I’m in the home stretch here (we’ll actually I am home now) so I’m going to let it rip.

7) NewStyle C farewell on NRT-BKK
Boarded NH 915 and had a smooth flight to BKK. Sat in 82K (exit row window upper deck. Best non-F seat on the plane. Had a few beers, enjoyed dinner but it was far from F fare. I’ll be sorry to see the NewStyle C disappear from my “regular” route, but yoa know what? Ultimately, sleeping “flat” on a incline is not all that great. I woke up with my back killing me and my seatbelt around my neck. We’ll not exactly, but you get the picture. This is a great product, don’t get me wrong, but in the future, should this seat config ever make it back on one of my routes, I’ll try sleeping in reclined seated position rather than “flat.”

8) AAC Limousine from BKK to the SGS (I like this place), but will not renew the Grand Club membership.
Well I popped off the plane pretty quickly and was striding to immigration when I got a quick wave from one of those guys with the golf carts. Was I going to say no? We hit speeds of probably 17 mph on the way to immigration. It would have been a 10 min walk.
After I cleared customs, I grabbed my golf clubs which emerged quickly with the *A priority tag and headed out customs. Nobody was standing there at all. Must have been time for a break. I suppose I needed to pass one uniformed official be I emerged in the arrivals hall.

So now you have a few choices. A) Get Shanghaied (or in this case, BKK’d) by the taxi touts. B) Get in the taxi queue, and a ride to the city for about $8-9. C) Go for the limo service. Well last time in town was my first with AAC limo and that is my method of choice hence forth. http://www.airporttaxithai.com/
Just find their desk, Discounted RT to Bangkok is now 1190 Baht. Your in an older Benz with AC that works instead of a bucket of bolts. Sure there’s going to be people at both ends of the spectrum. Those who order the new Benz from their hotel and those who will will stay in a guest house without AC. But, I highly recommend these guys for everyone in between. Upon arrival, go to their counter, staff wears bright yellow jackets, buy your ticket and schedule a pickup time and location, your car arrives within 5 minutes and you’re gone. And yes, pay the 70 baht for the tollway. Picked me up right on time for my return.

Additional Notes on the SGS:
Great hotel. Friendly courteous staff. Nice spacious rooms but basically upgrades are not available to Gold and lower. Good buffet each day which as a Grande Club member you get for half price. I think the Shang has a better buffet though. Would love to come back often, but the Grande club benefits just didn’t make the cut for this next year. I have decided become a free agent at this point.

9) Golfthink Golf school in Thailand
www.golfthink.com
I cannot praise this organization highly enough. The founder is Kim Inglis. Kim is a Thai, but was raised in New Zealand. English is native language. Savage25 and I hooked up with Kim for a 2-day school and we were both pleased with Kim’s professionalism and knowledge of the game. While we were a bit optimistic (our goal each day was 2 hours of range followed by 18 holes) about the amount of time we could put in each day, we both came away with a sense of value and accomplishment. Kim picked us up from SGS in the morning, took us to the courses, arranged tee times and overall customized a 2 day program for us. Needless to say, in the future when I’m doing a turn in BKK, I’m going to be out on the course all day with Kim.

10) Hopefully New Style F from BKK to NRT
Well after some nail biting, my BKK-NRT upgrade finally cleared and I scored F all the way from BKK-SFO for 55k miles. I’d love to offer a detailed report on the New Style F product which will no longer serve this route beginning Nov 15. However, I was asleep moments after we went wheels up. I hadn’t even go the seat into the full flat position. I woke up as when hit some bumps from typhoon No. 21, flattened out the sleep and slept until final approach. Excellent!
SuperStyle F NRT-SFO was solid as usual. Good but not excellent service this morning (errr... afternoon?, errrr...yesterday?).
Made sure to have a couple glasses of the Krug for JackR! After dinner I went lights out for about 5 hours and awoke in time for a snack and arrival.

Straight to the office and at nearly 4:00pm still firing on all cylinders. Heading home now and plan to be back on West Coast time in the morning. Ahhhh.... The magic of F.

Final Stats:
Platinum Points(EQM) Earned: 28,220
Current PP (EQM): 79,979 (with 1 SFO-BKK RT left this year)
Mileage earned: 44,218
Mileage Spent: 55,000
Net Mileage: -10,782
SFO-NRT (F)
HND-OKA (Y-Bulkhead)
OKA-HND (Y-Exit)
HND-OKA (Y-Exit)
OKA-HND (Y-Exit)
HND-TOY (Y- Bulkhead)
TOY-HND (Cancelled)
NRT-BKK (C)
BKK-NRT (F)
NRT-SFO (F)
and total number of holes played on the links... 72.
Not bad for the last 10 days huh?