eurotraveller

My boyfriend and I will be traveling from Portland , OR to Bangkok in February of 2006. Being that this is our first trip to Asia we don't know what fares we should expect to find. Can someone give me some insight as to the best fares to Bagkok from the west coast?

I looked at travelocity and found flights from SFO and LAX for around $800. We can fly out of any west coast city fairly conveniently since we have a free ticket on Southwest that will get us up and down the west coast. That seems pretty darn good. Should we book now?

Kathie

$800 is a good price. If the airline and routing are ok, I'd book it if it were from PDX to BKK. Typically, you can get flights from PDX added on for very little money. The disadvantage of using your frequent flier miles on SW is that you may not be able to check your luggage all the way through from PDX to BKK. And should your flight to your departure city be delayed - well, you're out of luck.

I'd suggest going to the airline website and looking at fares. Check fares from PDX to BKK, and you'll probably get a number of different routings, through SFO, LAX and SEA.

eurotraveller

Thanks Kathie. I have checked the airlines as well and they are a little higher.

Luckily, I never check bags so I don't need to worry about that aspect!

Cheers!

hawaiiantraveler

euro:
A few people on this site and a couple of other sites have been recommending this site:

http://www.itasoftware.com/

I have been monitoring it and it seems to have some pretty good rates from different areas of the country. Hope this helps!
Aloha!

rkkwan

NW flies PDX-NRT daily with their new Airbus 330-200. No need to connect elsewhere in the west coast.

NW also usually have the best price to Asia. However, they have a very early departure time (6am) from BKK on the way back.

eurotraveller

What city code does NRT represent, RKKWAN?

Thanks.

rkkwan

Sorry, NRT is Tokyo-Narita. NW operates a big hub there to connect to the various Asian destinations in Asia. NW doesn't fly any non-stops from the US to any Asian cities outside Japan. Everything goes through NRT.

glorialf

If you can fly an asian airline (Japan, Cathay, Thai, ANA etc) for the same money and airtime as an american carrier go with them-- you will have a much nicer flight.

BillT

Gloria is absolutely on point- in fact if you can fly an asian ariline even for a little more money its worth it. The US airlines really don't deliver the service that the asian airlines do- we will not fly the US airlines anymore to asia.

rkkwan

But the OP is flying from PDX. Flying to SFO and connect means at least 3 hours extra for flying and connection time. Even more for LAX. And I'd pick PDX over SFO/LAX any day for arriving into the US.

NW's A330 has advanced AVOD (audio/video on demand) on every seat. And legroom is no worse than others.

While I'm not a fan of NW in general, I'd definitely fly them if I live in Portland, OR.

eurotraveller

Great info!

Unfortunately NWA's fares are $1500+ per person compared to $801 on other search engines. For a difference of $700 I would gladly fly out of SFO, LAX or SEA.

I am curious about Eva Airlines Deluxe coach seats. Are they much better than regular coach?

I just went to www.skytrax.com and the reveiws aren't raves, by any means. I had never heard of this airline until I started researching our trip.

I have read that many of the Asian airlines have much better service. I am going to keep checking my options.

Thanks!

BillT

I have flown EVA Air Evergreen Deluxe class two times now- once to Bangkok and once to Manila over the last 2 years. For about $200+ more their Evergreen Class is worth it! I am 6'2" and have plenty of room to stretch and sleep. The seats are wider and fewer across than in coach. service is good also. We went Houston to LAX to Taipei to Bangkok/Manila.

rkkwan

Looks like NW hasn't released inventories for their deep-discount fares onto reservations system yet. It's too early to book for Feb 2006 travel, but if you like to lock in good fares right now and don't mind an extra connection, then, yeah EVA or some other Asian carrier is the way to go.

BillT

I went to www.skytrax.com and nothing but a "Coming Soon" screen comes up?

eurotraveller

Bill, sorry. Here is the link:

http://www.airlinequality.com/index.htm

It sounds like rates for Asia are around $800 most of the time. I don't really need to book now but thought I would check with you all to find out if the rates would go lower or hold.

The EVA deluxe sounds like the way to go. That extra room is a nice treat on such a long trip.

cheers!