Help with BKK/Phuket/Siem Reap Air Itinerary
 

Yay! Bought our tickets from LAX to BKK for our very first Thailand trip. Thanks to everyone here for their inspiring trip reports.

So, here's the dilemma that's making my head spin. We plan on going straight through to Phuket when we first land in BKK, then onto to Siem Reap, and then back to Bangkok for the remainder of our trip.

BKK/Phuket> Siem Reap> BKK

What are the best airliines for this kind of itinerary? Bangkok Air quoted $352 per person. Does that sound right? TIA!

That is the right fare on Bangkok Air. The trip between Siem Reap and Bangkok is expensive.

Look at the Discovery AirPass on Bangkok Airways. It will make the total cost of your trips less. Note that the prices of the pass do not include tax and surcharge, so you'll have to pay that on top of the fares. Call Bangkok Air to check availability, price and book the pass.

Bangkok Air is the only airline that flies non-stop between Bangkok and Siem Reap. The Discovery Pass will save you some money, as Kim notes.

I assume that the $352 was for the BK/SR/BK portion of your trip. A discovery pass will save you some money as the it will only cost $217 net plus Bangkok airport tax of 700 baht ($21) But you have to buy the minimum of 3 flights so at least one of the flights to/from Phuket must be on that airline at $67 plus 100 baht airport tax.

If you would go to SR first you can get a early morning flight to Phuket and although it lands in Bangkok and you have to change planes it counts as only one flight, thus saving you more money.

Thanks everyone!

Scotters, the price quoted was actually for everything--all three legs. So, it sounds like this is my best bet. Thanks for the confirmation.

The quote that you got of $352 is very good for all flights so grab it. The normal cost would be around 17240 baht ($500). There is no direct flight from Phuket to Siem Reap so you will have to change planes in Bangkok.

Thanks again. Hmmm, I'm now concerned that the flight gets us into Siem Reap too late. We only have 3 nights there so I'd rather not waste any time. I'm now thinking I should use another airline for the Phuket>BKK leg so we can take an earlier Bangkok Air flight into Siem Reap.

1. BKK>Phuket: Bangkok Air
2a. Phuket>BKK: Thai Air or Asia Air?
2b. BKK>Siem Reap: Bangkok Air
3. Siem Reap>BKK: Bangkok Air

FYI for others: Discovery Pass makes sense if you're flying international. I just got three legs, 2 domestic (BKK-Phuket-BKK) and 1 int'l (Siem Reap-HK) for a total of $256 for all three legs including all taxes. This is cheaper than any combination of these flights I could find separately. Plus, they send you e-tickets now. No $15 fee to mail your paper tickets to you.

I've been looking into the Discovery Pass for our Thailand/Cambodia trip. I would need three legs: Phuket-BKK, Bkk-Siem Reap, Phnom Penh-BKK. So the Discovery Pass would seem to make sense. My concern is that I would like to be able to book the actual date and flight for all three legs prior to departing the US and from the Bangkok Airways website it seems that you only book the first flight and then book the others as you are ready to move on. They also said on the website that you are limited to the number of stopovers per place so maybe bouncing in and out of Bangkok won't work. So my question is - will I be able to book all three legs of our trip prior to leaving for Thailand? If so, what is the best way to go about it? I had used a contact e-mail address from another posting here to comtact a representative of the airline in Chicago, but I haven't heard anything back from them. On another post it looked like many people were simply calling the 866 number for the airlines and doing it that way. What's my best next move?

I plan to be haunting this site over the next few months as we plan out our trip. I have a great skeleton done and now we need to "flesh it out". Very excited as we will be able to use AA miles to get there and back :-)!

I had a similar dilemma when looking at flights within Thailand!
I ended up using the BA Discovery Pass for my BKK - Krabi flight and the BKK-SR roundtrip. I called the BA 800 number and did not get much help initially and personally went to the office in NYC to no avail. When I finally decided on the exact flights that I wanted I called BA and they were helpful in the booking. I booked Air Asia just through their website for the CM-BKK flight and Thai Air for PH-CM which was really easy! I wish I could have done it through the websit for BA!

Actually, you are required to pre-book all legs. They only do the Pass reservations over the phone at the 1-866-Bangkok number. You can change the time and date of the flight later if you want at no charge and if there is room on the new flight, but you can't change the routes. The way it works is you call and make a reservation, then either pay by credit card (5% fee) or send a money order (free) to your nearest office and they either send you paper tickets ($15) or e-tickets (free). You have to request e-tickets specifically if that is what you want.

Oh, and the website is good to use to check flight times, so that you can ask them for specific flights when you call in.