offwego

BKK Fodorites have been most helpful in helping me plan our trip. I hope those who have made these connections can answer this:

I have a flight arriving in BKK from Siem Reap at 10:10 am. We then have to presumably get from the International Terminal to the Domestic Terminal and make an 11:35 flight to Chiang Mai.

I must have been drinking when I booked this.

Should I just go ahead and take the $ penalty and change the Chiang Mai flight or is there any way to make this connection?

Do you have to go through customs coming in from Cambodia? Is it slow?

I see the shuttle from one terminal to the other goes every 15 minutes. Is there a faster way to get there?

We will be traveling with a carry on so I think that may help but I'm still not sure if it's still not cutting it too close.

Kathie

As this is a change from an international to a domestic flight, you will have to go through customs and immigration as well as change terminals. While you might make the flight, I sure wouldn't count on it.

If you are fliying Thai or Bangkok Air, there is no penalty for fight change. The airlines are so civilized in Asia! (ok, except for the budget airlines, where there is a substantial penalty for change)

offwego

Kathie

Thanks for the response. We booked these flights using the DIscovery Pass through a travel agent in California. She advised me there would be a $200 charge to change any of our flights once booked, so I will call the airlines directly and find out for sure.

I hate being frantic at the airport so I will try to get it changed.

Thanks for the heads up.

JamesA

As Kathie has said, if you are flying to Chiang Mai with Thai or Bangkok Airways there should not be a problem to change, do note however that Bangkok Airways has few flights on the route, Thai has 9-10 per day.

My handly little OAG booklet suggests that's the Bangkok Airways flight on an ATR-72 Turbo-prop at 1135?, if so there's a 1230 flight but that stops en route at Sukhothai. And that's it for the day with Bangkok Airways.

Thai has suitable connection at 1205 and 1315. If you are flying in from Siem reap I think it's a good guess you are on the Bangkok Airways Pass sort of tickets, and I would check with them.

This might help: The 'official' bangkok 'Transfer from International to Domestic Connection Time' is stated as 2 hours. Now, if they did all this booking in my humble opinion based on that 2 hour connection time they really should 'not' have done that booking but booked you on their 1230 anyway, depends how you did the booking. Let us know maybe we can advise but your first thing to do is call BKK Airways.

It 'is' possible to make it but if there is a long queue at Immigration that makes all the difference.

JamesA

You posted as I was replying, well, what luck !
You booked thru a travel agent!
Did the travel agent not note that the 'official' connection time requirement between an international flight and a domestic flight at Bangkok is 2 hrs!
I normaly would have full sympathy and support for travel agents who usually do a superb job, but in this case they have booked you on a connection which based upon 'recognised and pusbkished' connections is wrong, just likewise the same if they booked you on a connection within the US with a shorter time span that the 'official' connecting time!!

JamesA

I'm begining to loose any faith in your travel agent!

Thinking again 'they' are entirely wrong to book you a connection that is not beyond the recognised and published 'Mimium connection time', you are not supposed to know such details, they or the airline should, so both are surely wrong to book a connection that is not 2 hrs between arrival of international and a domestic departure, seems they are 'both' at fault.

Secondly, although I have not gone through every word when you said USD 200 to change I took a quick glance at Bangkok Airways website and it says..

well, here's the link:

http://www.bangkokair.com/spoffer/

Ok I had a coffee:

Right, I just went to Bangkok Airways website and put in Siem reap-Bangkok-Chiang Mai ( which you can try also ), and gues what! When I put in those flights it cam up with a 'light bulb' and Printed in Red:

"You have short connecting time between above segment"

!!

Hang on, it get's better!

I 'tried' to book that and it would "not allow me to"!!
Came up again with the light buld and red warning of short connection!

I then put in the 1230 flight and it was 'accepted'.

You have 'nothing' to worry about because if their own website does not allow that connection both the agent and they themselves would have to have some pretty tough reasons of how they could charge you to change.

Just go to this site and try yourself to book on the flight arriving 1005 to connect with the 1135 to Chiang Mai, it just won't let you do it!

http://booking.bangkokair.com/birts/en/multidestx.aspx

rhkkmk

i would skip my travel agent and try to contact bkk air directly or deal with them when you first get to thailand....i think they will change you or assist you in moving from one place to another....you can do it if everything works ok and you do not have baggage but it will be tight and also if there is no line in immigration....bkk air should never have allowed it if it was not possible...

NoFlyZone

I agree that the flights should not have been booked.

But although Bangkok Air may prevent the booking on their website, there is nothing which actually prevents an agent from booking using the GDS. So it could be booked and the agent should make the change without fee...

offwego

Thanks for everyone's help on this. The travel agent ended up apologizing profusely and rebooked the flights for a less stressful connection. No charge.

The lesson here of course is to check and double check tickets once received. I would have surely been bent out of shape had I discovered this on the flight into Bkk.

JamesA

Glad that all work out fine!

MichaelBKK

I'm not sure if Bangkok Airways works the same, but I know for certain that if you arrive in Bangkok on Thai with a connecting flight to Chiang Mai, you DON'T go through customs in Bangkok. You go directly to gate 7 in the international terminal, where they take you to your plane for the domestic flight when it's ready to board. Then you go through customs in Chiang Mai.

The last time I flew Bangkok Air to Yangon, I do vaguely recall that there was a flight to Chiang Mai 'leaving' from the international terminal, so they might well work the same way.