Why Are Air Tickets More Expensive In Thailand?

[oldsailor35]

Just booked a return ticket with EVA to LHR and the price was 34650 Baht if you want i can PM the lady who booked it for me with her contact details.

What are the flight dates ?

[MeMock]

I flew from Darwin to Bangkok via Singapore with Silk Air/Singapore with my family. My infant cost was $28. The same flight in reverse I am about to take the infant cost is $300. Different govt regulations they said.

[sprq]

Obviously it's a supply and demand situation now -- nothing else explains it -- but what explains the fact that up until about 15-20 years ago it was much cheaper to buy your Thailand-Europe tickets in Bangkok than in Europe? Bangkok was a famous cheap ticket place in those earlier times, yet the same imbalance of supply and demand between the two destinations was in effect: there have always been far more European travellers, especially tourists, to Thailand than vice-versa.

[asanee]

again no one of these ''knowledgeable'' TV-users seem to know the reason-which as such has been told here many times: you are comparing apples and pears.

In/FROm TH only much more flexible tickets are sold-at roughly the same price as THAT type of ticket out of EUR would cost.

OUt of EUR there are-depending on the location and market, often/always ALSO cheaper priced tickets with much more strings attached for sale.

[Plastic Brontosaurus]

In my experience it all depends on competition out of and into locations. For example try looking for a return ticket Paris - Hong Kong - Auckland on Cathay - on their French website. Then do the same Auckland - Hong Kong - Paris, on the Cathay NZ website (use two different browsers to avoid cookie locks). Last time I did that the difference was around 600 NZD. It's just because there's a ton of ways to get out of Paris, but only a few direct flights to Asia and beyond out of Auckland (most go via Sydney) so they add what they think they can get away with.

[pattayadingo]

I've usually booked my tickets one of two ways. Either direct with the airline or via the UK itself for return flights from Thailand - UK.. Using either debit or credit cards. Never been a problem.

In fact I have always felt safer using my UK based card via a UK outlet because there are laws in place to safeguard you more than here in Thailand.

[HerbalEd]

Tickets I purchase in Thailand have always been significantly cheaper than the same flight(s) purchased in USA ... and I've do this many times in the past ten years.

[GarryUK]

Just looking for flights for the girlfriend to fly from BKK (Bangkok) to BHX (Birmingham, UK) Monday 18th March, returning Friday 23rd August, booked via the UK. Cheapest is Emirates at 597GBP for 15hr coming, 34hr return. If I want 16hr return it increases to 653GBP. If I change the return date to Thursday 22nd March I can get 536GBP and 628GBP respectively for long/short return flight. At 47.3THB exchange rate that means the cheapest flight I can get is 25,368.88THB.

Strangely the first time I did the latter search prices were coming back considerably higher, as much as 1200GBP. I just hope in 3 weeks time if/when her visa is approved that prices haven't changed significantly. Very pleased with these prices considering that it cost me 672GBP to go to Thailand in October and 1036GBP in December.

[lockman]

Tickets I purchase in Thailand have always been significantly cheaper than the same flight(s) purchased in USA ... and I've do this many times in the past ten years.

Not my findings. I used to purchase in USA from a consolidator, and always cheaper for LAX-BKK-LAX and still is, but same office in US cannot sell ??BKK-LAX-BKK for the same price (or most any decent price) on Thai Air. So mow mainly fly China type airlines and book online, as Thai is always way high unless you are a student and then it's cheap. So they would rather give a deal to a student and make less money that someone else...figure that out. I've yet to find any agency selling a decent fare inside Thailand to US, etc.

[JRinPDX]

I fly PDX to UTH and back a few times a year and have found:

1) It is sometimes cheaper to break out the US domestic separately when searching for fares. e.g. PDX to SEA and then SEA-TPE-BKK (EVA) is sometimes about $200 USD cheaper than booking PDX-SEA-TPE-BKK as one routing. But not always. It can vary. You can still end up with them on the same itinerary, so bags can be checked all the way through, it's just a matter of how you search.

2) There is significant variation based on day of the week as well as how far in advance you book.

It's never a simple task; I usually end up spending hours working out the right combinations.

A complicating factor is that many airlines arrive BKK close to midnight, whereas EVA can arrive late morning, in time for a flight to UTH. (I use Thai Airways. I don't have to go across town and Thai Airways never hassles over bags and fees, so it's worth the fees vs. Air Asia and Nok.

Other carriers can be quite a bit cheaper but add another day of flying and another stopover, which I avoid.

There have been times when I've used award travel for one or more passengers, but those seats aren't always available for the whole itinerary; so piecing together paid seats adds complication. On a couple of occasions, I've found it much cheaper to buy round trip and discard the return. And once, I found tickets on CNX to be cheaper if I bought via their Singapore website than their US one. (but that was years ago)

Bottom line, you can save significant money, but it will take hours of research, trial and error.

I'm interested in the consolidator remark above.. have never used one. Do you have the same flexibility? (I use Expedia, except for Thai Air, where I use their website.. which tends to time-out mid-transaction, half the time.)

[Tigger01]

I've also faced this same issue, flying my girlfreind over to the UK twice last year, both times her ticket was around 42,000 bt with Eva and Thai, once sitting next to me on the same plane, I paid £605!!! When she came over in November, I used India air, she said it was good with a 2 hour stop at Delhi for £700, I might well use them again, good flight time too. On the same day she came over with India air, I was flying Thai, tried to get her on the same flight, 148,000 bt economy!!!!!!!Crazy

[Ulic]

One of the mysteries of the airlines. In the past I booked many tickets to Chile for skiing and para gliding on Lan Chile.

When I booked in country tickets Santiago to Conception, Iquique, Easter Island on the English version of there web site

the ticket prices were about 600% higher than the Spanish version. Hard to believe but absolutely true. When I booked

and paid for these tickets I used a Canadian credit card and filled in my Canadian passport number. No problems.

I booked at least a dozen tickets this way and alerted my buddies who did the same. International flights however

were the same price on both English/Spanish versions of their websites. Just the vagaries of the airlines in the Lan Chile

case but in the BKK-UK-BKK case the airlines will charge what they can. I guess UK passengers are more discriminating

when it comes to price and the airlines charge what they can.

[bendejo]

Bangkok has long been known as one of the cheaper places to buy international tickets.

A few years ago I was experimenting with routes/fares for an RTW, and yes, the same exact intineraries cost less if I purchased, and started out in, Bangkok.

Ticket prices are constantly in flux, even the course of a single day. Or by vendor. Just do a search on any of the ticket sites like Expedia, Orbitz et al and you'll see the very same flights with a few thousand baht varience.

[maturebrit]

Supply and demand I think, most people traveling from here back and forth to the UK do so because they have to, whereas most coming from the UK are doing so because they want to.

....is the correct answer.

and they can take one more bite out you when your flying out..

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[enyaw]

There are IATA fares Published fares Consolidated fares and IT fares and so on, you will not get a discounted airfare on a flight which doesn't originate in the country you wish to depart from. In short you'll get a better result if you simply go to a travel agent in Thailand rather than plucking around on the internet.

[Ricardo]

Just looking for flights for the girlfriend to fly from BKK (Bangkok) to BHX (Birmingham, UK) Monday 18th March, returning Friday 23rd August, booked via the UK. Cheapest is Emirates at 597GBP for 15hr coming, 34hr return. If I want 16hr return it increases to 653GBP. If I change the return date to Thursday 22nd March I can get 536GBP and 628GBP respectively for long/short return flight. At 47.3THB exchange rate that means the cheapest flight I can get is 25,368.88THB.

Strangely the first time I did the latter search prices were coming back considerably higher, as much as 1200GBP. I just hope in 3 weeks time if/when her visa is approved that prices haven't changed significantly. Very pleased with these prices considering that it cost me 672GBP to go to Thailand in October and 1036GBP in December.

Just looked for 3 weeks in the UK in September, or seven weeks June/Aug, flying BKK-London-BKK on Emirates own website, and was being quoted B46k-B48k, so wonder where you're finding approx B26k ? Does that include taxes/extras ?

Edited February 1, 2013 by Ricardo

[Plastic Brontosaurus]

Just looking for flights for the girlfriend to fly from BKK (Bangkok) to BHX (Birmingham, UK) Monday 18th March, returning Friday 23rd August, booked via the UK. Cheapest is Emirates at 597GBP for 15hr coming, 34hr return. If I want 16hr return it increases to 653GBP. If I change the return date to Thursday 22nd March I can get 536GBP and 628GBP respectively for long/short return flight. At 47.3THB exchange rate that means the cheapest flight I can get is 25,368.88THB.

Strangely the first time I did the latter search prices were coming back considerably higher, as much as 1200GBP. I just hope in 3 weeks time if/when her visa is approved that prices haven't changed significantly. Very pleased with these prices considering that it cost me 672GBP to go to Thailand in October and 1036GBP in December.

Just looked for 3 weeks in the UK in September, or seven weeks June/Aug, flying BKK-London-BKK on Emirates own website, and was being quoted B46k-B48k, so wonder where you're finding approx B26k ? Does that include taxes/extras ?

Emirates' website can change prices incredibly fast in my experience. A year ago or so looked for a fare (SYD-DXB-GRU if I remember well) and it was very low but had to wait for the missus to come home to discuss details, and a few hours later when I went back in it was like 35% higher. But not just for the chosen date (which would happen if only a set number of seats were priced low), but across two months or so. So there's an overall system that pushes fares up or down, probably depending on how many are sold within a given time frame from a certain location, or similar - or some other unknown criteria. I assume similar, presumably fully automated, systems are controlling other airline's ticket prices.

Bottom line: if you see a cheap fare - as in lower than anything else you've seen for that route that day, you may have just gotten lucky, so buy it there and then...

[roamer]

If you don't mind going home via Hong Kong & Madeira on Emirates you can do this for £220, throw in Air Asia flights to Hong Kong and Ryanair to UK and you will get away with about £500

http://www.holidaypirates.com/others/errorfare-hong-kong-portugal-257-352-trip-incl-taxes

[GarryUK]

Just looking for flights for the girlfriend to fly from BKK (Bangkok) to BHX (Birmingham, UK) Monday 18th March, returning Friday 23rd August, booked via the UK. Cheapest is Emirates at 597GBP for 15hr coming, 34hr return. If I want 16hr return it increases to 653GBP. If I change the return date to Thursday 22nd March I can get 536GBP and 628GBP respectively for long/short return flight. At 47.3THB exchange rate that means the cheapest flight I can get is 25,368.88THB.

Strangely the first time I did the latter search prices were coming back considerably higher, as much as 1200GBP. I just hope in 3 weeks time if/when her visa is approved that prices haven't changed significantly. Very pleased with these prices considering that it cost me 672GBP to go to Thailand in October and 1036GBP in December.

Just looked for 3 weeks in the UK in September, or seven weeks June/Aug, flying BKK-London-BKK on Emirates own website, and was being quoted B46k-B48k, so wonder where you're finding approx B26k ? Does that include taxes/extras ?

Yes the flights soon disappeared. Plans have changed so I'm going back to Thailand in March instead of her coming here, and I can't even get those fares BHX to BKK any more, 673GBP I think when I looked yesterday for half decent flight times. I'm planning to fly on the 17th, wanted to go on the 2nd or 3rd but that added 100's more to the cost.