Hey Guys I've been checking out that Global Explorer fare and Darren, it's not so bad...
The Global Explorer fare from Thailand (BA Thailand website) looks OK at 117740 BHT (about 1900 GBP) in Business - although maybe someone can confirm whether is the most up-to-date price?
According to the BA Thai site, the mileage limit is 28,500 (again maybe someone can confirm a more up-to-date price?). But I guess if you flew the maximum miles in Business / First and put the miles into a BA UK Exec Club account, you'd get 57,000 / 85,500 which isn't so bad...

One Question:
In the rules, it says that you are allowed 6 stopovers. But if I originated from BKK, could I do:
BKK-LHR.
LHR-MCT.
MCT-LHR.
LHR-HKG.
HKG-BKK.

I know that from MCT, I could transit through LHR to HKG and it wouldn't count as a stopover. But can I actually stopover in the same place (i.e. LHR) twice?
If so, this would form a nice alternative to the OWE. It makes sense as I live in London.

[This message has been edited by salt (edited 12-07-2000).]

I will concede that $3k is a good price. I was not being critical of the program per se (a lot like *a), I based it off of price. The prices I have seen are mostly for Europe, and are very expensive. $6k-7k comes to mind, but I don't remember exactly.

BTW, all of BA's sites I saw had the updated prices. I doubt this is an exception. They could get into too much trouble for not taking the 2 hours to change the web pages.



[This message has been edited by Darren (edited 12-07-2000).]

Well, they haven't bothered to change it. Had a friend check with the BA ticket office in Bangkok today.

The web site says 161,615 in first class. Wrong. That's the old fare. The new fare is 263,030. Just a slight increase.

Very impressive, BA. Very impressive.

Re-*sigh*....

Thanks for the fare update AlwaysFlying - here I was thinking that the Global Explorer from BKK would be a decent consolation following the loss of a loved one that was the OWE ex-BUD.
To come to think of it, the Global Explorer in the UK is in fact more expensive than the OWE so the new BKK prices are hardly surprising.
Well sorry if I gave anyone any false new hope with the Global Explorer.

Just, FYI, one of the agents I deal with in BKK earlier this week quoted me 193,300 THB plus taxes for Global Explorer business class ex-BKK.

They're trying to stop us "arbitraging" fare differences for local markets. I guess what some of the airlines will try to do eventually is to make all fares the same, or start playing residency requirement tricks.

[This message has been edited by terenz (edited 12-25-2000).]

There are still plenty of fare differentials out there. UA/CX in F out of BKK RTW is $3,300.00.