ColoBill1

Purchased a copy of "Guinness World Records 2004" book today at my local Sams Club. In the "travel and tourism" section on pages
97-98, a record which obviously references the wonderful-while-it-lasted United "Bhat Run" is made.

A record was apparently established by a gentleman from Japan when he completed 70 domestic Thai flights in 7 days in 2001, flying between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son.

However, there appear to be two glaring errors stated in the discussion of this record. The book goes on to state that all flights "lasted 70 minutes", and that all flights "were on Boeing 747-400s."

Those of us who have personally taken these flights know that neither of these statements are true. The scheduled flight time from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son is only 35 minutes, and to Chiang Rai was about the same. I am not aware that any mainland domestic Thai flights use a 747-400.

TANBOY90274

Yes, they do fly the 747-400's on some domestic routes. Specially from Bkk-Phuket.
On these domestic routes they don't operated the first-class section, just business and Y class.

couscous

I have seen a 747 from Thai at Phuket (BKK-HKT)

ozstamps

Had to chuckle reading this.

For anyone newish to this board, the 'Baht Run' was a loophole (quite legal) that allowed anyone to make UA 1K for under $1000.

Bottom line - internal flights within Thailand (then) cost peanuts each so the 100 TG "segments" needed for 1K were cheaply obtained. Due to short flights and heavy frequency, this could all be done in a small number of days.

Due to a glitch on UA website folks doing this often got TWELVE SWU's after they completed it too. Again, thanks to FT identifying THAT loophole.

There was a 750 post thread on it I started:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/003577.html

Lots of folks on FT became 1K for the first time due to this loophole. A few entire "families" did so in fact. (Coff!) I am sure some of the intrepid 'Baht Runners' will chime in here.

My hats off to all those intrepid flyers who participated in this - one of the great FT adventures, right up there with 'Latin Pass'.

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Try and make it down to SYD for "OZ FEST 2004" - May 21-23

~ Glen ~ sipping bubbly from UA 747-400 exit row 15A near you SOON!

ozstamps

Rather co-incidentally I was given a copy of the 'Guinness Book Of Records 2004' for Christmas. Had never bothered to open it until I saw this post.

On the oz version on page 96, under the "Travel and Tourism" section there is this entry:

MOST SCHEDULED FLIGHTS IN A WEEK

Tae Oka (Japan) completed 70 scheduled flights in 7 days on Thai Airways International between 14 and 20 February 2001.

The flights were all internal flights between the Thai cities of Chiang Mai, Chang Rai, and Mae Hong Son, and lasted 70 minutes.

All flights were on Boeing 747-400s and the total cost of the flights was THB69,960.

From my direct knowledge of the Baht Run, these 3 Northern Thailand cities were correct, and I understand that doing this triangle in about 70 minutes WAS actually possible on some schedules as long as you had boarding passes pre-issued? Each city is only about 80-90 miles apart IIRC?

The Feb 2001 timeline ties in exactly with the Baht Run mania. (FT thread was started latter 2000.)

Ten or so flights a day was what several Baht runners seemed to manage IIRC. Clearly Guinness got the '747' wrong - they were IIRC generally 737's ... the actual FT "runners" will I am sure remember them well.

Did anyone one FT do MORE than 70 flights in a week - you may get a place in the next edition. Maybe Tae Oka is a FT'er anyway - anyone know?

ColoBill1 - out of interest does the USA edition have that bizarre Royal blue/silver metallic cover with a strange 3D effect?

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Try and make it down to SYD for "OZ FEST 2004" - May 21-23


[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited Feb 22, 2004).]

sergio

Approximately how many miles would be gotten for those 70 flights?

[This message has been edited by sergio (edited Feb 22, 2004).]

xFlagger

Hi Sergio:

Since these flights were ALL less than 500 miles, 500 miles would have been given for each segment. Hence, 70 flights = 35,000 miles, plus 6 HK49s plus 12 500-mile upgrade "stickers".

If I'm wrong on that, someone please correct me.

CF

ozstamps

A few 1000. Totally irrelevant. Baht Run was all about segments.


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[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited Feb 22, 2004).]

ozstamps

Sorry - that is waaaaaaaay wrong.

Firstly you get NO HK49 or 500 miles credits for non United metal flights.

Secondly - these were THAI AIRLINES flights. Therefore NO 500 mile minimums as you are used to on UA. As I posted above these cities are only 80-90 miles apart.

Even worse - back then Thai only "paid" 50% of the miles flown to your UA account, so EACH flight only got you 50 or whatever miles to your MP account.

As posted that is totally irrelevant. 'Baht Run' was entirely about SEGMENTS. 10 a day for 10 days and you were 1K for around $1000.

beaubo

Unpublished Guinness Baht Run record.........

Largest Number of Baht Runners on one plane-

20


:0

chitownflyer

Can a person no longer do the baht run to qualify for 1K?

tvl4free

Well, yes, one still could become 1K by flying 100 TG segments. However, the price has just about doubled since I first published the run waaaay back when.

The Baht Run was laid to rest by me when virtually over nite the domestic TG fares were re-structured. After that, 911 came along and security fees and taxes (which can add 30-35% to a given segment run) once again made that Baht Run look attractive.

However, now, carfully plotted domestic runs actually pay off better in terms of miles earned.

But for segments, there has never been a better 'mini-vac,' as the same plane was used on many of the segments (turn-arounds).

So beaubeau, how many individual tickets of MAAA BABY did you actually wind up buying? From the above statement, I am assuming at least 2,000. But then knowing you, it was prolly considerably more.

Fly2Kayak

When I was last there the flights were more expensive. There are seperate "farang" prices too if I recall correctly.

Also FWIW, I flew on a 747 from BKK-HKT. I think it's the shortest flight I've ever taken on a 747.

My only regret is that we did not pay the extra $10 or so for C class (it didn't occur to me to even ask about C class at the time - but I know better now thanks to FT) - even on such a short flight. The food was terrible in Y - and believe it or not, that 747 was packed to the gills. It made for a rather unpleasant (if mercifully short) flight.

gnaget

I guess you could. BKK- Chiang Mai is about $40-$50 for a walk-up economy ticket. So $4000 to $5000 to get 1K. But this is sheer madness!?!

I bought two walk-up C class tickets for 5500 Baht incl taxes earlier this week. Gotta love it.

Also, I just went to Thailand and was so enamored by the norhtern part of the country that I wanted to buy some segments like Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai on a RTW. But there are currently no listed CM to CR flight on mainline TG.

tvl4free

And all I have to say about the "Guinness World Records 2004" is that:

1. They ought to give credit where credit is due. (I know FTers who did more segs per week than was reported).

2. They ought to get their numbers right. (The original proposal was for 10 segments per day with, as an option, 2 more which could be thrown in for good measure). So the total possible per week was 84 segments.


For those who don't know, we even had a 5 year old FTer who became a 1K as a result of the BR.

In short, The Baht Run was simply brilliant - even if I do say so myself!