Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus - Thai Air cancelled flight

Hi, I'm new to the forum, sorry if this is a bit garbled. We booked and paid for flights with Thai Air from Kuwait to Thailand and back on October 4th and 18th respectively. Thai Air has just informed us, however, that the return flight (Bangkok-Kuwait) on the 18th has been cancelled and wants us to either return on the 17th (paying KD 30 or around $100 each for upgrades, since the only seats available are in Club Class or whatever the Thai Air equivalent's called) or on the 20th.

The second date is unsuitable since I return to work on the 19th, but I rather resent having to cut our holiday short and pay handsomely for the ''privilege'' of returning a day early due to the airline booking staff's incompetence, especially after paying beforehand for the tickets to return on the 18th. The airline office staff refuse, despite much grovelling, to transfer us to another flight on the 18th and insist that if we want to get the flight on the 17th, we'll have to pay the extra money. Has anyone got any advice on this? Many thanks. :)

Hi Clunie, welcome to the board, shame it's for a problem, but let's see if someone can fix it up for you.
Airlines do swap and change, and I have no first hand knowledge of why this has happened to you, but after many flights, I can assure you "they" all do it.
Personally I would rip off a mail to HO in Bangkok, cc the local manager, detailing your predicament. At the end of the day every airline ticket can be changed, altered , cancelled or postponed by an airline. If you are a FF you would see it every day at the airports, and like me, I imagine you say poor blighters lucky it's not my flight. You have nothing to lose, I doubt if you will get anything, but if you don't try, you will never know. Comes back to having history and loyalty to a brand, as a gold TG flyer, they guarantee me a seat, and believe me, I use that when I have too, but even so, some times I have to jump up and down. Hope it all works out for you, Emirates have some awesome deals at the moment, all the way through to HKG, have you considered cancelling and rebooking, regards bkkrop

Many thanks. I'm off to write a 'firm' email to the airline's HO in the hope this will elicit a more positive response than I got from their office here.:)

Many thanks. I'm off to write a 'firm' email to the airline's HO in the hope this will elicit a more positive response than I got from their office here.:)

May I suggest that any complaint letter to an airline should be kept very short and to the point. Also any aggressive/impolite style will not help coz the staff who reads the letter is not responsible for what happened to you.

That being said, you must realize that all airlines are reducing frequencies in order to cut cost. You were probably on a cheap ticket, so any airline would have little incentive to spend a lot of money to reroute you on another airline. I assume that TG proposed to refund your ticket, if so you cannot really complain too much.

I've had this sort of situation happen to me a few times and my only option was to cancel the ticket and TG was glad to not charge me any refund fee due to it being their fault for my needing to cancel. Beyond that they wouldn't do anything. I'm a very frequent flyer with TG and gold card holder, but none of that matters much if you're holding a cheap economy ticket and they decide to cancel or change your flight. As BKKROP said, they all do this. It's just something you have to live with. I seriously doubt writing any letters to anyone will get you anything, but it doesn't hurt to try.

Also check if your travel insurance will cover any of the costs due to the cancellation.

$100 to upgrade to business class seems a bit of a bargain to me! Still, it's not what you wanted.

I just did a quick search on flights availability from BKK to KWI on Sunday, October 18, 2009:-

BKK Bangkok Int'l TH [VTBD]
KWI Kuwait Int'l KW [OKBK]
SUN 18 Oct 2009

Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive A/C St Availability
--------- ------ ---- -------- ---- -------- --- -- -----------------------------------------------------------
KU 412 BKK 03:00 KWI 06:15 340 0 J0 C0 Y9 S9 N9 K9 M9 B0 H0 L0 T0 V0
EK 419 BKK 02:30 DXB 05:35 0 P9 A7 J4 C4 I9 Y7 O9 E9 R9 W7 M7 B7 U0 K0 Q0 H0 L0 T0 X0 V0
-> KU 676 DXB 07:25 KWI 08:00 320 0 J4 C4 Y9 N9 K9 M9 B9 H9 L9 T9 V9
EK 419 BKK 02:30 DXB 05:35 0 P9 A7 J4 C4 I9 Y7 O9 E9 R9 W7 M7 B7 U0 K0 Q0 H0 L0 T0 X0 V0
-> EK 855 DXB 07:45 KWI 08:25 772 0 F0 A0 J4 C4 I0 Y7 O9 E9 R9 W7 M7 B7 U9 K7 Q7 H7 L7 T7 X9 V7
QR 613 BKK 09:15 DOH 12:15 0 C9 J9 D9 Y9 B9 L9 M9 Q9 K9 H9 V9 W9
-> QR 134 DOH 13:50 KWI 15:05 321 0 F9 P9 A9 Y9 B9 L9 M9 Q9 K9 H9 V9 W9#Y 401 BKK 20:35 AUH 23:50 0 J4 C9 D6 W4 I0 X4 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 Q4 L4 V4 U4 E4 T4 N4
-> #Y 305 AUH 02:10 +1 KWI 02:50 +1 320 0 J4 C9 D6 W4 I0 X4 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 Q4 L4 V4 U4 E4 T4 N4
EK 373 BKK 21:25 DXB 00:30 +1 0 P9 A7 J4 C4 I0 Y7 O9 E9 R9 W7 M7 B7 U9 K7 Q7 H7 L7 T7 X9 V7
-> EK 853 DXB 01:45 +1 KWI 02:25 +1 0 CANCELLED


Your choices appear to be very limited, unless TG is willing to do an involuntary reroute to QR via DOH (or EK via DXB or KU direct flight that leaves at 2:30AM and 3AM respectively) which I am very doubtful. I would take the TG flight a day earlier and the KWD 50 upgrade to business class appear to be a very good deal.

Every airline changes its schedule in accordance with market conditions and equipment logistics from time to time and is not unique to TG.

Last May, I booked a TG flight from HKG to BKK that was cancelled. I received a full refund from TG and I re-booked on CI.