Thank you for the continued posts with specific information, especially with respect to ticket pricing and trends! Chang Mai, Angkor Wat are high priorities for my friend and I. Ko Samui, Phuket, Bali are secondary. Hopefully reading will help me whittle down wisely or find alternative gems.

With the general date-window decided, my focus now is deciding the mixture of award and paid travel amongst TG/SQ/XX from NYC to BKK. I'm a US top tier elite with enough miles for 2 biz (J) tix, but have been advised to use my miles to "buy" an award tix for my friend (e.g. 60K on a 2-class A345), then have friend reimburse me for a tix I pay cash for, so that I can accumulate miles and use my *G benefits (unlike me, he has no status anywhere).