UA 777 PMco BusinessFirst vs Thai 777 Royal Silk
 

I need to fly back from ICN to NYC on Xmas day.

award ticket only shows either ICN-PEK with CA and UA from PEK to EWR on BusinessFirst for 70k miles OR ICN-LAX on Thai 777 Royal Silk then PS BusinessFirst from LAX-JFK for 80k miles.

What are Flyertalker's preferences?

TG is now flying the 77W on that route. That's the winner as far as I'm concerned.

1. Equivalent hard product TG vs. UA.
2. Better service on TG.
3. Avoid PEK connection (most delayed major airport in the world).
4. If your connection's long enough, enjoy the *A lounge at TBIT.

Watch also for OZ to open space on OZ202 (A380).

If it were me, I'd go with the ICN-PEK-EWR route. Benefits:

• Saves 10K miles
• No need to connect after clearing customs in LAX
• Less flight time (though some might consider this a downside)

I don't find TG's Royal Silk to be anything special, especially if that 777 is a 773 and not a 77W (7 across vs. 4 across in J)
(can ignore this last part per Kacee's confirmation of 77W)

I took TG's BKK-ICN-LAX couple times last year and found this option better than United's. TG 77W has much better seats/beds, which all have direct aisle access. You should allow a good transit time in LAX though to move from TB terminal to T7.

Kacee hit on all the excellent reasons to choose TG through LAX. The risk of misconnecting in PEK is reason enough to avoid that route.

I definitely agree with Kacee on going with TG and watching for OZ space to open on the A380 (which would be the best option, in my opinion).

-FlyerBeek

Of course it will be. OP is departing on a star alliance flight and is *G.

I don't think the connecting boarding pass allows OP back inside TBIT after he clears immigration ... Have to proceed to T7 directly

LAX reportedly now DOES allow passengers into any terminal with a BP departing LAX that day; it is a relatively recent change.

But it would require the OP to allow for the time required to leave TBIT and head over to T7 for the flight to JFK. Depending on the layover it might not be worth dealing with the extra TSA bits.

Sbm12, thanks for the correction. As you mention, and as posted here, it now seems possible to access TBIT using a domestic BP. This is definitely a recent change, as even the lounge webpage indicates passengers need to be departing from TBIT to access the lounge.

-FlyerBeek

Disagree here, the TG hard product on the 77W is not even comparable to UA, it is vastly better. It is the same seats used on EY J and EK A380 J. All-aisle access, very private, etc...

If you're worried about food, TG C food is generally poor, but UA C food ex-PEK is also horrible.

I'm familiar with the TG seat, I've flown it on both the 77W and the 380. It has direct aisle access but I find the cushioning less comfortable than either of the UA BF seats. And it's only private if you manage to avoid one of the paired middle seats - those are very similar to the middle seats on an sUA 763 in terms of privacy - i.e., not much at all.

IIRC correctly, TG does have better AVOD and the lavs tend to be much nicer than on any UA aircraft. But on the whole I don't think this choice gets made on hard product.

And one more thing - the fake wood and purple decor on the TG 77W is unbelievably tacky.

Chalk me up for a TG vote, hands down.

Purple may be 'tacky', but their soft product is a bunch better, I think their food is much better (especially portion-size) than UA and the cheese plate and wines are much MUCH better than UA (if that matters to you).

Flying through PEK (especially if you don't have a visa, which isn't required, but read some reports here with UA and transiting on the mainland), ON UA would be awful - I wouldn't even do it if it saved me 50k miles - UA is that bad in every service level.

-jeremy

The 2 paired middle seats accounts for just 2 out of 8 seats, so hardly an issue unless you are booking last minute. Although, for couples, those are the preferred seats due to all other seats being too private.

The pmCO BF seats are quite nice and I like them a lot, but I still prefer the TG seats. For some reason I was thinking pmUA BF seats, where there is no comparison.