Originally Posted by LH747FTL
After my first TG flight from Suvarnabhumi, I agree with just about everything RTWSTARALLIANCE said. Although I'd take the two-storey Don Muang lounge any day over the main lounge here. No seats to be found at 7am, the floor was dirty like a BKK street with construction nearby. The toilets were filthy. If they can't be bothered to bring food from Don Muang, please get BFS or somebody with they catering facilities ready to provide it. Worst food in any SE Asian lounge I've visited recently, even the Louis Taverns have better offerings.
On top of that, Star Gold check-in is a complete joke. Four desks with longer lines than the 40 or so Y class desks nearby. Any experience if *G in Y can check-in at the C counters?
Paying the departure fee is an experience itself - there's about 2 metres between the end of check-in counters and these departure fee desks - with a couple hundred pax trying to make their way to departures.
My experience differs significantly with yours. Regarding *G check-in, no you can't use the business-class check-in at Rows A/B. that area is only for First and Business class passengers. Yesterday the *G check-in only had one or two people in each lane, while two long queues for the standard economy lanes. If you're traveling without checked luggage, use that lane as there wasn't anyone at all in line there.
As to the lounge, I much prefer the food selection at the TG lounge to the Louis Tavern lounges, but maybe that's just down to personal tastes. I found the TG sandwiches slightly better, being fresh, as opposed to the Louis Tavern sandwiches being somewhat stale. I liked the quality of the TG fruit over Louis Tavern as well. Beyond that, the Louis Tavern lounge just has cookies and cake...too sweet for my liking...much preferred the not-so-sweet TG pastries. I'm not really into hotdogs, but the TG lounge had those mini hotdogs, which I didn't see any equivalent to at the Louis Tavern lounges. In the TG lounge you may have to visit multiple food stations to be able to sample their entire selection. If you just went to one station, the selection might not have been so great. Or maybe they have a problem supplying the entire selection so early in the morning.
With the extremely heavy usage of the one TG lounge, I imagine it was a bit hard to keep clean, but when I was there the attendants were working diligently, though seemed to miss certain spots at times as they didn't quite have a good routine down. With the easing of the crowding now, I imagine that will improve. Didn't see any problems with cleanliness at the Louis Tavern lounges, but with only very light usage that I've seen, wouldn't imagine they'd have the same problems as TG.
Agree about too many people just hanging out near the departure tax booths, but the same thing existed at Don Muang also. I imagine those booths will be gone by early next year though, as they'll be including the tax in the ticket price.