Airfare from US city to Bangkok

[Crzn-Life]

We booked cruises on the Diamond from Bangkok to Beijing to Vancouver. At the time of booking I had enough Northwest Points for 2 1-way First/Business tickets to Bangkok. Unfortunately all NW programs were merged into Delta's and the Delta system is different. Now I don't have enough points to cover the inflated Delta requirements.

 

Have been researching First/Business airfares and all I can say is WOW! However I'm having a great deal of difficulty trying to get a ballpark figure on what it would cost to fly to Bangkok First/Business class using Princess air.

 

I've also been doing searches on CC hoping someone actually referred to a specific price in the posts but haven't found one yet for Bangkok.

 

Would someone who has recently booked a First/Business Class flight from the US (any city will do) to Bangkok using Princess Air be willing to tell what the price 1-way per person was/is?

 

Thanks in advance for your input.

[Gardyloo]

Can't answer re cruise air, but I can see lots of one way prices in the $2500 range from the west coast to BKK around April of next year (is that right?) Prices from Florida are closer to $3000, but at that rate you might look at using your miles to get to Europe and flying from there, e.g. London - BKK is around $1500 - $1600 on several carriers. Also look at Evergreen (EVA) from Newark to BKK in premium economy for $1770.

 

What about buying an economy ticket and using your miles to upgrade?

[Crzn-Life]

Can't answer re cruise air, but I can see lots of one way prices in the $2500 range from the west coast to BKK around April of next year (is that right?) Prices from Florida are closer to $3000, but at that rate you might look at using your miles to get to Europe and flying from there, e.g. London - BKK is around $1500 - $1600 on several carriers. Also look at Evergreen (EVA) from Newark to BKK in premium economy for $1770.

 

What about buying an economy ticket and using your miles to upgrade?

 

Thanks for the input. Right now I'm looking at many alternatives which is why I was trying to get a better handle on the Princess Air prices so I can include that in my list. My list of airlines and routing options is continuing to grow!

[Fattony]

Can't answer re cruise air, but I can see lots of one way prices in the $2500 range from the west coast to BKK around April of next year (is that right?) Prices from Florida are closer to $3000, but at that rate you might look at using your miles to get to Europe and flying from there, e.g. London - BKK is around $1500 - $1600 on several carriers. Also look at Evergreen (EVA) from Newark to BKK in premium economy for $1770.

 

What about buying an economy ticket and using your miles to upgrade?

 

Are you trying to fly Vancouver-Bangkok or LAX-Bangkok? Trying to get an upgrade through miles isn't easy, and OP would have to make sure they bought at high enough fare to be eligible (i.e., not the lowest economy class available). I don't know the dates you're interested in. For an arbitrary date in October, using Expedia, I saw economy class fares from LAX to Bangkok for under $700, and Biz Class starting at about $2600 (Eva). Thai's non-stop from LAX was about $3300.

 

From YVR, I found a one-way economy class fare for just under $500 (China Eastern Airlines).Biz Class for just over $2000 (Philippine Airlines, connect in Manila), $2200 on China Eastern (connect in Shanghai) and $2700 on Finnish Airlines (connections in London and Helsinki).

[Fattony]

Note: the Vancouver-London leg on the Finnish Air option (which, to my surprise, was about the same amount of time as those going over the Pacific) is on British Airways.

 

Knowing these fares could help you decide between those and whatever you can get through Princess. Your cruise sounds great.

[Crzn-Life]

Thanks for the info. I've got prices from many airlines but wanted to get a ballpark figure on what Princess offers so I could add that to my list. So far no one has shared that. Our TA said they'd have the prices our in July so guess we'll just wait for that.

 

Airline fares like cruise fares are a moving target. They change frequently & guess one just has to keep checking until an acceptable price is found. However we're pretty much restricted to Delta if we plan on using points for the ticket or upgrade.

[greatam]

However we're pretty much restricted to Delta if we plan on using points for the ticket or upgrade.

 

Don't fly Delta nor am I intimately familiar with their FF program, but you should be able to use your Delta miles on any of Delta's partners. And I would guess you could use your miles to upgrade on Delta codeshares (again, taking into consideration what fare bucket you need to buy tickets in).

 

If you have a lot of Delta miles but not quite enough for two business class tickets, look into buying them, getting another credit card with a miles bonus (Starwood Amex is very, very good for this) or many other ways of accumulating miles.

 

Have you read the sticky about the downsides to cruise air? You may want to think twice even if it costs you a few dollars. Your chances of getting business class cruise air ticket at a decent price are not good AND you CANNOT use your miles to upgrade a cruise air ticket.

[Crzn-Life]

Thanks for the advice received. As it turns out...everything worked out beautifully. We were able to book a 1st class flight using Delta miles. We put it on hold and before we redeemed the points to pay for the flight Princess sent an email about the change in embarkation port from Bangkok to Singapore. So it was back to the time-consuming process of checking flights.

 

Apparently the airlines were aware of the Princess change in plans because suddenly lots and lots of low point flights became available to Bangkok while the number of points required to redeem a flight to Singapore went way up.

 

The good news is we were able to get what we wanted and will now now be flying free in 1st/Business class to Singapore and looking forward to the cruise.

 

Too bad about Bangkok, however. We wanted to go there, but were suffering a real approach-avoidance situation because of the potential for continued and renewed civil unrest. Plus it's a long way from Bangkok to the cruise port in Laem Chebang. At least Bangkok will be one of the ports of call on the cruise, but how much can you see when faced with at least 4 hours of bus travel to get to and from the city. Oh well, better safe than not. Certainly understand the cruise line's concern regarding potential unrest in Bangkok.

[Fattony]

My guess is that any big shift in airline mileage requirments was caused less by one cruise ship than by the political troubles in Thailand, especially Bangkok, which quite possibly led to the change by Princess, as well.

[Globaliser]

Apparently the airlines were aware of the Princess change in plans because suddenly lots and lots of low point flights became available to Bangkok while the number of points required to redeem a flight to Singapore went way up.

Cruise passengers account for an almost-negligible proportion of flying to/from places like Bangkok and Singapore - they're a tiny number compared to the tens of thousands of air passengers that pass through these airports every day. So, as Fattony says, the change in availability simply reflects the same factors that have caused Princess to change its plans, but was not caused by that change.