There are many reasons I like Thai Airways, including that they release a fair amount of premium cabin award space and have one of my favorite first class lounges in the world. So I figured I’d pass along two noteworthy schedule changes/additions:
A380 starting service to London on December 1, 2013
Presently Thai flies the A380 to Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Paris, and Tokyo, though as of December 1 they’ll be starting once daily service to London on the A380 as well. First and business class award availability on the route is excellent, so if you’ve been eying an award on the A380 and haven’t had luck on their Frankfurt or Paris routes, check out London.
The A380 will be operating the TG910/911 schedule, which is as follows:
TG910 Bangkok to London 12:15AM-6:20AM
TG911 London to Bangkok 11:50AM-6:10AM (+1 day)
New Los Angeles service via Osaka as of October 28, 2013
Ever since retiring their A340-500s, Thai Airways has operated their Bangkok to Los Angeles route via Seoul Incheon, with 4x weekly service. Rumor has it they wanted to have daily service, though the Korean government was restricting them in trying to protect their own carriers.
It seems Thai Airways still wants to pursue daily service, so they’ve announced that they’ll be offering service between Bangkok and Los Angeles via Osaka the other three days of the week, with the following schedule:
TG694 Bangkok to Osaka 2:20PM-9:30PM
TG694 Osaka to Los Angeles 10:45PM-3:50PM
TG695 Los Angeles to Osaka 1:00AM-6:40AM(+1 day)
TG695 Osaka to Bangkok 8:10AM-12:40PM
When they first loaded the schedule a few days ago availability was amazing. Unfortunately they’ve probably realized it was too amazing, as they took back quite a bit of that award space. But it’s still generally good, especially if you’re looking to travel between the US and Japan.
Thai will also be starting service to Vienna soon, though the schedule on that hasn’t been published yet.
Thaio have just announced they'll be cancelling plans to put the A380 on the LHR-BKK route!
I booked with UA miles in F for April/May and initially the seat plans showed up as being on the A380, but now the seat plans are all showing 747.
Who knows with Thai anyway, they keep faffing around on the LHR route all the time. No firm news though whether this is a cancellation or a postponement.
Yeah, this is the response I got from them:
"Unfortunately we have availability issue with the new Airbus 380 and the delivery will be delayed. At the moment the scheduled aircraft for flight TG911 March 2014 is Boeing 747-400. Seats can be pre booked after your ticket is issued by calling us on 0844 561 0911 with your ticket number.
Kind Regards
THAI AIRWAYS INTERNATIONAL"
@ James -- I suspect the schedule just hasn't been updated that far out yet.
Thanks Lucky! I'll be in the F cabin and really wanted to experience it on that amazing new plane.
Cheers!
I'm confused. I'm scheduled to be on TG911 next Marc, but when I called THAI to confirm my seat, they said it would be on a 747. I booked using UA miles. When I go on the THAI website and act like I'm going to buy a ticket, the 911 flight shows up as a 747. Any idea what's going on here?
Thanks a lot
@ Deltanuts -- It's a fine routing, United's website just isn't very good at processing complicated routings.
I was trying to do
LAX/FCO Stopover
FCO/HKG Destination
HKG/LAX
but I got an error message. Is this not a legitimate route. Should I call to make the reservation?
@ RedHat -- Yes, that's exactly right.
@Lucky - Interesting, so that means, I can continue to JFK from FRA and save 10,000 miles based on below routing
*BKK-FRA - 80,000 miles
*BKK-FRA-EWR 70,000 miles
@ Mikey -- While it has been a rumor for a while, I haven't seen A380 service to Australia confirmed yet.
@ RedHat -- It's 80,000 miles in first class between Asia and Europe, though 70,000 miles in first class between Asia and the US, even if you're routing via Europe.
@ eponymous_coward -- That's why you never want to originate or terminate there! Just book a connection under 24 hours to avoid it, which is what I always do.
@ Lantean -- If it were the Asiana new suite on the way out I'd probably do Thai on the return for the variety and superior ground experience ex-BKK.
Any idea if the a380 is coming to the SYD-BKK route? I've got an F award booked for next april and would love an equipment upgrade!
Lucky, I just checked on UA site. It requires 80K for BKK-FRA via CDG on A380 FC. I thought it's only 70K to redeem one way from US to Asia or vice versa on F?
The bummer about LHR is a few hundy in APD (though routing BKK-LHR on TG and then departing from not-LHR helps with that).
@Ben
would you rather fly F on Thai a380 (and then United Global first) or Thai BBK-ICN and then F on Asiana 777-300 (the new suite)?
i am already doing outbound on Asiana, wondering if i should return the same way or if i should try Thai a380 first instead.
thank you.
Nice! I just booked BKk-LAX r/t for a colleague in March. Was surprised to see availability drying up so I bought some US Airways miles and redeemed them. About $1800 for a $5k ticket, not bad! Thanks for the earlier tips Lucky.
@Ben
thank you. it's a bummer there is no first... it's a long flight. :(
@ Brian from DFW -- Depends on the program you're booking with. US Airways, United, Aeroplan, etc., all allow a stopover on a roundtrip award ticket.
I'm thinking of heading to BKK early next year - does Thai allow for stopovers ICN or KIX?
@ Lantean -- It's a 777-300ER with flat bed business class seats.
so what aircraft will they operate on the KIX-LAX route? thank you.
Any Star Alliance program should be able to redeem on TG. I use UA MP miles to book seats on TG all the time.
Lucky, I always enjoy reading your blog and appreciate helpful info like this. It would also be helpful for some of us more novice readers if you could include options for redeeming on Thai (or any other airline when you write about similar availability).