another option which i have opted for is air france....two night flights which are preferred imo....you do have a long paris layover but can go into paris for the day if you wish....

it also avoids the early morning departure from bkk of many usa carriers and also late nite arrivals...similar to thai in that respect....from nyc they may even have a day flight to paris so you would have less of a lay over...

It almost always cost more to fly via Europe, either with money or with miles.

I usually fly eva from newark to bkk . 120.00 seems very expensive for the deluxe seats. you can buy those ticks for about $1100 RT.

EVA tends to always offer the cheapest econ fare to asia from the east coast. if you wanted to cut the trip into chunks, which I prefer as well, you could of stopped in Seattle and/or Taipei. actually the the stop over in SEA from bkk is nice you arive in the afternoon and the flight leaves in afternoon as well. making the stop from ewr to sea is not convenient, you arrive at about 2 am.

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you could of gone econ with 60k and flown continental to the west cost and connected to eva
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it seems that your traveling on a budget. hell sinse your staying in the bangsue area you could quickly hop on a sleeper train and go up north for fairly cheap.