SkyTeam to SE Asia
 

I'm seeking to book a SkyTeam award to Bangkok. Am I correct that my long haul choices boil down to Delta, Korean Air and China Air? Of the three, which offers the best business product? First product? Any tips on booking?

From my review it appears that Korean Air probably has the best business product. I was further curious about possibly trying the A380. I"m looking a month out for availability and not finding much so booking tips would be great. Was using the Wandering Aramean's site for availability. Does anyone know if they loosen inventories prior to departure like Cathay does? I'd be booking with Skymiles.

Thanks.

I booked 6 months out with Skymiles leaving from ORD and was surprised there was still availability as I usually book 11 months out.

KE is the way to go, an excellent J class product.

Your main problem will be finding low tier availability from CVG to a KE international gateway.

I'd go for the A380 from JFK or LAX, but the 773er from ORD or ATL has the lie flat seats. Avoid the 747 if you can.

There is no such carrier as "China Air". There's Air China (CA), a *A member. There's then China Airlines (CI), a Taiwanese carrier that recently joined SkyTeam. China Eastern (MU) and China Southern (CZ) are also SkyTeam members. Vietnam Airlines (VN) is also an option within SE Asia.

I agree with Paul3456 that you should aim for KE. The 77W out of ORD seems to show good award inventory, and the flat bed seats are great. A380 out of JFK can have good inventory, too, but be aware that they're pulling one of the A380 JFK flights soon to start running it to FRA.

You can't book international F with SkyMiles, but if you need domestic Chinese flights, I've seen reports of people booking the CZ and MU F product on two-cabin flights there like you can book domestic F in the US. Since you're going to BKK, that's likely not going to be something you need unless you run up against the KE blackout dates.

You're right of course. I meant China Airlines.

Good to know the blackout dates. Much appreciated. Appears there are a few days in my target month.

Where are you locating your KE award inventory? The only resource I know is the Wandering Aramean's site which is showing F inventory but no J (O).

I'm seeing good J inventory for the next 14 days and then it drops off. Perhaps Korean make additional inventory available closer to the flight date. I believe their inventory has not been viewable very long but would appreciate others observations on this.

Depending on your starting point (I'm assuming CVG or thereabouts) you should also have options with:
KL via AMS
SU via SVO (from JFK, IAD and maybe LAX)
AF via CDG (they operate an A380 on some JFK-CDG departures)

This of course presumes that SkyMiles allows TATL as well as transpacific routings for USA to SE Asia. However, distance-wise, it seems to be about the same whichever way round you go (CVG-CDG-BKK is ~10,000 miles; CVG-LAX-NRT-BKK is ~10,200).

Unfortunately, I can't (yet!) comment on the relative advantages of these airlines' long-haul product in J...

I'm checking in ExpertFlyer. Not sure what's gone wrong with WA.

Routing via Europe is well nigh impossible with SkyMiles. Some have argued the existence of a published fare on the carriers they're using and made it work, but they're the minority.

If you can't get award availability to Bangkok, try the other cities around SE Asia, like Singapore, Hong Kong or Kuala Lumpur. There may be more capacity to these cities, and hence a higher probability of award seats being available. Then you can then connect to Bangkok on 2-hour regional flights or even LCCs if you're not that picky.

I usually take the KL0807 from Amsterdam to both Bangkok and Taipei.

As far as I know from April on it will be direct flights from AMS to TPE and from AMS to BKK.

I'm also looking to possibly go to BKK from LAX in May, which means most the latter half and May 4-6 is blacked out on KE. I was able to find some availability on China Southern though. Are there any other airline options?

China Eastern via PVG or China Airlines via TPE. Malaysia Airlines should also be an option, but that would be LAX-NRT-KUL-BKK from March unless you switched to another carrier in NRT.

Malaysia is not in Skyteam though.

True. OP had indicated using DL miles, which can be redeemed for travel on MH. Not sure about duke2013's planned source of miles, however, so I should have clarified that redeeming on MH will require miles from a program with which they partner.

Ok. Didn't know you can use DL miles for MH.

I think it was a partnership inherited from PMNW. Everyone kind of expected them to join ST, given the historical relationship with NW/DL and KL, and then they went to OW. (Presumably because GA was joining ST.) I expect the DL (and FB) partnership will end whenever MH gets around to fully joining OW.