Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
I can see your point on the Maldives or Tahiti where your choices are pretty limited to a small number of properties (in some cases there's a second plane flight), but Ko Samui? There's a ton of properties there, from luxury to not so luxury. I would be shocked if you couldn't find SOME kind of room there in dire extremis. Worst case you'd be going back onto the mainland with an hour's boat ride.
True in KS case - but it would be a major downer when you are all set for a luxury vacation and suddenly you find you need either to shell out big bucks to meet that expectation or to compromise to a much lesser hotel.
The need to make sure hotel would honor its emails a year or more from now prior to your making all other arrangement, is too much for me simply to make sure my points get the best usage bucks. Others are more adventurous. I am pretty satisfied to be at Conrad Bali, Bangkok and Hong Kong between Dec and Jan with the old chart on a totally unplanned for trip that I could find CX Fs on both outbound and inbound with AA miles on first search. Initially the trip would not be to Asia but to Africa had HHonor did not pull this on us. C'est la Vie - always have Plan B or C ....