BKK to USA

[Potamoi]

I did the west coast trip a hundred odd times on Sky Team with Northwest (now Delta) Star Alliance with United and ANA. In the last few years, I have changed to Emirates a few times then to One World with Qatar and their lovely Q-Suites. My next trip will be with JAL but I must warn you I will only do that trip in Business Class after about the 50 or so trips in economy.

PRO TIPS:
1. If you choose the One World path, after finding the best flights, go over to American Airlines to check their pricing for the codeshare. I saved over $1500 per ticket in two cases in the last couple of years just by paying through AA.
2. Check EVA for Economy Plus or whatever they call it now if you want to save a bit for a family trip.
3. Check SeatGuru.com for your seats to reduce some potential pitfalls. Knowing the ones to avoid can be important especially when they don't let you book the seat in advance with some codeshares and need to do so at the counter.
4. Once you figure out which seats you like, the codeshare airline can give you the locator number for the underlying airlines so you can call for a seat assignment in some cases.
5. If you end up with a codeshare with small Chinese carriers, be careful as you may need to go through immigration and loose time and pages in your passport just to claim and recheck bags when changing planes in China. I don't recall the codeshare airline name but that happened to me once on a Star Alliance trip. Rerouted the return trip.

[mak]

Emirates services Orlando.

[Stantheman]

Emirates services Orlando.

Actually the service out of Orlando for Emirates is provided by United which takes flyer to Houston, Chicago or possibly Dallas where the Emirates take over.

[deankham]

Thanks for the input guys.

Seems shortest trip MCO to BKK is 24 hours but 26 about the average.

Looked at Emirates and they do currently have a direct flight from Orlando to Dubai although as Stan mentioned they also offer several other options via some US hubs.
If I can stomache the cost of Business that long flight to Dubai and onto Bangkok looks a good, but expensive option.

Shame Virgin don't offer anything as they have several direct options to UK and Heathrow has direct options to Bangkok.

The search continues!

[mak]

MCO-DXB-BKK

[mak]

One stop in Dubai

[deankham]

Thanks Mak. Priced the emirites flying business and cheapest was $10k per person for around the dates I wanted. $30k for the 3 of us is too rich for my blood and 15 hours non stop to dubai in economy is too much for my body!

Also priced up Business with Turkish Airways who I've not used but hear good reports and is almost half price. Still pricy but that's the pain for living so far from Thailand i guess.

It's going to have to be a once per year trip max I think.

[Udon Map]

Priced the emirites flying business and cheapest was $10k per person for around the dates I wanted. $30k for the 3 of us is too rich for my blood and 15 hours non stop to dubai in economy is too much for my body!

Qatar is much cheaper than Emirates and easily as comfortable as Emirates in business class if not more so. Qatar doesn't fly to Orlando, but I believe that they fly to both Miami and Atlanta.

[Doodoo]

QATAR AIRWAYS in USA
Qatar Airways operates flights to and from 12 destinations in the US:
Gulf Business
Atlanta (ATL)
Boston (BOS)
Chicago (ORD)
Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW)
Houston (IAH)
Los Angeles (LAX)
Miami (MIA)
New York (JFK)
Philadelphia (PHL)
San Francisco (SFO)
Seattle (SEA)
Washington, D.C. (IAD)
Atlanta will resume on June 1. Qatar Airways also flies nonstop to other U.S. airports, including all of the international gateways like Los Angeles (LAX) and New York (JFK), and secondary hubs like Philadelphia (PHL) and Seattle (SEA).
2

[glalt]

I hate airports and flying. I am a LONG time Thailand expat. Since both my parents have passed away, I have no reason to visit the US. My last trip was on United. I have always suffered from jet lag. My doctor told me that it was because I was dehydrated and to drink more water. I bought a bottle of water to take on the plane. It was confiscated at check-in. I asked the old witch stewardess on the plane for some water. She didn't have time and told me that I should have brought my own water. I was still peeved because check in confiscated my bottle of water. That was my last flight and especially my last flight with United. I always flew economy because all seats get to the destination at the same time. The only premium seats I ever had were when the company I worked for bought the tickets.

[tamada]

Thanks Mak. Priced the emirites flying business and cheapest was $10k per person for around the dates I wanted. $30k for the 3 of us is too rich for my blood and 15 hours non stop to dubai in economy is too much for my body!

Also priced up Business with Turkish Airways who I've not used but hear good reports and is almost half price. Still pricy but that's the pain for living so far from Thailand i guess.

It's going to have to be a once per year trip max I think.

Have you looked at Cathay Pacific via BOS and HKG? It's a two-stopper, but Business Class prices around your dates are around $7500 r/t. Decent layovers, especially at HKG.

I recently flew CX to/from the UK via HKG and the service is very good. I hadn't flown with them in decades and was pleasantly surprised. Their long-haul routes use newer A350's which I find better than any 777 derivative.

[Potamoi]

Try skyscanner.net to easily see routing etc then you can fine tune the purchase other ways or buy it through their redirected system.

My random test for dates in July MCO-BKK as a guess showed ~$5300 on ANA and JAL in Business and ~$2000 on Qatar in Economy, $3400 on Swiss for Premium Economy but with serious layovers.

Everyone will have one off cases to hate on a particular airline and flying economy on the North America to SE Asia route is never an easy trip. I too was not a United fan and particularly the battleaxes whose seniority got them the cushy overseas routes, but flew them for the convenience and milage program. Along came United Polaris Class which changed my life. After that retrofit and re-education or re-distribution of staff, I looked forward to the flights and even the ... ahem, service.

I was lucky enough to find two tickets at $3650 Business Class BKK-SF0 return in December on JAL so I snagged them up quickly last month using AA web site once found on Skyscanner. Having a little flexibility in your dates is always cheaper too.

[Doodoo]

I have had friends use Philippines Airline for a cost reduction

[Udon Map]

Qatar Airways operates flights to and from 12 destinations in the US: . . . Philadelphia (PHL)

Qatar no longer flies this route. It has been taken over by American, which operates daily service on a 787-900 in both directions.


If you do the trip regularly (i.e., at least once/year) the OneWorld alliance has a 'Round-The-World fare of around USD $5,100 in business class, on which you can configure a round-trip itinerary between the U.S. and Bangkok easily. There is a host of complicated rules attached to this fare. If you're interested, send me an email and I'll be happy to talk to you about it. This is the fare I use to fly between the U.S. and Thailand. It took me about a year to learn all the rules.

Here are the rules (which, of course, are subject to change, and typically have minor changes annually): https://www.oneworld.com/images/faqs/oneworldFAQPDF.pdf.

[deankham]

The search has resumed now the wife has decided she wants to go in next 2 weeks (nothing like a bit of forward planning) and the daughter has stopped protesting too much about the long flight.

Air Canada had some reasonable options for travel times / connections followed by United.

I'm using United for regular commute between Orlando and Denver and finding them quite good, but never used them internationally (think code share for most of route is with Nipon Air?)

And never used Air Canada at all (think last leg from Tokyo to BKK is using Thai airways).

Anyone got experiences, good or bad, with either? Looking at Premium Economy service with both although the final Air Canada leg from Tokyo to BKK is Economy.

Thanks

[noosard]

My Canadian friends would rather fly any other airline

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Air Canada used to fly direct Bangkok to Vancouver but has discontinued that route. I sleep for 10-15 hours on most flights. I have no complaints with Air Canada; however, I prefer Cathay Pacific and China Airlines (the Taiwan carrier). In fact, the only airline I found uncomfortable was Tarom (Roumania) back in the 80s.You had to carry your own bags to the airplane on the tarmac.

It has been my personal policy since I began flying in the 1970s to never fly with a U.S. carrier, and I never have. Why? I am Canadian.

[deankham]

Hay all, in case anyone is interested ended up booking with Cathay Pacific. They use American Airlines Orlando to Dallas then Cathay for Dallas to Hong Kong then HK to BKK.

Is about 26 hours total including connections. Return is slightly longer at 29 hours and is BKK to HK then HK to LA, LA to Orlando. Is a 6 hour layover in LA on the return.

Outbound is next Saturday so did not book in advance but Cathay flying Premium is same price as Emirates economy at $3.3k per person return.

Wife and daughter flying first then ill join after a month. Booked my flight separately flying out same route business then back together with family in premium. Was $5.4k for mine. If id come premium both ways would have been $3.3k.

Feking expensive but 25+ plus hours in economy would kill me. Too old and spoilt

[tamada]

Hay all, in case anyone is interested ended up booking with Cathay Pacific. They use American Airlines Orlando to Dallas then Cathay for Dallas to Hong Kong then HK to BKK.

Is about 26 hours total including connections. Return is slightly longer at 29 hours and is BKK to HK then HK to LA, LA to Orlando. Is a 6 hour layover in LA on the return.

Outbound is next Saturday so did not book in advance but Cathay flying Premium is same price as Emirates economy at $3.3k per person return.

Wife and daughter flying first then ill join after a month. Booked my flight separately flying out same route business then back together with family in premium. Was $5.4k for mine. If id come premium both ways would have been $3.3k.

Feking expensive but 25+ plus hours in economy would kill me. Too old and spoilt

I recently flew CX via HKG to/from the UK and was quite impressed with cost and service. Your DFW hop will use their new A350-1000. Their ageing 777's which will probably be used on your BKK-HKG r/t sectors.

How long are your HKG stopovers and what time of day/night are they? For a major hub airport, I was quite surprised to find that shopping and eating choices were quite limited outside of 'daylight hours'. Easy enough to transit through, as they used facial recognition, which speeds things up when boarding. Good to note your elevated status, as for some reason CX didn't do boarding-by-zones for Economy, either at BKK or HKG which meant a bit of a scrum getting into a long-arsed queue.

[deankham]

Wife and daughter did the long trek over the weekend.

Was a bit touch and go from the onset as the Orlando to Dallas leg was delayed 30 mins, so they had to hurry straight to the gate and were last to board.

The 16hour Dallas to Hong Kong leg they said was much more comfortable than expected in the slighty aging but comfy premium seats. Both slept a good 8 hours.

They had a 3 hour layover in HK and as Tam mentioned everything was closed at 4am and was like a ghost town.

3 hour flight to BKK then another 3 hour layover before the Vietjet flight to Udon.

They took 3 x 20kg bags and only 2 arrived in BKK. The ground staff traced the 3rd bag back to HK along with another Thai couple who'd been on same flight from Dallas and all their luggage was also still in HK.
2 days later and the bag still not in Udon, expected today. Wonder if I can make a claim against Cathay for this? Must check.

I'm doing the same trip in a months time. Looking forward to the 16 hour leg without being able to get a phone call, teams call, email or message from work or the wife!