeing 777-300

[UbonOz]

Personally, I prefer to book direct with airlines on their website.

If you have any difficulty with the booking you are dealing direct, not with an agent.

Agents can be very disinterested once they have your money

[4evermaat]

Personally, I prefer to book direct with airlines on their website.

If you have any difficulty with the booking you are dealing direct, not with an agent.

Agents can be very disinterested once they have your money

You deal with a reputable agent. Dealing direct with airlines for a cheap fare only works if you have a bunch of frequent flier miles, or you pay months in advance, or you are able to grab a super deal. But if you want a super deal all of the time, you'll need to use a discount consolidator. You are dealing mainly with non-refundable tickets anyway in these instances, but once they issue the itinerary, you can then use the locator code and see your itinerary directly on the airline. You can make changes to meals and stuff like that just like you bought the ticket directly through the airlines.

edit: One of the advantages of using a consolidator is that you get to see inventory (flights/legs) that may be "sold out" or not showing up on the retail site. It's kind of unfortunate how the airlines play around with the whole dynamic pricing model, but I guess everyone's gotta eat . They do a good job of psyching out the savvy consumer. They get away with it because the inventory (seats available) is not available to the general public. You have to rely on them to sell you at the best available price.

Edited March 13, 2012 by 4evermaat

[lomatopo]

$679 All in, one-way BKK-NYC seems like as good as you can do. The cheapest, available routing I could find, on May 21 (not the 20th, it's usually cheaper to fly Mon-Thu) just now is 19,620 baht.

Bangkok (BKK) to New York (JFK) - Mon, May 21

Bangkok (BKK) to Shanghai (PVG) - Mon, May 21

China Eastern 548 Dep: 1:55AM Arr: 7:00AM 4h 5m Airbus A330 Economy (N)

Layover in PVG 4h 30m

Shanghai (PVG) to New York (JFK) - Mon, May 21

China Eastern 587 Dep: 11:30AM Arr: 2:15PM 14h 45m Airbus A340 Economy (N)

Cost per passenger (including taxes & fees) 19,620.00

Total cost for 1 passenger 19,620.00

* All prices shown in THB

Fare 1: Carrier MU NOXTT5 BKK to NYC (rules)

Passenger type ADT, ONE-WAY-ONLY fare, booking code N

Covers BKK-PVG (Economy), PVG-JFK (Economy)

12,700.00

MU YQ surcharge (YQ) 250.00

USDA APHIS Fee (XA) 155.00

US Immigration Fee (XY) 220.00

US Customs Fee (YC) 170.00

People's Republic of China Airport Fee (CN) 445.00

US International Arrival Tax (US) 515.00

MU YQ surcharge (YQ) 4,465.00

Thailand Passenger Service Charge (TS) 700.00

Subtotal per passenger 19,620.00

Number of passengers x1

TOTAL AIRFARE & TAXES 19,620.00

Fare construction (can be useful to travel agents)

BKK MU X/SHA MU NYC 411.90NOXTT5 NUC 411.90 END ROE 30.832 XT 700TS 445CN 170YC 220XY 155XA 515US 4715YQ

[rak sa_ngop]

I hope you realise that Egypt Air is a dry airline. You can however get a nice pint of Heineken in the departure lounge (take small USD bills).

[4evermaat]

And only 1 stop (2 legs) from Bangkok to a major USA city travel destination (NYC, ATL, LAX, etc) is pretty good for the price. One of the drawbacks to using some of those discounters is that they love to give you these multiple unnecessary legs. But reputable ones usually get you the most direct route possible for fair price.

I was coming from Honolulu, hawaii and had to hop from another island first, so it was actually 3 legs. So under $800 1 way was pretty good overall, and it all counted as one continuous trip, so no re-checking in of check-in bags.

[ralston3057]

Check Singapore Airlines.

[how241]

That sounds like a GREAT price.

[yvanlu]

That sounds like a GREAT price.

Quite agree with you! Very great price!

[4evermaat]

.......

It wasnt one of those major consolidators with an instant booking. It was a private travel agency who does wholesale consolidation and specializes in se asia travel. you usually need to give them 30 days advance booking. I think it was usChinaTour.com. ....................... Then you use something like uschinatours.com to see what you can get really. ....

It was UsChinaTrip.com . I was researching a past thread about using offline travel agents for this and realized the url was incorrect.

Edited September 10, 2012 by 4evermaat

[bangkokburning]

Go with KAL. Great planes, decent food, minimal alcohol, videos. Cheapest and bestest. Egypt Air - f that.

[Nana Cowboy]

One of my favorite shows is "Air Crash Investigation" on discovery channel. Back in the late 90s an Egypt Airlines Jetliner crashed mysteriously of Long Island after taking off from JFK. What happened was one of the pilots hit on a maid at a posh Manhattan hotel. He had a history of doing this and was told after this latest incident that this flight would be his last. After takeoff he convinced the 1st leg pilot to take a break and proceeded to crash the plane killing all aboard. I'm avoiding Egypt Air in spite of being able to save 100 bucks or so

Here is the link to it. Hard to imagine something like this could happen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990

Edited December 4, 2012 by Nana Cowboy

[NanLaew]

One of my favorite shows is "Air Crash Investigation" on discovery channel. Back in the late 90s an Egypt Airlines Jetliner crashed mysteriously of Long Island after taking off from JFK. What happened was one of the pilots hit on a maid at a posh Manhattan hotel. He had a history of doing this and was told after this latest incident that this flight would be his last. After takeoff he convinced the 1st leg pilot to take a break and proceeded to crash the plane killing all aboard. I'm avoiding Egypt Air in spite of being able to save 100 bucks or so

Here is the link to it. Hard to imagine something like this could happen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990

And I think that Egypt Air had a couple of 707's crash short of the runway on approach to Don Meuang many, many moons ago. However, I have used their brand new 777-300's as they do their Bangkok 'turnaround' via KL and it's nice to be saving money on new aircraft. They come out a little more expensive than LH but beats the crap out of the legacy 747's that Lufthansa use on the same route.

Sent from the Back 'o Bennachie with an Asus eePad Transformer TF201 thingumabob.