Andy2

Sometime in the next two years I hope to take an award trip to BKK from the United States. I will likely only have 2-4 weeks from the time I book the travel to the time I take the trip. I have the 120,000 United miles for guaranteed coach, but the long multi-connection trip in coach gives me pause.

An option I am considering is converting Starwood points to Thai (obtaining either 90,000 or 110,000 Thai miles) and booking the direct LAX - BKK trip. I would use a Southwest award to get to LAX from the midwest.

A couple of questions that I would greatly appreciate any help you can provide.

1. Is it easy to book LAX - BKK on Thai using 90,000 or 110,000 miles with 2-4 weeks notice? Will they allow the award to be put on hold pending the Starwood point transfer?

2. Has anyone transferred Starwood to Thai (including the 5,000 bonus for 20,000 point transfers)? How long did it take?

Thanks again.

B747-438

(1) Depends entirely on availability. Best way to check availability is to call UA/TG and ask. Of course, just because there's availability on day x doesn't mean there will be availability on day x+n.

If you're ROP*G, then TG will make a real effort for you. If not, then you'll probably have to take what's available.

Join the ANA frequent flyer scheme - their online booking engine shows TG award seats.

Will TG hold an award seat pending transfer of points? Almost certainly not.

(2) No idea. I would call Starwood and ask. Don't be surprised if it takes up to 4 weeks, although it could happen overnight.

Tonecold

Providing you are a bit flexible on the dates you can travel and the routing, I think you might be able to pull it off. You might have to go LAX-HKG-BKK, SFO-SIN-BKK, SFO-ICN-BKK, etc to get there but I do this trip quite a bit and the layovers arent usually that long. You state that your flying from the midwest, so you could possibly go ORD-PEK-BKK or something similar.

I'd shoot for a C class ticket for 90,000 miles and only use the standard award if absolutely necessary. It sounds like you are traveling alone which will defintely help while trying to find an award seat.

Good luck

BKKROP

Hi Andy2, I have no first hand knowledge of the award flights ex LAX, but a friend who does it always laments the scarity of tickets. I have heard the "I don't think there are any" comment so many times, that I would be inclined to suggest you give yourself a longer lead in time.

It is true if you are *G, they will place you on a waitlist, and even on the hectic Australia to Thailand run, they always find you a seat, so looking after their FFs is a high priority with TG. Reading your post I assume you are the top tier with UA, so the odds are in your favour, however do some dummy runs on the TG site and that will soon show up the times that are the busiest. You will always know when you can get them as there will be ridiculously low priced ads in the paper for the precise trip you want to take.

FWIW, our friend has never been able to get F or C awarads and has always been designated premiun economy, which apparently is very good. regards bkkrop, BTW it's no problem switching the Starwoods over to TG

ekartash

i recently did the point transfer from starwood to tg. it took about 2 weeks for the points to appear in my tg account.
i bought a premium economy ticket and upgraded it to c for 70k both ways.

FedUp2

Can't comment on the Starwood points transfer, but I have often used UA miles to fly UA to LAX (downgrade to coach if no F seats are available) and then fly LAX-BKK on Thai (Business). Availability of seats is quite good (but not plentiful)!