Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus - TG has many good points

:D

Hi, just been involved in a heated "discussion" about poor old TG over coffee on a balmy morning, and after listening to all the others and what their airline does to them, TG do many things right.

I find TG very reliable in pulling back on time, in fact most flights out of MEL, we will leave anything up to 30 minutes before. Of course this poses a problem for some getting into BKK @ 5.30am, but then that's where another good operator take over, the Hyatt conglomerate. The only time they will mention the time, is if my club room is not ready and they graciously ask if I would accept another room.

Lounges belonging to TG and the ones we use are great. Sometimes I wonder if some of the poster that complain have been in any other lounges of an airline of TG status/value. I can show you lounges in MEL that are better, but you pay a premium of an extra couple of grand just for the privilege. TG First to LHR costs around 6K at the moment, others are charging 2 to 3 times that amount. I am happy to spend 3 hours in the THAI first lounge on long flights ... not many lounges i would say that about.

Luggage is in my mind the biggest plus on TG side. As TG gold, my bags have never been weighed. I mean I could be carry lead ignots around for all they know. Nowadays I fly carry on only, and I admit on some return flights, I feel guilty what I take on board, but all I ever get are smiles. This is a huge problem for other flyers, we take this for granted.

Bookings are easy on their website and they give 5% discount, this year they have offered 50% redemption on awards and in reality that's 200% on your mileage, they have given the Sheraton Grande away @ $9 per night as long as you pay breakfast and that ShangriLa in CNX, how did they do that for the price?. Should I ring up the local office, they can get me on a plane with 2 hours notice, whereas can we do that?

Upgrades are the easiest there are and I am comparing them to 4 other airlines. You try getting an upgrade on Singapore or Qantas, you would die of old age before they even punched in your request.

Seems to me if I stay away from an aircraft everybody complains about, and I don't intend to fly to the Artic anytime soon, I will be happy with their choice of aircraft. I love the 777 and the 345/6, feel comfortable in the 744, so with the occaisional A380 from SQ/QF, life is good.

Frequent flyers will never be happy, it's our nature, we are critical and we become bored with the same old things, yet we strive for familarity, so we know how the system works, but as old things go, TG's not bad, never said they were brilliant either, regards bkkrop

Good post, BKKROP. It's only human nature that we complain about all the bad things, but often fail to recognize what's good. Overall I do agree that TG is pretty good. They have some obvious shortcomings, but if you're aware of them, it's not too bad.

These days most of my flying on TG is on my own dime, so it's always in Y, unless I get an op-up. I had 23 international flights on TG last month and another 20 this month. The deals I got on these flights were quite incredible. Almost all my flights were booked many months ago when the fuel surcharges were at their lowest and TG was hurting for business and had lots of good promotional fares / deals. It's looking though like the higher fuel surcharges are coming back with a vengeance, and the promotions are drying up. So next year may start another lean period for me of not so many TG flights.

I've got several million miles though in my various *A FFP accounts, so maybe it'll be time to start burning some of those miles and flying in F for a change. At least a few hundred K of those miles need to be used quickly or they'll expire. Been thinking about making a trip back to SYD in F now that the 346 is flying there. Be nice to go in style to see some of my old haunts and mates there.

I recently booked two trips for next month during the holidays and my normal Q fares weren't available, so had to choose B or M, but that's ok as it'll give me a final chance to use my free upgrade coupon, which I thought was going to be wasted.

This year started out very slow with regard to flying TG, but will end up being far and away my peak year of flying TG. My overall impression from all this flying is that TG is still a pretty good airline, certainly when considering how cheap the fares are.

Flown a fair amount of TG this year. I'm not that big a fan of the angled seats, but most of my flying is within Asia so they are not too bad. I think the service is really good. I like the lounges, and the big thing for me is that I can get business or first class seats at reasonable prices either with upgrades at the airport or on discounted fairs. I'd probably enroll in the program and use my extra miles on TG but they seem to be really stingy with the miles needed for flights and upgrades.

Agree - I had (another) 2 great flights yesterday ex-SYD - BOM... No problems at all and the service was top notch. Nothing was too much trouble.

OK - the FA's could not tell me about the wine choices, I just tasted them all and made up my own mind :cool:

The flight from BKK - BOM was on the 7442 and it was fine, I had exit row upper deck with no one sitting next to me... Just me and my Johnny Walker Black!

I am looking froward to the A346 going home, what a fabulous iron bird!

Cheers,

AG. :-:

Fully agree! Especially the luggage has never been an issue. I have my house in Bangkok area and every month bring loads of goods from Europe to my house. I pre announce my loads of luggage. They never objected or rejected! The only thing I don't like is that in many cases Thai officials (or whoever they are) are being upgraded apparently without any problems and all of a sudden the business class is full! Due to an overbooking Thai booked me on LH, so I was able to compare the service and comfort. I still favor Thai though! Of course the Thai airplanes are old and I never give up my hope that Thai will eventually get their Airbus 380 from BKK to FRA. In 2 weeks I fly to Melbourne via BKK and have again around 70KG on luggage with me. What seats they have to Melbourne TG461 in business class? Last year they had these old seats.

I am glad you are happy about TG! Can't say that I am!

The flights I have done with TG the past 2 years in biz class has been very poor. The service has been bad. At times I would say rude! I have been very dissapointed over the fall in service standards with TG. Also the standard of the food service has gone down. They dont seems to understand the meaning of a starter. Different things thrown on a plate. And the main course is normally tasteless. Their XO cognac is the only plus I find in my book over the TG standard.

Their lounges in BKK is generally good. Though I must say that the poor internet connection and the lack of red and white wine surprises me!

From Scandinavia to Asia, BKK biz product are heavily priced compared to other carriers, so I am not choosing TG for my next flight til Asia.

If you are flying mostly in C and/or F, I don't think ROP is a very attractive program for you, as ROP only gives 125% point in C and 150% in F. LH's Miles & More gives you 200% for C and 300% for F. Thats a much bigger value.

An other thing that has been irritating is that TG is known for last minute swap of aircraft witch can give C pax old C seats on their 747, which are used as Premium Economy seats on ARN/CPH-BKK route. The only way to be 100% sure to avoid old cramped biz seats is simply to avoid flying TG.

As I have loved flying Thai over the years, I really hope that their service will increase to the better very soon!

BFN;)

I think BizFlyerNorway just about sums it up.

They are sadly miles away from what they were a few years ago. Unfortunately some people are having real difficulty accepting this. Yes they push back and arrive more or less on time, as do most airlines, including Ryanair.

I find that if you set your expectations at the right level, and that has been getting lower and lower over the last few years, then they are quite tolerable as a rule, and it leaves a space for the odd great flight that you can then enjoy.

F ground service in BKK is truly special. And F service in HKG is nice. That's why I love Thai, despite other imperfections.

F ground service in BKK is truly special.

I would have agreed with that up until a few weeks back, when they got rid of the chefs and most of the staff in the F lounge.

My wife and I recently flew LHR-SIN in F on an SQ 77W and BKK-LHR in F on a TG 744 and we both agree that TG was the better experience^^

My wife and I recently flew LHR-SIN in F on an SQ 77W and BKK-LHR in F on a TG 744 and we both agree that TG was the better experience^^

Amazing, must have been daytime flights. Otherwise you would have experienced the bone hard uneven TG seats with the hard pillows and the synthetic "silk" blankets - worlds apart from SQ quality bedding.

Even during a day flight you must be artists to appreciate TG's erratic uncoordinated service of course very kind with a human touch.

TG being half the price of SQ it is of course great value and an acceptable choice with nice people. The cabin atmosphere gets sometimes cramped when TIP (Thai important persons) are appearing from behind after boarding completed :rolleyes: . But this is another story and enables passengers to get an insight into Thai culture.....

When it comes to a choice for me from NRT-BKK I always choose Thai over UAL... I will actually go as far as taking UAL from the states to NRT, stay the night at my olde fav Narita Hilton and take Thai the following morning to BKK. Seats and service are much better in C then UAL.
If in NRT I always choose the UAL lounge over the ANA lounge...
All in all Thai is good service.