New to DC : o/w award flight HKG-BKK
 

I fly BMI occassionally, have their credit card and have a small amount of miles. I was intitially planning on saving these miles for a couple of return flights to Europe.

However, I'm going to South East Asia in October with my g/f and one of the internal flights we're looking at taking is from HKG to BKK.

The flight with AirAsia is the cheapest (£150 for 2 one way) compared to Thai/Cathay who are all c. £300 one way each and not much cheaper booking a return and not using the return leg.

AirAsia have one flight a day whilst Thai have a number of flights which would suit us much better. I had a quick look at the redemption chart and just wanted to make sure I was reading it correctly.

From HKG-BKK would be 15,000 plus tax per person for a one-way economy ticket and to book I would need to call the Diamond Club? I've checked availability using the ANA tool but can't get past the flight selecting page.

A random look shows availability excellent on all the TG flights. Business Class is also there, as indeed (on the 747 flights only) First Class.

15k miles plus tax one-way in Y. However, why not go cash and miles instead? Y is 7,500 plus £50 plus tax each. It is, after all, nearly a 3 hour flight. Taxes will be roughly £30 each looking at Expedia.

Given that Business Class is only an extra 3,750 miles and £25 each on 'cash and miles', though, I'd go for that. On the 747's and probably 777's, Thai uses its long-haul planes to fill up time during the day so you would probably get a proper long-haul sloping-flat-bed seat. In F you'd presumably get the proper bed on the 747's. Given how few extra miles you need, why go Economy? Buy the extra miles you need if necessary.

The upgrade is especially worthwhile if you don't have *A status as it would also get you lounge access in HKG, where you could easily drink your way through the extra cost of the upgrade! Have some fun, go F or J. Life is too short for 3 hours on Air Asia, especially given the modest cost of doing it properly.

As for ANA, as far as we are concerned, it's 'View only' and once you have found the magic Gold Circle indicating availability, you then have to call the diamond club call centre to book your award.

OK, I'm here! You found me... ;)

The trouble with HKG-BKK on TG is that the aircraft operating the flight on any given day is totally unpredictable. What you think will be a refurbished 747/777 or a new A346 could end up as an old 747, A330 or even an A300 or 737. It's one of those routes with a high probablilty of being disappointed.

Unless I was flying that route as part of a longer award, therefore not caring too much about the short sector, for peace of mind and guaranteed cabin quality, I'd forego the award and fly business class on EK for £150.

Of course you could always extend a Z7-Z8 award to fly HKG-SIN-BKK for the same mileage and a bit more cash and have a stopover in SIN too.

Oxon Flyer, thanks for clarifying that. Wasn't sure if I was doing anything wrong.

Raffles - thank you so much for that post. It hadn't even cross my mind to fly Business or First. I've taken a quick look and on the 11/12 October First is unavailable but Business Class is free and I suspect that's definitely what I'd go for. If First becomes available I'd probably go for that and by the additional 3,000 miles I need.

Will keep an eye out for availability as I definitely think this is the best option... better flight times as well with Thai than AirAsia.

Cheers guys.

TG's route planning is a little unpredictable right now. They canned half of their HKG-BKK schedule a month ago, and then reinstated it a few days later when they realised what an almighty stuff up they had made. You could book a seat and then find your flight cancelled, especially as you are looking so far out.

TG have no idea how the rest of winter 08 is going to shape up let alone summer or winter 09, so route cuts & reinstatements are still likely.

FOM is right that this route suffers from regular equipment swaps too, I personally wouldn't waste the miles on it. If you book F and then get hit with a swap, you may find yourself on a 2 class service in J.

If you can get J on EK for £150, it seems like good value for a 3 hour flight.

How do you get that fare with EK?

Interesting thought.

Maybe it would help to provide a bit more information about our trip. We arrive and leave from BKK (with BA). We're interesting in DPS, KUL and HKG. I don't mind AirAsia for the other flights but the flight from HKG back to BKK is at a crap time hence my thoughts of using BMI miles.

The EK flights are now £285 each in J - they have really kicked up their prices in the last 12 months. And it arrives in HKG after midnight.

Book Thai J on miles. Even if your exact flight is cancelled or retimed, they will simply move you to the next one. Even the 'old' TG J seat - which I've had on internal flights in Thailand - is a big fat seat in itself, a typical 1980's style long-haul J seat. 100x better than an Air Asia Y seat on a short-haul plane. Plus proper food, drinks etc and lounge access.

Yep that's what I got the price to be. The AirAsia flight arrives that sort of time as well.

That's the plan. To be honest I'm not bothered what type of plane/configuration it is for J - the seat will be better than in Y for a comparable cost.

I'm now also looking at the cost of a one-way J from BKK-DPS with Thai which I understand (as both BKK/DPS are in Zone 7) should be 7,500 miles + £52.50 plus tax per person one-way in Business Class.

Euan - thanks for your feedback. ^

As a result, I have updated the ANA tool guide to reflect that it is only for research usage. Hopefully that will help to clarify it for future readers of the guide.

... and now for the good news....@:-) You could tag on the BKK-DPS flight as part of the same redemption as your HKG-BKK booking by making a single HKG-DPS booking, with a stop-over in BKK. In other words, book HKG-BKK-DPS as a Z8-Z7 award, for no extra miles.:D There would be additional TG taxes/surcharges but no extra miles & cash....

Sorry, could someone please confirm that my calculation's correct for BKK-DPS o/w in J.

It would be much appreciated :)

Seems correct to me. But see Corpt above!

Euan,

why not do 2 one ways:

BKK-DPS(stopover)-SIN-NRT for 11,250 points in J
NRT-HKG(stopover)-BKK for another 11,250 points in J

You can almost make a tour of SE Asia.

I'd say Tokyo beats KUL any time.

If you want to get from BKK-DPS best to fly via SIN on SQ. TG usually use old A300s on this route which aren't the best planes I've been told. You'll get a SQ 777 on both sectors and if the shorter leg is BKK-SIN (not sure if it is:confused:) you can even get F class (if you pick one of the flights with F on his route) for no extra miles.

good luck with you choices^

The AB6 is OK for BKK-HKT but I would hate to be on one for longer than an hour.

SQ is definately the way to go to get to DPS

Thanks for the suggestions Corpt and arpiuk. We spent nearly 3 weeks in Japan a few years ago so we want to focus on other cities instead.

I'm very much a newbie when it comes to booking reward tickets, particularly one-way and with stopovers - I've never booked either before. In terms of a stopover (never booked one before) can it be a 2/3 night stopover?

So for example I could do the following and use miles and cash to book Business Class for all flights (assuming availability).

Flight 1 - BKK-DPS-SIN (Stopover in DPS for 2/3 nights)
Flight 2 - SIN-HKG-BKK (Stopover in HKG for 2/3 nights)

The cost in miles and cash would be...

Flight 1 - All Zone 7 - 10,000 miles + £52.50 cash + taxes per person
Flight 2 - Zone 7 & 8 - 11,250 miles + £75.00 cash + taxes per person

Total for both flights... 42,500 miles + £255 cash + taxes

Is this correct and do-able all by called the Diamond Club? If I call do I just need to tell them I want to book 2 one-way tickets for 2 people each and provide them with flight details/dates/class?

Sorry for all the questions. Your help is very much appreciated :).

Thanks,
Euan

Flight 1 should be OK, although I reckon that they might have a problem with flight 2 as technically it's not the most direct route from A>B and involves a significant detour. They may insist that you do SIN-BKK-HKG or charge you for Z7-Z8 and Z8-Z7 for that itinerary. YMMV of course.

I TOTALLY agree ^

Even flight 1 seems a lot of extra flying.

BKK-SIN-DPS definitely no problem, but I would not be too sure about BKK-DPS-SIN.

Well BKK-DPS isn't too bad (4 hours or so) but BKK-SIN-DPS is a lot day of flying!

You can have 1 stopover per trip, of any length you like. Any other breaks in the journey need to be less than 24 hours.

You will find calling the Indian Call Centre to be a bit of a trial! Before you ring, write down all the flight numbers and times from the ANA tool and double-check that 2 seats are available. The occasional agent may try to tell you that there are no seats on a particular flight if they have some difficulty finding it in the system so you need to 'persuade' them to look again!

It is likely that they won't be able to work out the taxes on the spot. You will need to call them back for that.

As soon as you get the reference number - AND BEFORE YOU PUT THE PHONE DOWN - put it into www.checkmytrip.com and check that the flights, flight classes and spellings of your names are OK.

Remember that the flight is NOT finalised until it is ticketed. About 3-4 days after you call, ticket numbers should appear in the checkmytrip entry. You are then good to go. If ticket numbers do not appear, call BMI back and ask what is going on.

More specifically, if you have any flights as part of your booking on Singapore Airlines, then these need to be ticketed within 24 hours. Make sure you check a little before the 24 hour deadline. If they are not ticketed, speak to the ICC again and raise the issue with them that they need to be ticketed pretty quickly. Diamond Club have been very good at ticketed SQ flights within deadline for a while now, but the odd one still slips through the net.

Raffles and RAPC, thank you very much for those useful tips :)

I'm going to look at all the potential options with regard to where to visit. We know we want to spend time in Bangkok and Hong Kong, it's just where else... Kuala Lumup, Singapore, Bali, Tokyo?

Whilst we've been to Japan, after arpiuk suggested incorporating Tokyo it's made me consider going there for a few days instead of Bali, even though Bali is somewhere new. Is there a lot to do on Bali bearing in mind neither of us want to lie on a beach!

I'll keep plodding away looking at different routes now that I know stopovers can be included. My new line of thinking is BKK-SIN-NRT and then NRT-HKG-BKK.

Cheers guys, all your help is much appreciated.

Currently looking at the following one-way trips similarly to arpiuk's suggestion...

BKK-SIN-NRT (Stopover SIN)... 11,250 miles + £75 + taxes each
NRT-HKG-BKK (Stopover HKG)... 11,250 miles + £75 + taxes each

BKK-SIN with SQ in Business
SIN-NRT with NH in Business
NRT-HKG with NH in Business
HKG-BKK with TG in Business

I'm assuming both are ok even though the diversion to SIN seems the long way round?

No problem whatsoever. Make sure you ask them to issue the e-ticket immediately, as SQ cancels unticketed reservation after 24 hrs. ICC should know about this, but you might need to remind them and make sure you make a note of who you spoke to.

If you need advice on what to do, where to go, PM me. I can send you a trip report.

Have a great holiday!
arpiuk

Well after much discussion over the past few weeks we've finally decided on our preferred route/trip and I'm now in a position to book the flights having purchased the extra miles I needed (I've got 45,543 miles).

Flight 1 - BKK-NRT
Flight 2 - NRT-HKG-BKK (stopover at HKG)

I've checked availability using the ANA tool and it's all ok for the dates/flights we want but I just have a few questions.

1. Am I best to book as 2 one-way flights or as a return?
2. Neither of us have any status with *A and whilst not critical, can we get advance seat selection?
3. All flights will be in Business Class with miles & cash so I understand the total cost to be 45,000 miles + £300 cash + taxes.

Thanks again for all your help.

Euan

If you book this as a return you can't stop over in both NRT and HKG, so 2x one ways is best.

And you'll be able to do whatever with regard to seat selection as you'll be trated as J pax, status has no bearing on it.

1 Def two one ways
2 This isn't BA, normal seat selection applies ;)
3 Yes

Yes you can can't you? NRT is the destination (so you can stop there) and one stop-over on the return in HKG.:confused: Taking two one-ways would enable a further stop-over somewhere between BKK and NRT, but Euan doesn't seem to want to do that.

I still agree though that two one ways is the better way to do it, just in case you want to make a change to your return journey after taking the outbound.

Thank you Corpt, Swanhunter and Tiger_lily for your prompt replies.

We decided against SIN as we wanted to spend a few more days in Thailand.

Will book as two one-way tickets as it doesn't cost anything more and will leave us with more flexibility. I'm assuming I could cancel (for a fee) and re-book the BKK-NRT with a stopover, say BKK-HKT-NRT (subject to availability).

Good to read about seat selection ;) I assume that I call up the DC to change seats or do I need to call the airlines? (ANA and Thai).

Maybe I am confused? I always thought that you could only have one stopover on a return and that was at your destination, in this case NRT :confused: If you wanted another stopover then 2x one-ways was the way to go

DC *should* be able to see the seat maps, but a good way of checking that all is OK is to ring the respective airlines and get them to do it.

I'm pretty sure that the final destination is in addition to the stopover, even on a return - otherwise, how would a Z1-Z2 redemption work, when you're not allowed to stopover in Europe? :)

Also, from the spending guide:

A stop-over is a lapse of at least 24 hours between your arrival and departure at any transfer point

Absolutely. If the destination was a stop-over, there'd be no reference in the rules to stop-overs at all, as you wouldn't be allowed any. You're definitely allowed one stop-over en-route on a return redemption, in addition to your destination.

From experience half the time the ICC can't. Much better to call the airline and get them to do it. More chance of the assignment sticking too.

Thanks guys.

I'll deal with the booking first (hopefully later on today - too busy at the moment) and can deal with seat assignments later on :)

Cheapest oneway Business Class is Sri Lankan Airways. Not daily though but you can get it for around US$300 oneway. It arrives around 7pm. To find cheap fares oneway or return on TG, don't go to its website which is absolutely uselss. Check it out on zuji.com.hk

Have you also considered flying HND-HKG instead of from NRT? HND is much easier, quicker and cheaper to get to from Tokyo than NRT.