A flight schedule change has led to me having a short connection in Bangkok between arriving on a PG flight from Samui and departing on a second PG flight to Laos (now one hour and twenty five minutes between flights). The reservation agent at their office in Chaweng said it would be long enough and that I could not only check my bags through from Samui (expected, no surprise) but could also go through Immigration on Samui and not have to do it in Bangkok. They are usually quite good at that office, but it is hard for me to understand how this would work. Anybody here on the forum done this before?

It works jsut fine. They will stamp you out in Samui already and in BKK you will stay only in international transit areas, so you will not go to passport control in BKK at all. If your bags are checked only to BKK, then you will need to pick them up and checkin again for Laos.

When you checkin in Samui, they will tell you if you need to pick up your bags in BKK or not, or just check your bag tags for airport codes.

Thanks for your reply. How do I get from the domestic arrival area in BKK to the international transit area? I would think I would need to pass through Thai Immigration.

Assuming you have everything checked through at Samui they will stamp your domestic boarding pass with Gate 7 (International Departures) and give you a CIQ sticker. You will hen clear immigration in Samui at wait at gate 7 to board your domestic flight.

Once you land in Bangkok there will be someone with a CIQ sign (Identical to the sticker) who will direct you to the security check point to transfer into the internation departures area (just a regular security check point, no immigration control).

Sounds good, many thanks for the clarification.

Just an extra note for those that haven't done it before your connecting flight doesn't not have to be with Bangkok Air, they have a long list on this page http://www.bangkokair.com/pages/view/check-in-through of airlines they can check bags straight through and those they can issue boarding passes for.

I have done it many times with several different airlines without issue.

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I have found it useful to know the airport code of your destination. A few times I have asked to be checked through to be told 'cannot'.

When I ask them to check to code - they say 'oh - can'. (This works in Europe too - many check in staff do not know the code for Samui.)