My wife and I will be arriving BKK on UA837 around midnight. The next morning at 7:00AM we will depart for HKT (in C). Please tell me if this plan will work:

- Check bags through to HKT
- Use one of the Louis' Tavern day rooms from 00:00 to 05:00
- Check-in for BKK-HKT flight at transit counter
- If shower/bath facilities at the transit hotel are shared (or otherwise nasty) use the showers in the D concourse TG Business Lounge. Otherwise just wait in the lounge.
- Around boarding time go through the international-domestic checkpoint (near the transit counters) and head to the gate
- Clear immigration, pickup bags, and clear customs in HKT

Questions:

Assuming that this plan will work does anyone have any experience with the day room facilities?

Will immigration at HKT be open when our flight arrives (08:20 on a Friday)?

The other option would be to clear immigration at BKK, but that will mean a potentially long line (lots of flights in that bank) and a long wait for bags. Since we'll have (at most) about 4:30 sleep time I would hate to suck up an hour just getting out of the airport and over to the Novotel.

Thoughts?

Thanks!!!

Immigration will be open at HKT.

Assuming UA will interline your bags and you are confident in that process then your plan should work.

On a recent TG flight BKK-HKT, as a domestic passenger, I was in a fixed gate (A6) area in the domestic concourse with ~ 250 passengers (747), most of whom were in international transit. But they could have easily walked back through to the domestic terminal building and entered Thailand bypassing Immigration and Customs. There have been other reports here of domestic pax being bused to the plane, and/or int'l pax being bused to the plane?

AFAIk the TG lounge in concourse A does not have showers. Some TG lounges may still be open (until 01:00?) but I am not sure what their entrance requirements might be. Maybe they'd check you in for the next day's flight?

My wife and I will be arriving BKK on UA837 around midnight. The next morning at 7:00AM we will depart for HKT (in C). Please tell me if this plan will work:

- Check bags through to HKT
- Use one of the Louis' Tavern day rooms from 00:00 to 05:00
- Check-in for BKK-HKT flight at transit counter
- If shower/bath facilities at the transit hotel are shared (or otherwise nasty) use the showers in the D concourse TG Business Lounge. Otherwise just wait in the lounge.
- Around boarding time go through the international-domestic checkpoint (near the transit counters) and head to the gate
- Clear immigration, pickup bags, and clear customs in HKT

Questions:

Assuming that this plan will work does anyone have any experience with the day room facilities?

Will immigration at HKT be open when our flight arrives (08:20 on a Friday)?

The other option would be to clear immigration at BKK, but that will mean a potentially long line (lots of flights in that bank) and a long wait for bags. Since we'll have (at most) about 4:30 sleep time I would hate to suck up an hour just getting out of the airport and over to the Novotel.

Thoughts?

Thanks!!!

This will work as long as you have availability in the Louis Tavern rooms which I don't think you can reserve in advance but I am not sure.
You might be able to get your BKK-HKT BP from UA, if not from transit desk international at BKK.
You will not go to domestic gate on your own.
You will leave from an international gate to HKT either direct to plane or by bus.
Immigration at HKT is open.

You will not go to domestic gate on your own.
You will leave from an international gate to HKT either direct to plane or by bus.


I did an international to domestic transit a few weeks ago and was allowed to make the trip alone. Well, I had my TG F escort for part of it, but we parted ways before getting to the gate.

IIRC there was a checkpoint between the international and domestic terminals where my BP was checked and I was tagged (literally) as an international passenger. I was then allowed to walk to the gate (A6 IIRC), go through security, and board the plane. There were a number of other international passengers doing the same thing.

I did an international to domestic transit a few weeks ago and was allowed to make the trip alone. Well, I had my TG F escort for part of it, but we parted ways before getting to the gate.

IIRC there was a checkpoint between the international and domestic terminals where my BP was checked and I was tagged (literally) as an international passenger. I was then allowed to walk to the gate (A6 IIRC), go through security, and board the plane. There were a number of other international passengers doing the same thing.

Thanks for the info, this would be an easy way in the country without going through immigration....
But then in HKT it has always been possible as long as you do not have checked bags.

Last time I was bussed from an international gate to the plane. It might depend on number of passengers. Would prefer to be able to walk....

I did an international to domestic transit a few weeks ago and was allowed to make the trip alone.

That is only possible on TG going to Phuket, Chiang Mai, Chinag Rai and Hat Yai, all of which have Immigration and Customs. Other domestic destinations require that you clear Immigraiton and Customs in BKK.

Well, I called the Louis Tavern dayroom facility and they still are not accepting reservations. When asked she did say that they were often fully booked overnight. Since my flight gets in late I'm not sure if I want to risk it or not.

I would rather not exit the airport in BKK to stay at the Novotel given the very short length of our layover. If we check our bags all the way through to HKT on the hope that a dayroom is available what happens if there is no room and we have to leave the airport?

Aside from the fact that a walk from the low D gates to the end of the G concourse will take some time and likely put us at the end of a very long immigration queue what would we do about our bags? They would come out in the international arrivals area in Phuket.

They don't take reservations, but I think they do take advance prepaid bookings, though don't know if you can do an advance booking via phone/credit card or not. Try to call them back and specifically mention you'd like to pay now for a room on a certain date/time. I think the girl will get confused though if you use the word "reservation". Of course you may not be able to cancel a prepaid room.

They don't take reservations, but I think they do take advance prepaid bookings, though don't know if you can do an advance booking via phone/credit card or not.
I went up to the dayrooms a few days ago to enquire about reservation for a stay mid December. There are only 2 options:

1) Make a booking there on the spot and pay in advance (either cash or cc).
2) Book by calling them on a mobile number and then paying by bank transfer to a local account. There is no option to pay by cc over the phone.
In both cases reservations are strictly non-refundable (no date change allowed either).

As others have indicated they currently seem to fully booked quite often. The girl did mention however that early December another floor will open and she expects the situation to get much better.

Another option might be to just show up and get a suite if their regular rooms are fully booked. Unless of course the suites are also all taken, but usually they have some available. I don't recall the exact prices, but I think they were something like 50% more than the regular rooms. If interested, you can search for that as I posted the exact prices a while back.

Another option might be to just show up and get a suite if their regular rooms are fully booked. Unless of course the suites are also all taken, but usually they have some available. I don't recall the exact prices, but I think they were something like 50% more than the regular rooms. If interested, you can search for that as I posted the exact prices a while back.

Yes, but if paying that price wouldn't it just be better to take a res at the Novotel? I have made a reservation over the phone and faxed in a copy of my credit card (both sides). This was at Don Muang though. The rooms themselves were very :td: :td: :td: . I hope the "new" Louis Tavern is nicer!

Yes, but if paying that price wouldn't it just be better to take a res at the Novotel? I have made a reservation over the phone and faxed in a copy of my credit card (both sides). This was at Don Muang though. The rooms themselves were very :td: :td: :td: . I hope the "new" Louis Tavern is nicer!

Definitely, I'd go for the Novotel over Louis Tavern in that case. But if someone really didn't want to leave the airport it is an option.

I used the Louis Tavern rooms earlier this year in the old Airport, and I would not recommend them at all, unless they are vastly improved in the new airport.

Here's an update...

I called the number mentioned here for the Louis Tavern Dayrooms and was told that they did not take reservations. I called back and asked about a pre-paid booking and that didn't work either. I talked to my travel agent and all that she was able to dig up was that they didn't take reservations.

She forwarded a request to my hotel in Phuket (and included the Louis Tavern phone number) and voila! a reservation. So... apparently I have a room booked for the evening of my arrival and I even have a confirmation number. The odd thing is that the note from the hotel says that the booking is for the facility in concourse A. I thought that concourse A only had a Louis Tavern CIP lounge.

I will say that when I was there on 13/11 the facility looked a bit more extensive than just a lounge. Does anyone here know if the concourse A lounge has rooms? Anyone heading through in the next few days care to scope it out?

I'd hate to walk all the way over to G just to find out that there really are rooms in A.

I also didn't see any rooms on concourse A when I walked by the LT lounge earlier this month. What day are you arriving? I'll probably be going out on a TG flight this Friday and will have a look then if I have time.

I also didn't see any rooms on concourse A when I walked by the LT lounge earlier this month. What day are you arriving? I'll probably be going out on a TG flight this Friday and will have a look then if I have time.

I'm coming in Thursday night and will probably decide on which concourse to try first based on which gate UA837 arrives at.

Realizing that AndrewP has long since figured it out, but just thought I'd post the situation for anyone else who may be using the dayrooms. They do have rooms now open on Concourse A. You need to go to the Louis Tavern Lounge on Concourse A, Level 3, and book your room there. They said the rooms are upstairs. I didn't actually use a room, just asked in case I wanted to use one in the future. TG tends to use gates on Concourse C a lot for international flights, so if you're arriving there, and wanting a dayroom, would recommend first going up the escalators to Level 3 once you get to the Concourse A/B/C/D intersection. Then a bit of a walk down Concourse A to the L.T. Lounge. Certainly much faster than going all the way over to Concourse G and then being told there are no rooms there.

We arrive TG SYD-BKK at 11pm December 25, and leave for Hanoi at 7.50am so do not want to waste time leaving airport, doing immigration, and ALSO incurring 1000 THB Tax!

Anyone got any idea which terminal SYD flight arrives at, and which one Hanoi usually leaves from?

Any from all the posts above no-one has posted the room RATES!!!

Does anyone have any idea on these for a 6 hour overnight block?

I'd be happy to paypal someone the dough if they are in the area before December 25 and would assist by pre-paying the room in cash or card for us. At least we know we have a room locked in then and can head right to it and catch some sleep. :)

We arrive TG SYD-BKK at 11pm December 25, and leave for Hanoi at 7.50am so do not want to waste time leaving airport, doing immigration, and ALSO incurring 1000 THB Tax!

Anyone got any idea which terminal SYD flight arrives at, and which one Hanoi usually leaves from?

Any from all the posts above no-one has posted the room RATES!!!

Does anyone have any idea on these for a 6 hour overnight block?

I'd be happy to paypal someone the dough if they are in the area before December 25 and would assist by pre-paying the room in cash or card for us. At least we know we have a room locked in then and can head right to it and catch some sleep. :)

The rates are astronomical at the Louis Tavern even if you factor in the 1000 Baht airport tax you are better to go into town! IMO!

Sorry not to follow-up on this as I've been far to busy doing nothing in Phuket.

As Soju mentioned there are, indeed, dayrooms in the Concourse A LT lounge. The rooms are surprisingly large and surprisingly nice. Our room had a private bath and I'm assuming that all of the others are the same.

We'll be using the same facility on our return trip tomorrow night.

Everything worked out fine with our reservation, but it wasn't all as stress-free as we had hoped. I didn't realize that we would have to stand in line with the international pax at BKK to get our domestic BPs and didn't allow nearly enough time. We finally broke out of the line and begged the TG agent at the OZ desk to issue our BPs. She took care of us and we ran to the gate at the end of the A concourse.... just barely made it.

It got worse when we made it to Phuket and discovered that our checked luggage had been ransacked at some point in the journey. I'm assuming that it was during the 6 hour overnight layover at BKK. They cut the locks off and went through EVERYTHING. Fortunately we didn't have anything of value (or at least perceived value) in the luggage and didn't lose anything.

Thanks for that update, and nice to hear that the dayrooms are of decent quality as they are a very tempting alternative to me at times. Sorry for not giving you a heads-up on the long queues at the transfer desk. At that time of day I only did it one time back at DM and not yet at Suvarnabhumi, but sounds like it hasn't improved any. At DM, and apparently still the same, the transfer desk doesn't open until 5AM, so all the overnighting passengers queue up before that to get their boarding passes. You have a *A Gold card, do you not? Don't they have a dedicated lane for Royal Silk and another for Royal First? You should have been able to go to the Royal Silk line, unless the passengers were ignoring the designations and TG wasn't properly enforcing it.

Don't they have a dedicated lane for Royal Silk and another for Royal First? You should have been able to go to the Royal Silk line, unless the passengers were ignoring the designations and TG wasn't properly enforcing it.

They have a Royal Silk line and we were in it... it wasn't moving, nor were any of the others.

We approached the international-to-domestic desk at 5:00AM and found a sign saying that the desk would open at 6:00AM. All of the signage in the airport led us to believe that this was the desk where we would get our BPs. We hung out in the lounge until about 6:15 (7:00AM flight) and found out that we had to stand in the line for the international desk to get our domestic BPs. The sad thing is that when we passed the international desk at 5:00AM there was no line.

[QUOTE=andrewp;6728968]Well, I called the Louis Tavern dayroom facility and they still are not accepting reservations. When asked she did say that they were often fully booked overnight. Since my flight gets in late I'm not sure if I want to risk it or not.

I just came through there and found a waiting area ostensibly for Thai customers, but open to anyone in the end of the B concourse towards domestic. I think I went up one or two levels from arrival, but one down from the level where the food and shops are. Follow the signs to the "Business center." Here there were couches and comfortable chairs where you could fully recline and dozens of coffee-shop type stools and desks with free wi-fi internet and electricity. Probably 20 people were sleeping on these couches in reasonable comfort and I enjoyed the internet access all day. So if you get stuck without a dayroom available but don't want to go outside, this would be a reasonable alternative for a comfortable nap since you only have a short stop. I suppose they could be full, but there were a lot of places there to sleep. Anyone else have experience with the Thai lounge couch availability at midnight?

Here are the rates for the Day Rooms:

Standard Room
4 Hours: 2,000 THB
6 Hours: 3,000 THB
8 Hours: 4,000 THB
10 Hours: 5,000 THB
12 Hours: 6,000 THB

Suite
4 Hours: 3,200 THB
6 Hours: 4,800 THB
8 Hours: 6,400 THB
10 Hours: 8,000 THB
12 Hours: 9,600 THB

There's a small family-run hotel in Bangpli not too far from the airport, the Sananwan Palace (http://bangpli.com/sananwan.htm). Air-conditioned rooms only cost 300 to 500 Baht and they'll pick you up at the airport if you let them know ahead of time, for an additional 500 Baht. There's a guy staying there right now, who's posted info and pix here (http://www.bryanmacneill.org/sea06/thailand/bangkok/hotels/sananwan/thorn1.htm), and you can read the thread on Lonely Planet here (http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/messagepost.cfm?postaction=reply&catid=51&threadid=1250506&messid=10882145&STARTPAGE=1&parentid=0).

Now I know this isn't up the standard some of you guys insist on with your name-brand luxury hotels, but it seems to be comfortable, it has a pool (my main jet-lag remedy) and you get to experience a bit of "real Thailand" outside the tourist ghettos and 5-star hotels. And no, bathrooms are not commonly shared in Thainland except in absolute rock-bottom budget digs.

Even counting the transportation and the 500 Baht departure tax (yes it's 500 not 1000), it's still much less expensive than the Louis Tavern dayrooms. And they take reservations, too. :D

I'm going to start a new thread with this info, so it gets noticed.

I just came through there and found a waiting area ostensibly for Thai customers, but open to anyone in the end of the B concourse towards domestic. I think I went up one or two levels from arrival, but one down from the level where the food and shops are. Follow the signs to the "Business center." Here there were couches and comfortable chairs where you could fully recline and dozens of coffee-shop type stools and desks with free wi-fi internet and electricity. Probably 20 people were sleeping on these couches in reasonable comfort and I enjoyed the internet access all day. So if you get stuck without a dayroom available but don't want to go outside, this would be a reasonable alternative for a comfortable nap since you only have a short stop. I suppose they could be full, but there were a lot of places there to sleep. Anyone else have experience with the Thai lounge couch availability at midnight?

That's the THAI Economy Transit Lounge, open to anyone. Seems a lot of people don't know that it exists. Great place to relax if you don't have any lounge access.

I haven't had a look at it late at night, but back at Don Muang the dinky transit lounge with just standard uncomfortable chairs was fairly busy late at night with passengers who didn't want to pay for a dayroom. So I imagine that the new transit lounge will also be fairly full of these type of passengers late at night.

- If shower/bath facilities at the transit hotel are shared (or otherwise nasty) use the showers in the D concourse TG Business Lounge. Otherwise just wait in the lounge.


I was at the lounge at end of November. The lounge attendant told me there is no shower facility at the lounge !!

I was at the lounge at end of November. The lounge attendant told me there is no shower facility at the lounge !!

There are showers in the Concourse C TG lounge...I used one last week. Also I believe the newly open TG Lounge on Concourse E also has showers.

It got worse when we made it to Phuket and discovered that our checked luggage had been ransacked at some point in the journey. I'm assuming that it was during the 6 hour overnight layover at BKK. They cut the locks off and went through EVERYTHING. Fortunately we didn't have anything of value (or at least perceived value) in the luggage and didn't lose anything.

Geez. Bad luck. :td:

I was THINKING to check bags SYD-BKK-Hanoi and staying in transit area.

Anyone else know if this is specific to BKK - or might it have occured nearer Phuket?

There are showers in the Concourse C TG lounge...I used one last week. Also I believe the newly open TG Lounge on Concourse E also has showers.

Does anyone know which terminal the Indo China flights depart from - like Hanoi?

I see on various sites that there is supposed to be an underground walkway from the airport to the Novotel at BKK?

I also see on Novotel's website that there's a shuttle bus ( level 2, exit 4 ).

Is the underground walkway currently available, or is it a "future"?

TIA

I see on various sites that there is supposed to be an underground walkway from the airport to the Novotel at BKK?

I also see on Novotel's website that there's a shuttle bus ( level 2, exit 4 ).

Is the underground walkway currently available, or is it a "future"?

TIA

AFAIK, the station for the rail link, to be completed within a few years time, is beneath the Novotel. There is an underground walkway, which I presume will have travelators or the like installed in it before the rail link is opened. For now, and I'm guessing until the rail link is finished, the underground passage is closed, so you'll have to use the shuttle bus or walk for the foreseeable future.