Hungry for Points: Thai Airways

Showing posts with label Thai Airways. Show all posts

Monday, April 22, 2013

Bali-Tree: Thai Airways First Class BKK-NRT, UA First Class NRT-SFO

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We left the lounge and headed to the gate and the boarding process was a breeze. From check-in through to boarding, Thai really does the best job of acknowledging premium cabin passengers, and could be somewhat of a case study for some of our airlines at home. I'm looking at you, United.

TG 642
BKK-NRT
Seat 2A

The flight from BKK-NRT was scheduled for a brief 6 hours and while I went in thinking I was going to stay up and really enjoy the experience, tiredness and food coma quickly took a hold of me and I spent the majority of the flight asleep. The sum total of the time spent awake during this flight couldn't have been more than 45 minutes to an hour. It's actually a good learning experience, since in the future if I really want to experience a specific airline, I'll need to make sure it's a daytime flight.

The reason that I wish I had spent more time awake was due to the fact that this particular flight would be on one of the 777-300ER's leased from Jet Airways. That meant that the first class cabin would feature suites with closing doors. While there's certainly a "cool" factor with having your own private door on a plane, we both felt like the cabin seemed quite dated and lacked some of the updates found on the newer TG first class cabins. However, the bed on the plane was very comfortable, and in the end I really did appreciate the closed suite as it gives everything a different feeling that allows you to relax without anyone looking in or being distracted by foot traffic going by.

Shortly after takeoff we were served a small snack of an appetizer and soup, but I wasn't hungry at all having eaten half of the things on the lounge menu already. Shortly before landing, another light meal was served, although it must not have been very memorable since I can't recall how a single thing tasted.

One final thought on Thai - I'm curious if anyone knows just how many different amenity kits they have in circulation. On four different flights (2 in first, 2 in business), I received four completely different brands of amenity kit bag, filled with four completely different brands of toiletries. I guess TG isn't big on any exclusive partnerships from the amenity kit standpoint.

777-300ER first class suite

small meal served after takeoff

do not disturb!

mood lighting

After landing, we had a long 8+ hour layover scheduled in NRT and while my friend decided to check out the city, I was more than content to park my butt at the lounges. The first stop was the United Global First lounge, which is located on the upper floor of the United Club. Given the early morning arrival, I was one of the first people there and was nice having the place to myself for a couple hours. However, I didn't find the food spread here very appetizing, and eventually made my way over to the ANA Suites lounge.

Once there, I grabbed a private cubicle and was actually quite impressed as it's probably the nicest cubicle I've been in at an airport lounge. There is a very large TV and workspace area and comfortable seat with footstool, which provided a great place to relax and nap on/off. The food options at the lounge are also pretty decent, with a full noodle bar and some hot options such as curry and stir fry available, along with finger foods such as sandwiches and sushi. I also took a shower and was given a small shower amenity kit with Shisheido shampoo/soap to use. I ended up using the small packets of generic soap they provided and added the nice stuff to the stockpile I had already accumulated along the way.

United Global First lounge

minimal food spread at United lounge

ANA Suites cubicle

entertaining view from the ANA lounge

UA 838
NRT-SFO
Seat 2K

My flight from NRT-SFO was the last flight of my trip, and also the one that I had been checking non-stop during my trip to see if I could swap out for something better. In true first-world problems fashion I was dreading the flight because it'd be on United, albeit in first class. I was even looking for alternative routings up to the minute I left the lounge for boarding, and as you can probably tell had really low expectations for the flight.

Well, to my surprise, United blew away my expectations for this flight. Does that mean it was as good as my ANA or TG flights? Not even close. But the food, seat, and amenity kit, were much better than I was expecting. And to top it off, the part I was worried about was the service, ended up being the best part of the flight as I found it to be especially good and left me pleasantly surprised. Perhaps I've become a bit jaded or influenced by the number of negative things I've heard recently about United, but I personally have yet to encounter anything in-flight that left me scathing (only thing in recent memory was on the ground which was a 12+ hour delay for a SFO-LAX flight when United's computers decided to take the day off). Hopefully this doesn't jinx me for any upcoming flights, but I thought that I'd thrown in a good word for United when it was certainly deserved.

making a mess in my seat

fully stocked amenity kit

United's attempt at a Kaiseki meal

can't go wrong with an ice cream sundae

Bali-Tree: Thai Airways BKK First Class Lounge and Spa

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After our 10-day trip it was time to pack up and head home. It's funny because we met quite a few people on our trip, most from Europe and Australia, that were doing the extended-travel thing. Some had already been on the road for as long as 6 months to even an entire year. But for me, beginning a couple days prior to leaving after having been gone for about a week, I already started to feel antsy and my mind-set began transitioning back into work mode, even spending some time checking work emails during the day. I guess us Americans have somehow been brain-washed into feeling guilty when not at work.

Anyways, we left our villa and headed for the airport which was about an hour-long drive with traffic. The airport lounge options in the Bali airport aren't great, so would recommend heading over at the last possible moment possible, but do take into account potential delays due to traffic.

The ride to Bangkok was fairly uneventful, with the highlight being the fact that I could spend a few hours kicking back and finishing up season 1 of House of Cards, which by the way is a fantastic show and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new TV series.

I was really looking forward to our layover in Bangkok as I had gotten to sample the Thai First Class ground service a couple times before now. I had even chosen to forgo the first available flight out to NRT to experience a longer layover, which would definitely have gotten me yelled at if traveling with my fiance. Luckily, my friend completely understood, since the longer layover would also mean that we got to try out one of Thai's 777-30ER planes leased from Jet Airways which features first class suites with closing doors.

Once we landed in BKK, consistent with my other transfer experiences, everything was handled for us and we literally could switch off our brains for the next several hours. We were picked up in a buggy and driven to the security checkpoint near the first class lounge. Because we had eaten on the plane, we decided to go straight for the massage. A few different options are offered, but since we both wanted to shower anyways we decided to go for the 1-hour full body massage with oil. It's a short walk over to the spa, and once you walk in you truly do feel like you are at a real spa, not just in a nice smelling room within an airport.

After enjoying a cold towel and welcome drink, we were shown to our treatment rooms and the massage began. While the actual massage itself isn't necessarily the best ever, it's still very relaxing and was a great respite from thinking about our long journey home. Afterwards, you're given the opportunity to shower and then relax for a few minutes in the waiting area before heading back to the lounge.

welcome drink and cold towel

anxiously waiting to get my massage on

amenities

treatment room - not given chance to use the tub

Once back at the lounge, I took the opportunity to chow down since I really do like the food served in there. I viewed this as somewhat of a last hoorah before heading back home and having to eat more sensibly. The service in the lounge is great, and if you look up with even somewhat of a hungry or thirsty twinkle in your eye, someone will stop by with a menu to see if you'd like to order anything. The menus are all loaded on iPad's which was actually a bit awkward at first, since the lounge attendant will wait for you while you make your choices instead of giving you time to kick back and peruse.

I ended up trying many, many, many things on the menu, Definitely too many, since by the end I felt absolutely disgusting. Some of the highlights were the pork with coconut rice, beef curry, and the beef steak with fries all of which were cooked very well and very quickly.

first class lounge

beef steak

beef curry

After eating, it was time to leave and it's honestly a rare feeling to actually be sad to leave the airport to hop on a flight. The 4+ hour layover we had went by extremely quickly, which is a testament to the greatness of the first class experience here. For all future travel through Asia, this will continue to be my #1 choice when given the choice between various layovers locations. Next on my list is to experience the Lufthansa First Class Terminal in Frankfurt and I've read that is it on par with this one.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Bali-Tree: Thai Airways Business Class BKK-DPS

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The next day we had an early 9am flight to Bali and headed to the airport around 7am. This was my first time flying in a premium cabin on Thai ex-BKK and was really impressed by the premium cabin recognition. There was a completely separate Business Class check-in area which led to a premium security and immigration line. From check-in to sitting in the lounge was less than a 5 minute process. The lounge was also huge and probably one of the biggest I've ever been in.

The flight to Bali was 4 hours and fairly non-eventful. I had pre-ordered my meal on the plan and it was served along with fruit and yogurt. I tried to catch a bit of shuteye during the flight but found the seat to be very uncomfortable and narrow. So instead I stayed up the entire time and since I had already seen most of the movies on my earlier flight so I instead caught a couple more episodes of House of Cards. I was also able to snap a couple photos of some of the great views during the descent into Bali.

Thai Airways Flight TG431
BKK-DPS
Seat:14K

TG business class lounge

another amenity kit!?

pre-ordered duck entree

views of bali from the air

Bali-Tree: Thai Airways First Class NRT-BKK

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After arriving in NRT, because of the ground delays at SFO my layover was cut down from 2 hours to about 45 minutes. I had arranged to meet my friend in front of the United lounge and this turned out to work very well and was easy to find and in a central location. We walked over to our gate at the end of the terminal for our next flight, and spent about 15-20 minutes in the ANA Suites lounge near gate 46. Overall the food selection there was just ok and on par with other business class lounges. I had been stuffing myself crazy on my ANA flight for the past 9 hours, but still managed to sneak in a few bites of sushi and a serving of Haagan Dazs to provide fuel for my 30 second walk to the gate.

Thai Airways Flight TG677
NRT-BKK
Seat: 3E

I had actually flown Thai Airways first class two previous times both between Bangkok and Hong Kong which is just a short 2+ hour flight, so this would be my first opportunity at a longer-haul flight. Boarding was very efficient and we were able to head to the jet bridge that led directly to the first class cabin. We settled in to our seats and were offered welcome drinks and asked for champagne. I actually like the design of the middle seats in the Thai A380 cabins and think it works well if you're traveling together with someone else since there is an entire partition that can be raised and lowered, as compared to the sliding hatch on the ANA cabin which only provides a small rectangle to look through between the middle seats.

Also waiting for me in the seat was the Rimowa amenity kit that I thought I'd be getting on the ANA flight. Now honestly, I'm definitely no die-hard Rimowa fan but was certainly excited to get my hands on one of these purely because of some of the hype around these that I had read about on Flyertalk. After playing around with it, while this might be considered blasphemy to some, I realized that while the kit certainly felt sturdy, it was almost too rigid and I had a hard time opening it wide enough to easily access the contents. In a lot of ways I actually preferred the Samsonite one I got on the ANA flight, but nonetheless was more than happy to be able to add another type of amenity kit to the collection.

view of our A380 from ANA lounge

settling in to our seats with glasses of Dom

Dom > Krug

Rimowa amenity kit

biggest bathroom I've ever seen on a plane

bathroom sitting area

After takeoff, the meal service began. The previous two times I flew Thai I hadn't really been all that impressed with the food, and I'd say that my impression for this flight was about the same. The amuse bouche and appetizer were just ok, but the carrot soup was delicious and probably the highlight for me. I had pre-booked the lobster thermidor and while I'm certainly not complaining about being served lobster on a flight, it wasn't nearly as good as the one I'd had on Singapore Air.

chicken yakitori and veggie puff

lobster terrine

bread basket

carrot soup - highlight of the meal

lobster thermidor

apple tart

After the meal service we had about 5 hours left before arriving in Bangkok, and I was able to squeeze in a few minutes of shuteye on and off. I didn't find the bed particularly comfortable, and also the cabin temperature was kept extremely warm. Or at least it felt that way to me, which could have been a function of the copious amounts of meat and booze consumed over the past 24 hours. Once we arrived in Bangkok, we were escorted via buggy to the fast-track immigration line and were out of the airport in a matter of minutes.

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