Thunderroad

My wife and I plan to fly from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang to Koh Samui to Bangkok in February. Bangkok Airways (in partnership with Lao Airlines) looks to be the best option. I'd appreciate help with the following questions:

1. I don't see any US offices in the contact link. Is it possible to simply skype the Bangkok Airways number in Thailand and buy the pass over the phone?
2. If I can buy it over the phone, are the airpass and ticket transmitted to me electronically, or is there some paper version that I get somehow?
3. Except for the first flight of the day, the Bangkok Airways tickets to and from Koh Samui only seem to be available in relatively expensive ticket categories if buying them a la carte. Does the cheaper Discover Airpass price for these flights apply under these circumstances?
4. Do I buy the airpass and book the specific flights at the same time? If not, how does the process work?

Thanks for any help!

dsquared37

In order to ticket a particular flight in the Discovery Airpass scheme there must be a specific fare class available for that segment. For PG it is 'L', for QV i think it is 'B' (the former is a midlevel fare, the latter a low end eco fare). If a segment in question does not have that fare class available it's not eligible for the DA.

1. The ticket itself can be purchased by calling PG. Their hours are limited however.

2. It's all an eticket.

3. See what I listed above.

4. Yes, you need to do this all at once. IIRC you do have the ability to alter your flights before flight time.

Another think you should realize is your itin, CNX-LPQ-BKK-USM-BKK, might not work. In order to ticket you need minimum 3 segments. The problem arises if your BKK-USM-BKK segments don't have availabilty, you're left with only 2 segs.

Thunderroad

Thanks very much for all of this useful information, dsquared37. I guess my best approach is to sort it all out over the phone. Thank goodness for Skype.

I suspect that the Airpass won't work out for us, either for the reasons you suggest or also because TG is pulling out of USM, which in turn will probably make the Bangkok Air flights priced at higher codes than allowed for the AP. But I'll give it a try.

dsquared37

On a random assortment of days I see the first, quite early, flight BKK-USM with 'L' availability but no other flights during the day. This would be your biggest impediment and I'm not sure TG's withdrawal from the market will affect much as PG is already priced quite high.

Thunderroad

Thanks again, ds. We'll be coming from Luang Prabang, so the only way we could catch that early morning flight is if we stayed over in Bangkok on the way. That in and of itself is not bad, but I'd rather spend that night in either Luang Prabang or Koh Samui.

whackyjacky

The real early & late flights are pretty cheap anyway (relatively).

jefi99

OT: Is TG withdrawing from USM?

Thunderroad

Yep. The flights end in January. It's discussed in a thread at the TG forum.