Asia - BKK to Phuket or Ko Samui - buy inside or outside Thailand?

We'll be in Bangkok next week for a short spell and really want to get down to a beach for next Sunday and Monday nights. We're undecided between Ko Samui or Phuket still and understand there is good air service and many resort choices at each destination.

Looks like I could get the Marriott in Phuket, as an example, for about $45 US per night on Priceline and the best airfare BKK to Phuket is about $130 RT per person at Travelocity.

Question is, would we do better waiting until we got to Bangkok and buying a package from someone? Or is the airfare by itself cheaper in-country? Buying it there would leave us some desired flexibility, so if the prices are equal, we'd probably do that.

Advice? Thanks!

Can't speak for Phuket, but as far as Samui goes, only one carrier flies there - Bangkok Air. They own the airport. Their tickets are the same price whether you buy them months in advance in the US or at the BKK ticket counter 45 minutes before your flight (like I did) - IIRC, its 3100 baht (US$80 or so) one-way to BKK-USM. Plus there is a 500 baht departure tax from USM airport.

I'm pretty sure Thai Airways' domestic flights (e.g, BKK-HKT or BKK-KBV) work the same way - no discounted airfares but it doesn't matter because the walk-up fare is still super-cheap. If you decide to do Phuket you might want to look into buying a business class ticket on Thai - its not much more than coach.

Whatever you decide, I don't think there is any advantage to buying your tickets in advance, other than securing availability on a particular flight. Given that the weather is a little unpredictable in the south this time of year, you might want to wait and base your decision on where the weather seems better.

Bangkok Airways from Bangkok to Koh Samui would be a great beach trip.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JSD:
I'm pretty sure Thai Airways' domestic flights (e.g, BKK-HKT or BKK-KBV) work the same way - no discounted airfares but it doesn't matter because the walk-up fare is still super-cheap. If you decide to do Phuket you might want to look into buying a business class ticket on Thai - its not much more than coach. </font>

We purchased in advance outside Thailand for our Thai Airways flight BKK-HKT. Price was mid $50's for economy and low $80's for business. Biz was worth it to us as it was a very early am flight.

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Thanks very much for the tips. I was just about to purchase 2 business class on the Thai website for about $340 when I realized there is a special running, 6500 baht RT for 2 people BKK HKT - this is about $160 and enough of a price difference that for one hour we'll do coach. But it has to be purchased only inside Thailand so we'll try to go to the Thai counter on arrival late Friday night to get them. If its sold out by then we'll splurge for the $340.

I bid for the JW Marriott in Phuket (we actually will treasure the remoteness) and go tit for $68 a night, so all seems tohave worked out well here. Thanks again for the tips!!