MarkTraveller

This is my personal overview after 8 years being only loyal to Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus. In my opinion the whole company has changed diametrically and I don't want to be anymore customer of that airline.

1. Being Gold Member of ROP means nothing nowadays. Why? I remember old good times when you felt the real THAI hospitality from the beginning of your TG flight. The time when you felt unusual has finished. Now you are just an ordinary customer with ROP Gold status who bought a THAI ticket.

2. THAI customer selection:
-Thai airways divides their customers to Royal family, Thai Elite upper class, Thai Elite middle class, Thai Elite, Buddhist Monks and at the end Foreigners . An ordinary foreign loyal customer who is paying a lot of money for a 100% millage TG ticket has less rights than Thai residents without any ROP or *A status. I didn't see this before but since 3 years of flying THAI i could fell this treatment on myself. I was many times downgraded only because: rich Thai residents, Thai governmental officer, Thai Army officer wanted some space in F or C class. TG knows how to ruin somebodies business plans.

3. THAI ROP system:
- The most prehistoric millage system I have been working. THAI will not you to earn miles on different airlines. Flying Economy class with other Star alliance partners means only: Your ticket has to be on the most expensive tariff if you want to get 100% miles.
The ROP never update their tariffs system. Many airlines are using business class tarrifs which Thai airways recognize as a chepest economy tariff. Example: "N" tariff is in economy premium at many airlines but Thai airways hardly says this is an award ticket tariff and 0% miles.
- If you reach your Gold status you get your complimentary upgrades. Upgrades which you sometimes cant use. All seats for upgrades are locked and open firstly for Elites. At the end are you and other Star Alliance partners.
- With Thai GOLD status there is no policy to block the seat next to you if the plane is not full. For example UA, LH, A3, TK, LX, OS gives you this privilege automaticly if you just put your gold number into system. In THAI you have to always ask for it and the ladies at the check-in always says this is not our job ask the flight manager at the gate counter.
- Never send message to ROP Gold customer email if you don't want to be disrespected.

4. Horrible policy of making flight connection on one ticket. On ITA sometimes you can read exactly everything about TG tariffs. TG let you make a reservation only if the connection flight will be on the same tariff as flight from or to Bangkok. Finnaly ticket is much more expensive than is worth it. In consequence you have to buy two seperate reservations and pray to all Gods that your flight will be on time otherwise THAI send you copy/paste answer about Warsaw/Montreal convention.

5. Still you can feel the ingorance beween TG and LH or SQ.

6. Food is getting lousy, boring and the portions are half size than few years ago.

7. The era of THAI hospitality and fantastic service has finished 4 years ago. There is no more waiter service on TG flights like beofre. Now is automatic, robot trolley service: "Take it or leave it". The last part which left of that fantastic service is the traditional Royal Silk uniform.

8. Most disappointing Thai airways lounges in BKK. This should be a label of the Thai airways as a huge hub in South East Asia.

I had many questions to THAI but they had never beeing answered. I decided to dont play with ROP anymore. I saw many empty seats on TG planes but it seems they dont need customers to fully fill them out. I spent the rest of my miles on my ROP account last year, matched program and now I am happily loyal to other Star alliance partner which treats their customers equal and fair enough.
At the end of my review Id to say: I really miss "old" Thai Airways.

npxphoto

I am sorry: I have to agree! Thai Airways has lost a lot of their "hospitality" and Farangs are nowadays only used as ATM.

Some years ago Thai Airways was one of the best Airlines out of my view. But today......

Best regards
Norbert

behuman

Welcome to FT MarkTraveller and sorry you had to start with a review which raises many unfortunate points.

My partner is with ROP and gold for 8 years too and what is at present most disconcerting are the recent changes in award redemption requirements which have now been canceled by TG possibly after many protests.

I don't think there is such a clear pattern. My partner is of the lowest possible class of Thais and has always been treated well.


This is simply not true: From C to F the GUP books into booking class P for ROP G members and there was never ever an upgrade refused. They always and still go out of their way to make it happen. The same applies for the 50 % birthday award. They have a special ROP G counter at the Silom office and the agent there is a lovely lady indeed.

The ROP lounges, even the noisy F one, are a disgrace. just head to the SQ lounge except late at night.

I agree that TG's product in C on long haul is crap, I fly now exclusively LX and SQ when in C. The only way to go is F or regional flights where they still can be efficient.

If you are a family it can make sense to be elite of different FFP's. In our case M&M and ROP.

A_Lee

I've been flying TG a lot and a ROP member for most of the past decade. While TG and ROP weren't without problems, I was overall very satisfied with them until recently. A lot of really bad decisions have been made, but there was one move that was by far the worst and the one that really clinched my decision to abandon ROP and TG....

Their downgrade of ROP, and expiring already earned miles early was in my mind absolutely nothing short of crooked business practices. I agree that they had every right to modify ROP for future miles earned. By going back on their word for miles already earned, and with almost no notice, did nothing but completely alienate some of their best customers, and totally destroy any credibility they had. Already ROP has the shortest validity in the industry, and no practical way to extend their validity. But the one partial saving grace was that I was flying a lot and they were in the habit of annually giving a 6-month extension before expiring miles. Then suddenly they announced that not only were they doing away with that 6-month extension, but they were expiring everyone miles early, based on the quarter they were earned, rather than at the end of the year. ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING BEHAVIOR!!!!! That alone, their complete dishonesty, is enough to make me never want to do business with them again.

Now who exactly is responsible for totally destroying TG's credibility by cheating their best customers out of their miles, I don't know, but ultimately the responsibility falls on the top management at TG. And it was the complete incompetence at the top under the previous president that led to what I consider to be the destruction of everything that was good about TG. The guy was totally unqualified to be in the airline business, and his every decision proved this. Then came the takeover by the military, and again the airline is being run or at least heavily influenced by people who don't know a thing about running an international airline.

There's lots and lots of other things, some minor, and some major that led to my loss in confidence in TG, but nothing that couldn't be repaired if they would have sacked the incompetent management and replaced it with people who are competent. The problem now though is that due to their dishonesty, unless they get someone in who will publicly apologize for their past dishonesty, and compensate their customers for being unfairly cheated, I doubt I'll ever give them another chance. Just because I fly to and within Thailand regularly, I cannot totally avoid TG. So there will be certain instances where despite my disdain for them, I will still fly them because there's no reasonable alternative, or other extenuating circumstances. But given reasonable alternatives, I'm shifting all my potential business to other airlines, and completely abandoning ROP, crediting all my *A mileage to other programs.

Well, just a few of the other major problems that have come up in the past couple of years:

* Adding on additional surcharges for C/F, including redemptions, on top of already ridiculous fuel surcharges

* On the main routes I'd like to use them, TG went from being among the cheapest to the most expensive. Their pricing is often just absurd.

* Thai Smile - a very bad idea as it was implemented, which thankfully has been mostly undone, but given my decision to stop flying TG doesn't really make any difference at this point. Specifically the move to DMK was totally asinine. Parts of the idea of Thai Smile I can understand, such as trying to create a division with new workers who they can pay comparable wages to competing low-cost airlines. But services/conveniences for international transit passengers should have been sacred and not touched.

* Major blunders in implementing the Platinum level. I did and still do fly a lot, and until recently I was flying a whole lot in premium classes where TG was an option. I would have loved to have become a Platinum member and received the benefits, but right from the start they tried to make it some top secret, "by invitation only" level, and would never guarantee the qualification rules, benefits, etc. Incredibly stupid decision making! Rather than try to attract me to flying more, and in premium classes, by keeping everything a big secret they gave me no confidence in the Platinum level and just the opposite effect happened - they drove me away to give other airlines all my premium class flying.

* Of course the major mistake of increasing their mileage redemption amounts to absolutely absurd levels is way up there on the list, and then their revoking it just proves how totally out of touch the management was in making that decision, and I guess felt they had no choice but to rescind it due to the outcry. What was so totally laughable about that decision, was that beyond the ridiculous mileage requirements for awards, that combined with the worst validity period in the industry meant the average frequent flyer would never have any opportunity to earn enough miles for any worthwhile travel award, and would simply be wasting accumulating miles that they could never use, making ROP utterly worthless for them. Long before ever reaching Gold (and receiving bonuses for flights), most people would likely just give up after seeing how worthless the attempt was to accumulate miles they could never use.

I would love for TG to return to how it was operated while Piyasvasti Amranand was at the helm. Those were some of the best years when I flew TG at every opportunity. Not that he was totally able to eliminate the incompetence within the TG organization during his term, but at least he was making great strides. Should they find someone like him again, apologize for their past dishonesty and compensate me, and start moving forward to fix the major problems, I'd probably use them again regularly, even if they still did have a lot of other remaining issues. I seriously doubt though it'll happen and make no plans for that in any of my future travels. And whether or not I fly TG in the future, either out of necessity only, or decide to fly them more regularly, at this point I doubt anything will lead me back to ROP. Of everything that's wrong with the TG organization, in my opinion ROP is managed the worst. Even if things should change, and the problems with ROP solved, there's no guarantee that future management might not come in and quickly revert back to the present incompetence. Flight reservations can be easily changed, but spending years of flying, accumulating status and points in a program isn't something that can just be quickly shifted elsewhere. So in my mind, once I'm gone from a FFP, it's going to be extremely hard to ever woo me back in. After burning me once in ROP, I'm extremely gun-shy of ever trusting them again.

dsquared37

Hmmm, "class"? Care to elaborate on your use of the term? I find it highly inaccurate and poorly chosen.

And my +1 has been treated absolutely awful on several occasions though these were clearly not indicative of the general way in which she was treated by TG staff.

behuman

Thai society is a "class" society, and yes there is a "lowest class".

The expression "class" is of course a provocation, but if you are from the North East farming background and red shirt you are exactly on the lowest in Thailand. especially now with the military dictatorship. You get even some "torture" thrown in if you dare to think, talk or write.....

Despite this: Never a problem with TG. And I am not a fan of them .

dsquared37

Please feel free to list the classes from lowest to highest. I'm well aware of Bangkok arrogance but I disagree with you entirely about your use of the word or designation.

anaidross

I also find the transition from the "old" ROP rules to the "new" ROP rules to be very badly handled.

The notification period (i.e. how many miles will expire on which quarter) to be available in the ROP website that was mentioned in the ROP newsletter was not met and they still implemented the rules on the dte as originally communicated. Also there was so much confusion about the basis for requalification (1 year based rolling period or from expiry date of status).

As a result, I had miles suddenly expirying and I could not convert due to the short notice and could not requalify for gold (i.e. not getting the ROP upgrade vouchers) due to this sudden change in rules.

Please do note that the ROP web-site still does not even provide information about how many miles I need for requalification.

And when I wrote to the ROP help-desk about the matter, I only get a hopeless and unuseful reply like, we will bring it to our management attention.

THe final straw came when they tried to change the redemption rule (i.e. miles needed to redeem one return trip will get you only a one-way ticket), again on short notice. THis is outright fraud.

Whilst this has been taken back, my trust in this program is absolutely lost thereafter. I will jump boat once I requalify for ROP Gold by end of this year.

The person who allowed this ROP program to be changed, and in such a badly executed fashion, has really done Thai Airways a disservice.

11277m

Agree with that. The sudden changes to ROP awards were outrageous and very badly handled. Withdrawing them all was the best thing they could do under the circumstances, but the whole affair was a mess.

I'm dreading what they will come up with next!

As to their replies to correspondence, they are often non-existent and only come out of repeated prompting. Best thing to do, I think, is to find a name to write to and build up a relationship with them. Even so, the people answering correspondence are not really in a position to do anything, except dish out platitudes.

Flyingbiker

I agree, Thai has gone to the dogs in many ways, just flew in Y on SQ and the food quality was equal to or better than a recent C journey on TG. I am keen to get out of there when I get my TG G renewed at the end of this month. Where to though on *? I am considering SQ, I probably do around 40K per year so this will not get me SQ gold or keep it. Any other ideas? Which FFP are people thinking of going to and why?

Sam Drucker

I agree with most of what's been said here. I too have felt that ROP's move to roll out the new award chart (and then retract it) showed naive and foolish leadership. It has caused some of THAI's most valuable customers to lose trust in the ROP program and THAI, at a time when they are most needed by THAI.

One way to interpret the new (and since retracted) award chart and the quarterly mileage expirations of last year is that taken together, they are an attempt to push members more toward economy-class awards. The quarterly expirations help keep mileage account balances down, while on the new award chart side, the 2x increases were on the C and F-class awards, while Y-class had much smaller increases. Given the wording used when the new award charts were retracted, I feel like we will see this come back in some form at a later date.

I too have been considering for months what to do, and what program would I change to, if I dump THAI? I am now in a period of lesser travel for the next few years, but maintaining elite status at THAI is still within site for the future. Thinking from the perspective of a passenger who buys economy tickets, and looking at other airlines' programs that would suit my travel needs of getting to/from Thailand and USA, it is in general a bad time for frequent flyers. In the USA, programs are moving toward spending-based earning. Outside the USA, many carriers have limited mileage earning for many fares (i.e. 50%, 70%, etc.). The non-USA carriers also have expensive "free" awards with the inclusion of fuel surcharges that have not been reasonably updated to the new normal in nearly a decade.

I'm doing an award trip soon, but after that, I don't have any significant travel coming up until well into 2015. And since I will have another 2 years of Gold status commencing on THAI with the new year, I'm going to wait and see what happens with the ROP program. I will be interested to see if anything changes in the structure of the program, and the rewards I've enjoyed with Gold status for the past several years. If they get reduced, I'll move ahead with the search for an alternative.

Noppasit

Hello, I'm new here, but I come from hflight.net, as being a student in the UK, and flying a lot, I have TG ROP Gold, and as a gold member...

1. Partly Disagree: The flight attendance still come to take order for food early than everyone. However, this service will disappear when you're NOT flying Economy.

2. Neutral (50% Agree): Royal family still paid for TG flight, BUT!!! some of POLITICIANS, they are not, they buy economy then ask somebody they know who works inside TG to upgrade for them. Moreover, their son/daughters, if flying in economy, they will get the exit row. I disagree about elite classes, the most important thing is if you know somebody in TG, you'll probably get benefits (e.g. upgrade, exit-row, etc.)

3. Agree: TG customer service is very slow in respond. Some check in agents are useless as you said.

4. Not sure about this.

5. Partly Agree: This is why I am not going to fly SQ unless I fly Business Class, because they treat *Gold as they treat Economy Class passenger. (In some cases, *Gold is better treated in TG than SQ)

6. Strongly agree: Business Class meal are extremely rubbish, there must be something wrong with TG kitchen in BKK.

7. Partly disagree: Some of the flight attendances are robot, but most of them are very nice.

8. Partly agree: It might be because there is a lot of people (during night time), but there is a significant reduction in the served food in the lounge (both Royal Silk and First)

I would like to say as you say, I miss the "old" TG.

Noppasit

In respond to A_Lee,

- The London Royal Silk price are absolutely expensive, and the price doesn't match the seat and food service. I have to insist my parents not to buy full fare business class in this route. We were once spent THB 500k on this flight.

- I agree with you about ThaiSmile, the management team must be an idiot.

- After a carefully considering about the platinum benefits, its not going to worth getting this status.

- I strongly agree with "I would love for TG to return to how it was operated while Piyasvasti Amranand was at the helm."

Noppasit

In respond to behuman,

The silom office has one lady working at the gold counter, let me tell you about her...

She is probably the best ticket agent I have never seen before, she helps me with every booking I have made (sometimes she didn't put the deadline on my ticket which is great).

dsquared37

You'll find unanimity in that response.

And near unanimity on this one.

Welcome to FT Noppasit.