Fair play to UL (after about 5-6 phone calls), they accommodated us on the later 18:00 MAI flight RGN-BKK but because that would have meant missing out on the BKK-CMB with UL, they moved us onto the 22:00 Thai Airways departure.
The MAI flight was all Y-config as stated and, while our tickets showed economy and we were 3 abreast in 1 A-C, they seemed somehow to be making an exception of us, the day after they cancelled business class on that flight, and served us our meal with linen service. We were the only ones on the plane that this applied to, getting awkward looks from other passengers. Were they doing this to apologise or were we still accommodated as economy passengers in normal seating arrangement. I can't work out whether this still qualifies as an 'involuntary downgrade' or were they trying their utmost best to 'blur' the distinction so it would reduce the risk of complaint?
It was a sprint at BKK airport owing to a late inbound arrival but we got to try Thai, which we would not have done otherwise though we're were not terribly impressed with the hard product on the 'asian inter-regional' A330 configuration and it was a battle all the way through the flight to be replenished with wine. The CMB-LHR leg with UL was great with a 1-2-1 config, however.
Are UL correct that their change onto Thai Airways (which was initiated by them) would mean I no longer collect the 40 TPs for the BKK-CMB leg that I would have done on UL?