Thanks, but I'm not taking that airline and I'm not going anywhere near Zurich in the dead of winter. I don't want the delays. Plus an extra 6 hours? Yikes. Happy Travels!

I looked into ANA. Maybe I'll look into it more in the future. Happy Travels!

You can fly Korean Airlines and deposit miles to NW, if you don't want to fly NW itself. China Southern is another partner, though I'm not sure why one would pick them over NW.

I don't run up my phone bill to call Bangkok, or anywhere else in the world. I buy a card online from masterbell.com or similar site, and I can talk for hours and hours and hours for $10.

When Thai cancelled the JFK-BKK flight and I couldn't get thruto the LA or NY office, I called them on Skype. BIG DIFFERENCE between the US agents and the ones in BKK.

Rizzuto...Thanks for the info. Before I moved, only 15 minutes away, from where I had been living forever, I had a really cheap overseas company connected to my phone.
It was the kind of company that you didn't have to pay anything to have a monthly service, but only paid for the actual call overseas.

However, when I moved, I had to get a new number and there went the cheap company connection. It's almost impossible to get through to the old company as I think they have one customer service operator, probably stuck in a closet somewhere to answer all calls. Smiles. So, I haven't made any overseas calls for a little over 2 years. I just haven't felt like going through the whole headache of trying to find another company. It's headache enough just dealing with Charter with my regular hookups.

And I didn't own a computer until 2 months ago, when I was kind of forced to get one due to family crisis issues so that I would have 7-day computer access. I'm low tech and haven't even figured out the new MAC laptop yet. I have a very busy life. Happy Travels!

RKKWAN...I'm with Delta and United, not NW. Happy Travels!

I thought you wrote NW. But NW = DL in terms of most partners. And NW will soon be DL anyways.

So, NW, Korean Airlines and China Southern can get you to BKK while earning DL miles.

Thanks, that's good info to know. Since the non-stops no longer exist and I'll have to fly from L.A. through Japan to get to BK in the future, like before the non-stops existed, then I can now easily choose another airline.

I just try to stick with the foreign carriers as it's very easy to cancel if one has to and then only lose $100.

With the American carriers, if one cancels one is basically stuck with the ticket to rebook it within a year of when it was ticketed. That's a headache for me. I have elderly parents. When I had to cancel last month's trip to BK, at least on Thai Air, I just called and canceled and they deducted the $100 and credited the rest to my credit card and that was it. Happy Travels!

Guen,

To answer the question of the title of this post: YES!!!

I don't know if you've heard, but I just found out, rather unfortunately, that last night Thai Air has AGAIN changed the flight schedule for LAX-BKK-LAX!!!

They will now continue the non-stops (leaving at the original departure time of 9:30 PM, and axing the scheduled 12:10 PM departure) until at least January.

Seems our good friends at TG cannot sell their A340-500s (the aircraft that is capable of doing the non-stops) so they're keeping them on that route (as many had predicted would happen.) I guess the cost of keeping those planes grounded is worse than the fuel-eating costs of operating them.

I'm a bit stuck though as I've now got a hotel room in BKK that I booked through Sawadee for that extra night (last schedule had us getting in 12 hours earlier, hence the need for an extra night in BKK.) I'm praying Sawadee will let get rid of the 1 night (of 3) without charging us a penalty (we still owe them the balance of our stay.) If not, I'll be left to my devices waiting for TG to refund my hotel...which, from hearing others' stories about refunds with them, sounds like it could go on and on with no resolution.

I'd say this schedule change is solid and you should rely on it, but who knows anymore? I was so excited to fly trans-Pac with Thai for the first time, but this is a circus!

Filmwil...Thanks for the update and this is beyond ridiculous. Next year, I'll have to try to save up enough money to fly Singapore Air. I've never had any problems with them.

I contacted Emporium Suites back when Thai Air did the first schedule change, I think it was. I had Emporium Suites put in the reservation for a one night earlier arrival. It's good that I don't prepay. I'll wait up until the 11th hour to see what Thai Air finally does before contacting Emporium Suites to change it again. Thai Air hasn't contacted me as of yet.

I really feel for those who have paid for a hotel reservation assuming they would be arriving a day earlier than scheduled. And can you imagine how furious folks must be who have paid a 5-star hotel room rate.? It's bad enough to lose any amount of money. And for those people who are connected to tours, they must be furious,too. At least I have some flexibility as I'll be in BKK for 3 weeks and won't be traveling around. Happy Travels!



Well, now that this flight is back on, I guess I'm back in Premier Economy and not somewhere, in limbo, between Business and regular Economy. The good part of it for me is that I won't have to pay for that extra, day-early arrival night now and I won't lose a whole day's worth of salary by having to leave on the noon flight instead of the late night flight. Happy Travels!

I have my own Thai story to tell. Trying to book my bi-annual trip back to the states, and using the special birthday discount to get biz. class at a 50% discount for mileage used. You can't book these tickets until 8 weeks before the trip, and naturally I was told all the seats on all flights were full. I was put on the wait list and told to call in every day or two to check.

After two weeks on the wait-list, I decided to go for "plan B" and book an economy seat on SIA (the one-stop flights are quite cheap right now) - then upgrade to business class using my Thai miles.

When I went to the Thai office to get the upgrade, they said "Oh, that's very difficult to do." When I told them I was only doing it because I couldn't get a seat on Thai, a seat was magically opened up for me.

Guen have you considered EVA air? they do premium economy (think its called Elite) and excellent biz class at great prices. We have used them several times to fly from LHR to BKK on biz and we have saved £££ compared to other carriers. Not sure of the scheduling from LAX but maybe worth considering next time?

Smeagol...I'm with Delta and United's frequent flyer programs. Happy Travels!

Yes but maybe nows the time to try something new???

I'll most likely, in the future, go back to Singapore Air which is connected to Delta. I've flown them since the 90s and have never had a problem. I need the frequent flyer miles as I use them, for awards, for my spring trips to Paris and a few other places.

There's nothing I can do about this year's situation with Thai Air. It's too late to try to change things around, to another airline, as airfares now are very high and seats are sold out for my dates. I bought my ticket in Feb 2008 for my Dec 2008/Jan 2009 trip...before the astronomical hikes in airfare. I'm holding on to it, and the airfare I paid, and will just have to hope for the best. Happy Travels!

fingers crossed guen, let's hope they don't change it again.

This is funny. Still see their "new" ad for their "new" LAX-KIX non-stop in the newspaper just yesterday.

So, Guen, if they're operating an LAX-BKK n/s, that means it's a 340-500, which means that they'll have premium economy! So you think you'll be able to get your ticket back to where it was in the first place?

<stirring the pot....>

They *should* be offering P/E...or, at least, one would think.

If you go on their website and try and book the flight though, it only shows Economy and Business.

This means one of two things: either they haven't figured out how to deal with the whole 'there was no economy, now there is' thing or they are reconfiguring the seating (they have 4 A340-500s, so it's possible to reconfigure 2 while the other 2 are in service then swap them) to Economy and Business only.

I hope for everyone's sake (specifically Guen's) that it's the former and not the latter. Only time will tell.