When I booked the flights for this trip, I included a one day recovery in Bangkok before departing for Vietnam. This was fortuitous because I had to pick up the Lao Airlines tickets on a weekday and had only one possible day to do it, the recovery day. Lao Airlines informed me that their office is in the Silom Plaza Building (If you need to find it, it is the same building as the Thai Airways ticket office on Silom). I grabbed a taxi from our Priceline hotel, the infamous Holiday Inn Silom (Marsha likes it), to the Thai Airways office and searched out the Lao office. I presented my confirmation and the following conversation ensued.

Me Question (Q): "Do you take Mastercard?"
Agent Answer (A) "No, only Thai baht"
Q: "Don't you take U.S. dollars since the fare is priced in dollars?"
A: "No, only Thai baht, you can go to the bank to exchange."
Q: "Do I have to buy the complete itinerary now, or can I buy only 1/2 of the BKK-VTE RT?"
A: "Yes, I can sell you only BKK-VTE." "You can pay for the rest at our office in Vientiane; it will be cheaper and they will issue the return."
Q: "How much will that be for just BKK-VTE?"
A: "3750 baht + 700 baht departure tax + 300 baht insurance charge"
Q: "Is this ticket fully refundable?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "Is the hotel booking at the hotel, not the resort?" She actually called the hotel in Luang Prabang and confirmed that they expected me to stay at the hotel. The reason for not staying at the resort is that it is quite a distance from town and the allure of Luang Prabang is the town itself.
A: "Yes, you are confirmed in the hotel."

BTW,The web-site says that a RT on this routing is $180, half obviously would be $90. That is what I thought I booked, but of course QV never confirmed any prices as I realized later. You can do the math.

So I went to the currency exchange around the corner and got sufficient baht to pay for the half RT. She issued the ticket, put it in a nice Lao Airlines folder along with a copy of the intinerary and the address of Lao Airlines in Vientiane. I immediately went to the Thai Airlines office hoping that I could exchange the QV ticket for a TG ticket. Unfortunately Thai wanted considerably more to fly them. So, I flew QV to VTE .

Next at short report on BKK-VTE and paying for picking up the tickets.