Guest Posted October 5, 2005 Report Share Posted October 5, 2005 oneyejacks said:You will need luck to get to Bangkok on the red tail with standard miles. Even if you start in Asia. The availability is shot with the A330 200 and the less seats and all on the NRT BKK leg. I just got one with Korean but you must book pretty far out and accept weird schedules. Just what the fuck am I going to do in Seoul for 11 hours? Haven't tried Malaysian. You supposedly can take Alitalia, Air France and KLM for the same 60k miles but must cross the Atlantic both ways. I have a shit load of miles coming with them and am determined to game the system. Headed to BKK through Seoul in mid January. Lucky you, needless to say, have fun. I have over 120k miles to use up, but no luck using their online system to see whats avalable ( it only shows nw) even into 2006 no seats I did take the time to email all the nw partner airlines that may fly to bkk, but so far got replies from 3, 2 say contact nw to find out, and the one from contentnal came back in spanish ( figure out it said thanks for the inquiry, and we'll get back to you) when I get my schedule setteled, I'll call nw and see what all they can do for me ( on other airlines, if even only for a change from going nw) Btw: I used to fly san/bkk and then sin/san for the return, was a pain, as nw left early am, and into sin had to spend the nite there ( at the time they were remodeling and seemes like a drill hammer was going at it no matter what hourly room I got) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted October 5, 2005 Report Share Posted October 5, 2005 The NW flight to SIN was downsized also so very little availability. I'm giving up on NW transpac flights. About 1/3 of my flights have been severely delayed going through NRT. Plus bad availability on award tickets. Plus poor service USA-NRT. Plus poorly cleaned planes. Plus poor airfares. Plus poor upgrade availability and higher required class. Plus NRT suxs going through security screening (huge waiting lines). Plus 6AM departure from BKK. :: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dean Posted October 5, 2005 Report Share Posted October 5, 2005 Plus the midnight arrival to Bangkok. I used to get bumped in Narita frequently, which helped pay for my next ticket. I've flown British Airways from London to Bangkok and Japan Airline from LAX to Bangkok. I didn't like BA but really liked JAL. From recent trips on NWA, I have 150,000 miles to spend and hope to get 2 free tickets out of them in the next year. After that, I'll check around to other airlines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 5, 2005 Report Share Posted October 5, 2005 I like NW for elite pre seating. You can't put a price tag on a prebooked exit row super discounted economy ticket (if you can get one which I did for $735 ex JFK in 2 weeks) which all earn miles on the red tail. You have fly free faster promos etc to fill the miles up. Much less worth what other frequent flier miles are but you can earn a shitload with NW and you can use them for cash and miles programs and you might want to explore other destinations. Stay on the phone agents. If one does not give you KE or Malay for options ask for them and if they get funny hang up (politely) and try the next rep. An experienced rep told me that going Atlantic is possible but KLM AF and Alitalia don't give up much availibility. So, your options to Asia might be, 1) Korean 2) Malaysian 3) Northwest (likely rulebuster) 4) Cross the Atlantic with equally bad availability on those carriers. NW using the mixed crew on the BKK leg fucking sux. Once I am in Tokyo I WANT ASIAN WAAAA! (this may change to all Asian shortly, outsourcing that personnel exlusively to Asia hurts the workers with consolidation but does help the airline and satisfy my selfishness on foreign airline legs both literal and figurative) South America is wide open except for Brazil. Must try Brazil but I have a free ticket on American which is 40000 miles to GIG (have not used yet). Questionable availability there and I think 50k miles. Costa Rica, almost always availability. 35k Mexico is a lay up too. 35k Neither appeal to me though. The Dominican Republic is an option for chicas but NWs award there for 35k miles is bullshit for a four hour trip while AA is 25k and availability is questionable also with NW. Still I try to give them business. Hope this helps. Oneye Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 5, 2005 Report Share Posted October 5, 2005 Tell you what, the transit security lines in Narita coming out of NWs flights are NOTHING compared to that fucking line at the transfer desk going from AA to JAL. They have one attendant and one metal detector for each line and the lines are like 100 deep to start. I shit you not. Now thats a line that will piss you off! You have to cross terminals on that fucking bus also. Oneye Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dean Posted October 5, 2005 Report Share Posted October 5, 2005 I'll vouch for that. I was flying NWA in May and they had overbooked the Bangkok segment and asked if I would mind switching to ANA. Since it was leaaving 45 minutes earlier, I didn't mind (although they didn't offer any compensation). I went through security once and then walked a mile before boarding a bus and then going through security again. I won't volunteer to do that again. Two days ago was the 90 day point of my December 31 trip to Bangkok, so I did seat assignments, with aisle seats in exit rows, near the exit door so I can get through immigrations quickly. Before that flight, I should reach gold elite, so I'm hoping for upgrades on the domestic portions of that flight. NWA and AA are the two main airlines that I fly and I use AA for carribean free flights and save NWA for Bangkok flights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 6, 2005 Report Share Posted October 6, 2005 shygye said: The NW flight to SIN was downsized also so very little availability. I'm giving up on NW transpac flights. About 1/3 of my flights have been severely delayed going through NRT. Plus bad availability on award tickets. Plus poor service USA-NRT. Plus poorly cleaned planes. Plus poor airfares. Plus poor upgrade availability and higher required class. Plus NRT suxs going through security screening (huge waiting lines). Plus 6AM departure from BKK. :: You left out the frumpy air hostesses. too bad Nw does not let us explore all the alternatives via the internet in their booking system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted October 6, 2005 Report Share Posted October 6, 2005 NW wants you to pay for using their agent to book award flights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 7, 2005 Report Share Posted October 7, 2005 shygye said: NW wants you to pay for using their agent to book award flights. yes, if they would let us use their site ( as they tout) there is no fee. but so does aa for award tickets ( out of usa) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 7, 2005 Report Share Posted October 7, 2005 AVOID NWA... Pay a little more and take Cathay or Singapore Air.. it's worthy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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