April International - 30% Premium increase

[UbonOz]

Does anybody have problems booking on their site?

Wednesday evening I attempted to book two domestic fares UBP/BKK. I tried several times before it would progress to the payment page. After two attempts it "Timed Out". I made the assumption the booking did not finalise.

I tried again on Thursday, it did the same again, I gave up.

After approximately one hour a text message from the bank advised Thai Airways had taken payment.

OK, I thought good it has worked. No email confirmation etc had been received.

Phoned Thai Airways last night and they advised the confirmation email would arrive today.

Receive email this morning saying funds have been returned to credit card and will need to make a new booking.

I will not make another booking until I have confirmation funds have been returned.

I did check their site which is extremely slow to load and guess what, the price has increased.

I then checked the Thai Smile site to see what price it showed, UBP does not even show on their site, it did when I looked the other day.

It is totally frustrating using their sites. No wonder Thai Airways loses money.

I never have problems using other airline's sites.

I only want to use Thai Air as they go to BKK, and I need to connect to an international flight, too much hassle going to DMK.

I think in future I will avoid Thai Air at all cost and just leave earlier and fly to DMK.

[supaprik]

I totally agree, I use a few airlines for my travels and Thai is easily the worse. I have no idea why it is the way it is,their actual web site is quite easily navigatable but links etc rarely work correctly, the ROP section is also a nightmare at times....

[draftvader]

It is a disaster. When you choose your country it can happily take 5 minutes to populate the departures drop down. The ironic part is that I am in Thailand and I was checking the Thai site. Awful.

[Jay Sata]

I only ever use them for internal flights. Their international cabin service is awful and they are overpriced.

[UbonOz]

Even when I called reservations last night their phone system does not work correctly.

"Press 9 for English", I press 9 and it continues in Thai, have no idea what to do next.

Did eventually get through to a supposedly English language person who did not understand the difference between Ubon and Udon.

[scotto]

overpriced agree but i do not mind their cabin service on international,

i also have had problems booking on their website so now i walk to the travel

agent 50 odd meters and let them do it if i want to fly thai easy done

and confimed on the spot and same price sometimes cheaper.

[UbonOz]

overpriced agree but i do not mind their cabin service on international,

i also have had problems booking on their website so now i walk to the travel

agent 50 odd meters and let them do it if i want to fly thai easy done

and confimed on the spot and same price sometimes cheaper.

Never used an agent in Thailand.

Do they charge to use a credit card?

[scotto]

Think they charge 3% on credit cards i do not mind though because

its all booked there and then no more problems walk out with ticket!

and no bs with computer which gives me the s__ts at times.

[JohnOX4]

I usually check international flights on http://flight.tvairbookings.com/TVAirWeb/Index.aspx?lang=en

and then collect/pay in Central Chitlom or on Silom Road .... Change happens slowly here. Many websites are outdated, with links that fail, etc. Arrrrghhhh. Very frustrating.

[UbonOz]

Have just checked the Thai Smile site again, it loads very slowly.

Ubon Ratchathani(UBP) does not appear. As mentioned before it did the other day.

It is Thai Smile aircraft which are used BKK/UBP/BKK.

I think I will send an email to Thai Airways with a link to this topic on this forum. Will be interesting to see if they reply.

As I say in my profile - "As long as people accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it".

[koknia]

I booked on Lao Airlines recently and it took about a minute! They don't want all that info, just name, flight, VISA, done.

[RabC]

Maybe I am lucky I book online with Thai 6-8 times a year and never a problem. I do agree the Royal Orchid section is a shambles.

[RabC]

I only ever use them for internal flights. Their international cabin service is awful and they are overpriced.

Any examples, complaints made to the airline or just Thai bashing?

[travelman]

LOL. Why bother? You get nice smiles from Thai Air hostesses. As this is land of smiles. And a evil intended mind at the back.

[UbonOz]

I only ever use them for internal flights. Their international cabin service is awful and they are overpriced.

Any examples, complaints made to the airline or just Thai bashing?

I do not believe it is "Thai Bashing". My frustration would be voiced regardless of country etc.

Please refer to last paragraph of Post #10.

[geriatrickid]

Ok, thanks for the feedback. I've been trying to book some domestic flights and its been a bugger loading etc. for the past 3 days.

Thai smiles is almost as bad.

On the other hand, nothing is as bad as the Vietnam Airways website, and at least TG gives you the full price upfront unlike Air Asia, the airline of the multi charges.

[RabC]

I only ever use them for internal flights. Their international cabin service is awful and they are overpriced.

Any examples, complaints made to the airline or just Thai bashing?

I do not believe it is "Thai Bashing". My frustration would be voiced regardless of country etc.

Please refer to last paragraph of Post #10.

UbonOz see my quote I wasn't accusing you of anything.

[Barabbas]

I've had the "pleasure" of checking out Honda's and Toyota's Thailand sites. Extremely slow loading (even with my 40Mb connection) and quite difficult to look at, filled with unnecessary 3D graphics and sound effects. So I reckon, most of the Thai websites are "tailor made" just for the sakes of having a nice face, regardless of the actual useability. On the topic - TG website is indeed a load of s...te, however I cannot agree that TG service is bad. Had been travelling both domestic and international with them for about 8 years now, at least 4-5 times a year international flights, and both service and amenities are far better than on most Asian airlines and some Western ones. I've been hearing complaints mostly from UK people taking international TG flights, cannie say why, never took a TG flight from the UK.

Edited February 8, 2013 by Barabbas

[RabC]

I've had the "pleasure" of checking out Honda's and Toyota's Thailand sites. Extremely slow loading (even with my 40Mb connection) and quite difficult to look at, filled with unnecessary 3D graphics and sound effects. So I reckon, most of the Thai websites are "tailor made" just for the sakes of having a nice face, regardless of the actual useability. On the topic - TG website is indeed a load of s...te, however I cannot agree that TG service is bad. Had been travelling both domestic and international with them for about 8 years now, at least 4-5 times a year international flights, and both service and amenities are far better than on most Asian airlines and some Western ones. I've been hearing complaints mostly from UK people taking international TG flights, cannie say why, never took a TG flight from the UK.

The TG flights to the UK used to be dire in economy on the old 747 however these were replaced by A340-600 early last year and cabin standards are a lot better.

[Barabbas]

Ah, now I know. Thanks, Rab

[dantilley]

Can you book the TG domestic flight through a general fight booking site like Expedia or whatever? Might be a good way to circumvent these kind of problems.

[SeaVisionBurma]

Interesting to see this thread pop up OP - I have been having a lot of difficulties just in the past 48 hours trying to make bookings.

Keeps timing out, and the Smile site won't load at all.

Seems to be a recent problem though, can't remember having anything as bad as.this before

Technical issues?

[draftvader]

Server response time is good. I have looked at the headers and can find nothing loading externally (foolish). They have some custom javascript files loading their drop-down menus and these are probably the issue. I have just run pagespeed on them and they score 49/100. I haven't seen a score like that.....ever!

I have just noticed the site making a request to a subdomain

hermes.thaiairways.com

and it is while this request is being completed that everything is held up. My guess is that their booking engine sits on this subdomain and this is having problems.....my tracert (started 3 minutes ago) is still churning away with "Request timed out" from this server.

[UbonOz]

Can you book the TG domestic flight through a general fight booking site like Expedia or whatever? Might be a good way to circumvent these kind of problems.

I did check Mox Travel yesterday and they came up with only one flight on my requested date, there are two flights a day BKK/UBP/BKK with Thai, it was the morning flight that showed, I want the evening flight.

The fare was also 150baht/person dearer. Don't know if they charge a credit card fee, did not progress that far.

Will check out other sites and report back.

[dantilley]

Evening flight might have filled up already.

[Barabbas]

BTW some mobile apps (IOS and Android) do sell TG domestic and more complicated routes - connecting int'l flights as well. Anywayanyday dot com does offer TG domestic bookings.

[richard_smith237]

I've had major problems with the Thai Airways website on a number of occasions.

One one occasion I booked and received the error message. I made another attempt and received a further error message.

I tried once more and got a call from Citi bank telling me that 2 payments have been Taken by Thai Airways and a third has been attempted and rejected. Citi bank gave me the payment references.

I was unable to contact anyone in Thai airways as their 'e-trade' department dealt with customers over the internet only, I was unable to get any phone number for them and was told they have no phone !!!...

The response by e-mail from TG is always that it as a CitiBank error !! CitiBank say its a TG error !!...

In short, a booking attempt always blocks the amount on the card - it then takes a week to clear if the transaction fails.

Now I attempt a booking with TG online.... sometimes it works, other times it doesn't - It can be quite a wind up !!!!

There is definitely something fundamentally wrong in their E-booking payment system (and I pay with a Thai credit card so its not an international issue).

[UbonOz]

Can you book the TG domestic flight through a general fight booking site like Expedia or whatever? Might be a good way to circumvent these kind of problems.

I did check Mox Travel yesterday and they came up with only one flight on my requested date, there are two flights a day BKK/UBP/BKK with Thai, it was the morning flight that showed, I want the evening flight.

The fare was also 150baht/person dearer. Don't know if they charge a credit card fee, did not progress that far.

Will check out other sites and report back.

The evening flight is available on the Thai Airways site.

Have checked independent travel agents sites for domestic fares.

They are available, do not know how reliable once you have paid. That is why I prefer to deal direct with airline sites, if you have a problem you can communicate direct and hopefully get a result.

The independent agents appear to charge more for the fare plus credit card fees etc.

[roiethome]

I booked more than 20 flights last year and never had a. Problem with the website.

There is no surcharge for credit card payments.

[KhunHehe]

I was going to apply for a Citibank account to get the Royal Orchid Visa card. It allows one to use the Thai Air airport lounges anytime he flies (provided the airport has one).

But...Citibank requires that one maintains a minimum balance of 1.5 million baht for six months before the card is granted. There have to be better ways to put over $50,000 USD to work. Can you say AmEx Business Platinum--more priviledges, too.

As for Thai Air, I like it. Asia Air adds so many fees to the price of the ticket leading to checkout that often Thai Air is very, very competitive. Plus Thai gives you food and drinks, the flights are much more comfortable, and the service is better.

I have no problems booking on Thai Air's website either.

And they fly out of Suvarnabhumi which has the BTS Airport Link straight to the airport. I'm not a big fan of Don Muang (and the nickle and dime taxi scams they try and pull).

Edited February 8, 2013 by KhunHehe