PeterRS

Many thanks for the info. Very interesting. It doesn't seem fair that a business class return London to BKK is 120,000 miles using the CX Asia Miles programme and soon to go up to 130,000. 70K miles for a trans pacific return on a longer route is a huge bargain.

I hope DivineMadman is right about studios available in the Silom/Surwong area. I doubt it but will be happy to be proved wrong. The OPs total monthly preferred budget remember is only about 40,000 baht inclusive of everything. Added to the negative column, I dont think anyone has mentioned medical and personal accident insurance. Since the OP is from the USA, does his insurance cover him in Thailand? Depending ion his age, thats could be another cost factor to put into the mix.

I am genuinely curious. How is it possible to get 40K miles for one return trip. Is your flight from SFO to BKK? Are you getting those miles in Coach or Biz? The basic mileage should be around 8,000-9,000. With 25% biz bonus, that should not be more than about 22,500. Even at 80,000 miles, how does that earn a free biz class ticket? I am obviously flying on the wrong airlines! If you fly Europe to BKK in biz, you get around 6,000 x 2 x 1.25 = 15,000 miles. For a free ticket you need 120,000 to 150,000 miles - i.e.after a minimum 8 return trips.

Stand by for very considerable flight delays during the more than a year this exercise will take. After all, the revised design capacity of the airport is 45 million passengers It was supposed to handle all flights in and out of Bangkok but is now handling 60 million plus. Thank goodness Don Mueang was not scrapped because it is now handling 38 million. Funny thing is. After IATA complained publicly about the asphalt holes at the parking gates these were supposed to have been fixed. Seems either they were not or more have opened up. Also the article says runway surfaces should be replaced every 8-10 years. If I recall correctly, the airport has been open since 2016 and I recall only partial resurfacing since then. Not sure Id be happy landing at BKK now in an A380.

All the points are interesting and thanks guys for making them. I am sure planners in places like LA and San Francisco have been going through the same ones - and lots more. But I still am not convinced! Spoon - you suggest more of the flyers between KL and Singapore are business people. Sorry, that just does not fly with the large number of budget flights and the masses of economy seats on the legacy carriers. Most business people will take biz seats and some Y seats on the legacy carriers where they get a degree of service, I reckon. My guess is that a very large percentage of the travellers are leisure rather than on business. I havent done it but I am 99% certain that leisure passenger traffic between the city pairs I mentioned in my previous post has increased massively since the fast train services started. I know people in London who take the train to Paris for lunch, or a days shopping before coming back in the evening. Before the high speed trains, these people would never consider flying with all the cost and hassle. Even though it might be a little cheaper to fly, on city centre to city centre trains most of the hassle of travelling disappears. Also if you book a month or so ahead on Europes high speed rail system, the fares are very inexpensive. Its the last minute and business travellers who have to travel on certain days who happily pay 4, 5 and 6 times the price. Three years ago I had a first class rail ticket between Munich and Berlin (albeit with a couple of stops) and it cost around €100. Returning to Munich the cheapest budget non stop air ticket would have cost €90 and a full fare last minute economy flight €450! There are plenty of economic arguments about supply resulting in much greater demand. Initial cost is certainly an issue and there is no point starting a high speed rail service unless there would be enough traffic to justify the investment. I fully accept Malaysia is still reeling from the corruption of the last government (and, to be fair, Mahatiir's excesses in the 1990s - e.g. huge F1 race circuit at Subang which F1 has now ditched). But why does the government have to build it? Make it a private enterprise corporation like Hong Kongs extensive MRT system. Last year its profits jumped 64%. The profit - yes, that's profit - was $7 billion US. Of that, only 30% came from its transport operations. The rest from its property portfolio largely as a result of its being granted the land above stations on a long term lease to develop property. Conclusion. High Speed rail would not work on its own. Sweeten the pill for investors, throw in land and property development and let private enterprise build and run the project on a long-term 30 or 50 year lease.

My two cents worth is that you have no chance of living in Bangkok in the area you want and with two houseboy sex workers on anything like the budget you are suggesting. First, Thailand Elite makes absolutely no financial sense if you wish to save cash - assuming you are eligible for the normal over 50 retirement visa. If not, you are stuck with a huge up front payment and maybe a large sum stuck in a bank account whilst you are here. You are also paying the government for 5 years when you only plan to use 2. You are therefore effectively throwing $10,000 down the drain! Second, finding a 2 bedroom apartment at 25,000 in that area is pretty much pie in the sky. Central rents have been rising considerably over the last few years. You will get a 1 bedroom for that but will have to move outwards to get the 2 bedroom. Don't even bother looking at Lumpini. Those apartments are mostly more expensive! You have to move outwards. There are places in the MBK area and a little north nearer Phayathai which are worth exploring for cheaper near Central rents. Depending on your contract, renting long term can sometimes mean paying condo management fees. If so these can add between 2,000 and 3,000 a month. I see another poster estimated utilities and internet at about 2,000-3,000 a month. That's an underestimate for a 2 bedroom place. Assuming you need air con in two bedrooms per night plus some late afternoon, your need to estimate at least 5,000-6,000. Taxis may be cheap in Bangkok but unless you are prepared to go on buses, regular trips using taxis, Skytrain and subway can eat up a couple of thousand a month, especially if there is more than one of you. You will also need to pay for at least local TV in the boys room. I have yet to meet a Thai boy who is not hooked to the Thai soap operas. If you want international news and movie channels, thats even more expensive. And as others have said, two boys on a full time basis who both have to work to clean the apartment and service your regular needs, you will be looking not just at a salary but paying their mobile phone bills, trips to see mama and the buffalo and so on. If they are good looking and could have a chance of a reasonable number of offs at a bar, 15,000 each per month is a minimum. Then there is their food and drink. You will certainly end up having to pay at least some of that. The do you tip them at the end of the two years? Im sure they will expect a large one. End result, with the best will in the world, if you can get all that for less than $3,000 per month my guess is you will be very lucky.

I fear z909 is never going to accumulate enough flights and miles apart perhaps from one from London to Jersey. When these schemes were first introduced (by an American airline, I believe) there was basically two classes of service in that country - coach and first and a very limited number of different fares. They were primarily a means to get customers to keep rebooking the same airline. For some years those who travelled a lot did gain a lots of miles. There were even websites devoted to mileage junkies. Up would pop a special fare for a round trip from Denver taking in Seattle, San Francisco, Colorado Springs, Los Angeles and back to Denver. These last minute cheap specials could generate as much as 10,000 mlles in the space of a day for those mad enough to take them. Now economy is split into something like 15 basic classes. Fly on the cheapest fare? Forget miles. Fly on a mid-price fare and you'll probably get half miles. Only the top payers get the full 100%. Since the difference between the lowest and the top fare can be well over 150%, who in their right mind will cough up so much for so few miles. Unless they are business travellers whose travel is paid by their companies. Now even business flyers are getting miles according to the price they pay - not the fact they are sitting in business class. A few years ago a Bangkok to Singapore business class ticket could be achieved after about 7 return flights. Now think more like 12. Maybe the best way to accumulate miles is to get a credit card attached to a mileage programme and keep using only it. In the US, you can get up to about 100,000 miles just for spend around $2,000 on the card in the first three months. AFIK that is not available elsewhere. The most I have seen is a sign up bonus of about 6,000 miles. Use that card for all your purchases, though, and you could well end up with an economy ticket to somewhere within a year. But watch your chosen airline's profitability. A friend of mine in Oz had accumulated 370,000 miles on Ansett. When it suddenly went bust, he lost the lot.

Im not trying to flame anyone or put anyojne on the spot. Assume it is just my ignorance and I seek clarification. I understand the issue of intermediate stations. The Tokyo/Osaka shinkansen line has several although the fastest just speed through most of the them without stopping. I also appreciate that the last Malaysian government was as rotten as they come and rail projects which require acquisition of large tracts of land are a real corruption target. What I don't understand though is the economics. Fact is KL to Singapore is the busiest international route in the world in terms of number of flights - 30,000 plus per year. 4 million passengers use those flights. Typical flight time with taxing and delays is 65 minutes - pretty near my guess above. The basic budget air return fare between the cities may be cheap at present but there is a wide range of prices and not everyone pays the lowest fare. With the price of oil now 40% more than a year or so ago, they are bound to go up. And certainly further up over the course of time. I see from the internet the plan was to have a high speed rail with a city centre to city centre time of just 90 minutes. That represents a huge time saving over a flight. Add in a premium business class as on European trains, plus property development rights at the stations at each each end and en route (like Hong Kongs MRT), commercial outlets and so on. and surely there must be a way of paying for the vast initial development plus the running costs if the investment is spread over a 25-30 year period. I know I am making huge guesses. But there seems as little reason to fly between KL and Singapore as there is between London and Paris or Berlin and Hamburg or Madrid and Seville. All those European routes are served by lots of high speed trains. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44000000

Why is it a good thing that KL to Singapore is cancelled but you lament Bangkok to Chiang Mai not happening? KL to SIngapore is just 350 kms. Tokyo to Osaka is 500 kms. Most shinkansen trains between the Japanese cities take between 2 1/2 and 3 hours and there are at least 6 every hour. If I took it, total journey from office/hotel/home to office/hotel/home time would probably be not much more than 4 to 4 1/2 hours. How long does it you take to fly from KL to Singapore? 30 minutes to Sentral, 30 minutes waiting for and taking the train, minimum 60 minutes for queueing, check in, security and immigration, 15 minutes at the gate, 15 minutes to board, 15 minutes to taxi, 40 minutes flight, 15 minutes to taxi, a few minutes to SIngapores very fast immigration, 15 minutes to get your bag, 20 plus minutes in to the city. Total time around 4 hours 15 minutes. A fast train averaging just 150 kms per hour (pretty slow these days) would cut the total journey time by perhaps an hour or more. Each could carry 1,000 passengers or perhaps 6 planeloads. Run 4 per hour during most of the day and you can reduce the number of short haul small jets on the route by between 150 and 200. It would cut carbon emissions considerably. Additionally, with agreement between the countries, more time can be save with immigration formalities carried out on the train as it is on the fast Helsinki/St, Petersburg train, for example, Obviously there would have to be some flights for connecting passengers in both cities. But I fail to see any argument that fails to justify a high speed train on this route. apart from one put forward by Tony Fernandez who is no doubt lobbying extremely hard to prevent it!

It still beats me why Happy Boys closed, unless it was just a lack of customers or perhaps its location outside the Plaza itself. Fun was mentioned earlier. If you liked twinks, it was a place to go where the boys would happily interact and it was not difficult just to have an enjoyable time or a bit more if you wanted to go upstairs. They even had a mezzanine where you could get to know one or more boys more personally. Drinks were extremely reasonable. I would frequently visit and take friends and we would not only buy lots of drinks we would tip quite handsomely because we were having such a good time . And then all of a sudden it was no longer there. Sad.

I live in an area which has around ten standard (non-sex non-happy ending) massage places all within about a 100 yard radius. It also has three hotels. I pass by probably around 4 or 5 times a week. Rarely do I see even foot massages being given. The masseurs and masseuses are sitting outside chatting and shouting "Massageee". I suppose there must be massages being given at some times of the day, but I cannot imagine they result in much more than a pretty basic income.

Quick question. Are the items on sale at Changi really cheaper than in town? I realise that heavy tax items like booze, cigarettes and perfumes normally are (or should be), but then doesnt it depend where you shop in town? When I pass through airports in Asia, most of the time I find prices are actually more expensive than in-town. And the reason is the huge retail space rental charges and sales commissions the airports impose. An example is perfume/colognes etc. Go to the high volume in-town discount perfume stores like Sasa and you can obtain most of the items cheaper than at the airport. At one of the regions main cities I can still buy brand name champagne in-town quite a bit cheaper than at its major airport! Aesthetically, though, I do find Changi a remarkable airport. I would rather spend a delay there than at any other airport I have been through!

Remember all the hyperbole about Makkasan? How easy it would be to get to, how you would be able check in there for most airlines and get boarding passes before getting the train out to the airport, how the express service would be non-stop but also with a local line having a few stops ... ? The dreams of Bangkok planners have a nasty habit of not materialising as expected!

The average age of the majority of tourists visiting Sunnee Plaza doesnt seem to have changed much over the last 20 years or so. This is surely illustrated by the number of bars and gogo bars which have folded. Now there is less than a handful left. How long can they last? Tourists have discovered other gay places around the world, some offering much the same as Sunnee although not perhaps with Asian boys. With oil prices on the rise again, air fares will start going up. At what point do gay tourists stop flying so far as Thailand?

The past is only glorious for a moment in time, whether that moment is fleeting seconds or hundreds of years. Then time marches on. Had it not been for inquisitive explorers, the ancient Egyptian tombs would be buried under sand, Angkor Wat under thick forests after its water system failed, Persepolis under desert sand, Machu Picchu undiscovered and much of the structures of the old Roman and Greek Empires lost forever under meters of earth and dust accumulated during the following millennia. We should be thankful that at least some of our worlds history has both been found and is being preserved. Apart from their magnificence they helps bring the peoples of the world closer.

Sofitel So and Le Meridien are both vastly superior in term of quality, service, facilities - and price. You cannot compare them with the other mentioned here.

Hopefully there will be improvements coming in Bangkok with tenders soon going out for the rail link between its two airports and Utapao.

They will be new separate airports from the existing ones. Seems neither existing airport has enough land to permit further airport expansion. So the new second airports will be 20-30 kms away. The one for Phuket will be on the mainland north of the island nearer Phangna.

The heading on this topic is wrong as it gives the impression that Air Asia will no longer serve Myanmar. Air Asia has no plans to stop flying in to to Yangon from both Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. What has been nixed is an Air Asia Myanmar based airline similar to those it has established in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and elsewhere. Presently there are 6 daily departures from Bangkok to Yangon. This rises to 8 during the high season.

Indeed not or that jet would be in several thousand pieces. Yet the angle of the video and the photo do not show the gap leading to the runway. I wonder what happens if strong winds blow a large aircraft slightly off course? Go around I assume, but it does take jet engines several seconds to respond to full power commands. Im certain its all perfectly safe. It just looks scary.

At first I assumed that photo has to be doctored. The undercarriage is so close to the trees that an accident seems inevitable. Then I saw the video and it is absolutely accurate. Here is a screen shot taken perhaps a second later.

I pay very little attention to this sort of poll. Fact is they are only as good as the specific questions they asks and the specific routes they check. My experience has been that long haul non stop biz travel between the UK and Thailand is very difficult unless dates are locked in up to 10 months ahead. Sometimes availability is better with a plane change en route. But then the problem can be lengthy delays. I once had an 8 hour connection in Dubai. Even with biz class this was exhausting and a waste of the extra miles.

I think you have misinterpreted my point. I am certainly not suggesting a gay mass exodus by farang will be made up by an influx of gay Chinese and Indians. I was referring to total revenue spends in the country as a whole. I suppose it is a question of numbers. How many gay tourists are there and how much cash do they spend? From the forums it seems most stay in quite inexpensive hotels and dish out most of their cash in the bars and other venues. But we know from threads here that the number of western gays is down - at least those visiting the bars. On the other hand last year Thailand saw 10 million Chinese tourists. Thats nearly 30% of all tourists. Not all will have been on cheap package tours. Looking at a TAT chart of revenue sources, China tourists spent 531 billion, Tourists from the four western countries in the top ten list spent only about half at 277 billion. More important I reckon is the daily spend. The Chinese per capita spend was 53, 528. The highest non-Asian group was from the UK who spent 76,237. Last year, Chiina tourists increased by over 1 million. So if all the gay western tourists boycotted Thailand (which will never happen IMHO) the fractional loss to the national treasury will be more than made up by the ever increasing inflow of straights from Asia. Us gay farang are not yet extinct or on life support. But I reckon we are a dwindling breed.

Everyone can vote with their feet. Sorry that it will not work with Chakran because few farang have been going there for years. So it is not going to hit Chakrans bottom line. It is mostly Thai for Thai and wants to stay that way. A gay mass exodus will also have no affect on Thailand except perhaps to result in a few bars and other gay venues closing down. Isnt that what the government is now saying it wants to do - change the image of the country as a sex tourist destination? The income from the tiny farang gay sex tourist market will be made up in a flash with all the new families arriving from China, India and the other new markets. By the way I love the Beatles too.

I have never yet come across an airfreshner, purifier, joss stick, fragrance spray or any other product that will successfully eliminate stale cigarette smoke. It may do so for an hour or two but that fag smoke is embedded in curtains, carpets and other soft furnishings. It takes weeks and a total cleaning to get rid of it. Besides, entering a room that has been liberally sprayed by a cheap purifier is almost as bad.