Getting ready to plan our first trip back to Thailand since 2019! Wow, can't believe it's been that long. But yeah, thanks Covid. Anyway, my spouse and I plan to travel to Thailand in (most likely) February 2024. We always fly into BKK, spend 4 or 5 days there, then to a different city in Thailand, spend 4 or 5 days there, back to BKK for 1 final night, then back to the USA. This upcoming trip we plan to go to KBV.

In the past, we always flew Thai Airways (TG) in their domestic business class on wide bodies to wherever we went in Thailand. Since that's no longer an option for domestic travel in Thailand, we have been looking into other carriers for the BKK-KBV-BKK trip. We prefer to stick with BKK over DMK since it's an airport we are familiar with, and will be flying out of it to return to the USA. We always stay our last night at the Novotel BKK to be in position for our morning departure on KE. Looks like our options are Bangkok Airways, Thai Air Asia, That VietJet, and Thai Smile. None of the carriers have wonderful schedules in/out of KBV right now... most departures/returns are early morning or evening. Nothing midday. But then again by February we might see more capacity added.

Bangkok Airways seems to have the most desirable schedule of the four above, so we are leaning in that direction. Just looking for people's overall opinion of PG and any advice or helpful tips, do's/don'ts they can provide. I did a search on FT and can't find much information. The info that was there was mostly positive.

A few questions I do have:

1. Is the 20KG baggage allowance the total weight allowed per passenger or per bag or the total? More than likely we will each have 1 checked bag, so that would be 2 bags total. Does that mean a combined total of 40KG or 20KG per bag? I have no problem paying for excess weight, or if we brought an extra 3rd bag. Just wanting to understand the rules ahead of time. Normally we fly in business class or on an airline we have status with, so it's quite rare for us to have to worry about paying for baggage and the rules read differently than most US carriers.

2. Are there advance seat assignments? Or are they assigned during OLCI like TG used to do? We will probably buy the more expensive economy fare just to have the flexibility in case we need to make changes.

3. Any benefit to signing up for their FF program?

4. As for check-in queues in BKK/KBV, how far in advance should one plan to arrive?

Thanks for any and all info! And if anyone would suggest another carrier for whatever reason, please feel free to share. Nothing has been booked yet - just in the early planning stages.