PeterRS

Chase operates in some Asian countries as J. P. Morgan Chase. But I think I am right in saying it does not get involved in consumer banking in most of the countries. A bit like HSBC which pulled its consumer banking business out of Thailand some years ago. HSBC now only handles commercial clients. So those banks wouldnt be issuing ccs. Some smaller banks might offer a few thousand miles (less than 5,000) if you sign up for a cc linked with the bank and an airline and spend a certain amount in the first months. But the perks are minuscule compared to those offered by US banks for US citizens. I joined Priority Pass for one year. In Asia it is mostly a waste. Unlimited access is US$429 annually. I found the lounges were absolutely packed most of the time. Just imagine the number of biz passengers who have to fly coach departing each day from Singapore, Bangkok., Hong Kong and other major hubs. Before the crash of 2008, many of these businessmen would be entitled to biz class. Now they are forced to downgrade and they are the ones who mostly use Priority Pass. The lounges just are too small to handle the numbers.

I believe that is a perk offered mostly to ccs provided by US based banks to US residents. To my knowledge very few in Europe and Asia offer these. And if they do, you have to pay quite a bit for the privilege or spend a major amount monthly. There is also the Priority Pass with lots of lounges around the world. But that means coughing up $99 annually plus $32 per visit or $429 with unlimited free visits. Problem is these lounges are often packed and sometimes you are denied entry because they are full. It is not only specific Priority Pass members who have access. Some other credit card users are also able to access Priority Pass. If anyone knows a regular cc that offers ounce access in Europe and Asia, Id l;ove to hear about it.

The snack bars and coffee shops at BKK are outrageous in their pricing. I once had an earlyish flight to Europe which I knew did not serve breakfast after take-off. Lunch at 10:00 am departure time is ridiculous. So I had a simple breakfast in the departures area. Absolutely rip off and I have never wasted money like that again.

Agreed. And thats before you consider all the extra bottles of Duty Free booze the flight attendants try to flog on board. But increasingly airports are looking at Duty Free on arrival which saves much of that extra weight on the aircraft. Sydney has had this system with a large stock of items for about 2 decades. Unfortunately prices are often quite a bit higher than at your departure airports! I find the same is true in Singapore where prices on entry are higher than prices on the same goods on departure. BKK has a small Duty Free on arrival section. The real problem with purchase on arrival is that the time taken to locate what you might want results in your ending up at the back of a long Immigration line. What I find almost ludicrous about Duty Free shopping in general is that most travellers happily buy a bottle of gin or scotch which saves them perhaps less than a handful of dollars. For all the time taken checking prices and queuing to pay, I fail to see how that bottle is worth it! The only real savings tend to be with the high end products. If you like an occasional glass of Krug or Dom Perignon, you can easily save $40 or more. But then you are most likely to be flying biz or first and price is hardly an issue for you!

Getting rid of the price gouging by King Power will be a major boost - if the AOT resist the financial "incentives" King Power will no doubt offer. Hong Kong changed its duty free operators last year ousting DFS (Duty Free Shoppers), now part of the LVMH Group, which had more or less pioneered mass market duty free in the Asia Pacific region 60 years ago and opening down town centres. The two new consortia now running most of HKG's duty free operations have not only slashed prices on many goods (a bottle of ordinary Moet champagne is now cheaper by more than 20%), the booze and tobacco operator offers guaranteed cash back if the goods can be found cheaper at any other regional airport. Thats double cash back - twice the price you paid. King Power obtained its concessions at BKK and the other major airports in the Kingdom without any tender process. Seoul's airport at Incheon had 12 bidders!

Ha! Maybe not! I can see dozens of flag waving, whistle blowing security guards encouraging passengers to move quickly across the taxiway in lashing monsoon rain as an A380 bears down on them!

As I understand it, Terminal 2 was actually put on hold several months ago. One reason was that the Thai architects who designed it are alleged to have copied ideas for the basic design from elsewhere. There was also concern about its location.. But there is also the large satellite to Terminal 1 which I believe is already under construction. This is located between the runways, south of the main Terminal, its gates and taxiways. If I remember correctly, I saw work being done on that site the last time I departed. The design calls for 28 new air bridge gates and it seems these will be exclusively for THAI and Bangkok Airways planes. The satellite will be connected to the main Terminal by underground people movers.

The UK adopted facial recognition at least 2 years ago. It is also one of the countries with the most surveillance cameras of any country per head of population. 1.85 million CCTV cameras are in place - thats 1 for every 32 citizens!

The Rabbit card has evolved in much the same way as the Octopus card in Hong Kong and the Oyster card in London. The Octopus card is actually more than 20 years old. I also like the Rabbit card - the more so when I see the increasingly long queues of people for single ride tickets at certain stations. I cannot believe anyone living and using the BTS regularly in Bangkok is prepared to do that every time he takes a BTS ride.

To each his own. I stayed once at the Avalon. Hated the room. The hotel staff screwed up payment with my credit card. Would never stay again!

I have stayed a few times, the last about 4 years ago, Excellent resort with its own private part of the beach. We prefer the upper rooms as the ground level ones are a bit dark. The restaurant is also good at reasonable prices. They ran an on call shuttle service from the police box. Not sure if that has changed with all the changes on that road. The owner's wide, Deb ("Mrs. Rabbit"), who appears on the website video really looks after her guests, Very gay friendly.

With the General Election in April and every party spouting hateful homophobic rhetoric, I would not go near Jakarta or Indonesia in general at least until the outcome of the election is known. When a countrys Defence Minister labels the emerging LGBT community as "an act of war to subtly undermine the sovereignty of the state" and likens it to a form of "nuclear war", thats the time I make sure I do not return. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-lgbt-insight/criminal-code-revamp-plan-sends-chill-through-indonesias-lgbt-community-idUSKBN1FT2IO

Things have obviously changed. 4 years ago I took Qatar to Europe because the price was good and I could get to a secondary destination without changing at a hub airport. It cost 97,00 baht biz class. I had bought about 8 months in advance. Then during the Bangkok Travel Fair I noticed a special promotion of the same route at the same time for 77,000! I assumed I was screwed but decided to call Qatar's Bangkok office just to check. The lady could not have been nicer. I could cancel my first ticket but there would be a penalty - all of 3,000 baht! She also confirmed there were seats at the new price. It was all sorted out in about 5 minutes and I saved 17,000. But prices have gone up a lot since then. A word of warning about purchasing through another OneWorld carrier. My understanding is - and I hope someone will correct me if I have got this wrong - you are still bound by the Qatar fare rules and regulations. That is definitely true if you use another OneWorld carriers miles to get a Qatar flight. Once the ticket is issued, you will get no help at all from BA, AA, CX or whoever you booked it through. This happened to me 2 years ago and they washed their hands of any responsibility when a big problem arose. I got zero help and was told only Qatar could help! They didn't!

The inability to check on availability of upgrades prior to purchasing a ticket is nuts! Qatar is a OneWorld airline. So I assume its miles can be spent on other carriers in the Alliance. n recent years all carriers and most hotel chains have been revamping their mileage/points schemes. Travellers now have to spend more to gain less. And if my experience is anything to go by it is becoming more and more difficult to use them. I decided three years ago to get rid of all miles and this year my hotel points. I don't travel long distance much now and upgrades are not much use to me for short /medium range flights. I search around for cheaper fares. If you book far enough ahead, its surprising what good deals can be had.

HOw strange. I usually find exactly the opposite! I expect it has something to do with times of departure and arrival. Normally I depart mid morning and the Priority Lane seems to have a lot of biz passengers. I mostly arrive in the evening. You have to fight your way through hundreds waiting for visas on arrival but Ive rarely had to queue for more than two minutes. I hope I never find myself behind a tour busload of over 70s!

Just a reminder that anyone 70 and over is entitled to use the Priority Pass Lanes. No need to have a biz or first class ticket.

Anyone arriving during this period had better be prepared for longer Immigration queues at peak times. Those departing should arrive earlier than usual at both BKK and DMK.

Ive got news for Trump! But then of course, he cant read! https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/01/30/this-is-why-global-warming-is-responsible-for-freezing-temperatures-across-the-usa/#14b6241dd8cf

I did indeed read it. And I wondered about the source of the author's comment. Unless I missed something (possible) she gives no information about her source. And I can find none. If you have, do please post it. Could not agree more. The sad thing about governments is that few seem able to think beyond the next election cycle. So what happens in 10 or 20 years is unlikely to matter much for any of them. They will either be in their graves or at least out of power. Try getting any to hand policy making about climate change and air pollution over to an international governing body. The laughing will be worldwide!

You do not quote your source. I have googled the latest lists of the worst polluted cities. Bangkok is not on any other than the one I mentioned. I am not doubting your comment but there are sources and sources. Some are highly rated. Others are often based on pretty obscure data. Perhaps since it has just entered a list it is not yet available on google. But I do not disagree. I only think it should be pointed out that only parts of the city show up as dark and polluted as the pics in the media. Today around 4:30 pm I stood at the top of Sathorn at the junction with Rama 4. This is usually bad for traffic as there are a lot of cars on idle for much of the time. This is how it looked going up Witthayu. Yes it's a bit misty but nowhere near as bad as I have witnessed in places like Delhi or even Los Angeles. LA itself features in one of the Top Ten Most Polluted lists from last August - https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2018/08/23/the-ten-most-polluted-cities-on-earth/#294cae9218cc The distance up to that skyscraper is almost 1 kilometre. Going to Babylon along Sathorn soi 1 it was clear as a bell along its length of about 400 meters. Understandably no camera can pick out particles in the air. But I do think it is important, especially for visitors, to realise that although the pollution is very bad in some parts of the city, it is far less so in others. Will it get worse in future years? Lets face it, it is going to get worse everywhere until cities like Paris actually mandate strict measures to reduce pollution and become carbon neutral. But there is surely is a chicken and egg issue here. Which comes first? A really efficient and energy efficient public transport system or the banning of polluting vehicles? I have not been in LA for about 10 years. Does it have a realistic initiative to reduce the number of cars? If so, I havent seen any info on it. Same with Bangkok. The authorities sit on their fat asses hoping no one will see their crossed fingers. Will the elite give up their cars here? No chance. If there is ban on odd numbered vehicles one day and even numbers the next, guess what they will do? Buy a third or fourth car with a different registration!

As a Bangkok resident, I do not agree with that comment. The NYT story reflects the present situation and that is definitely bad. But I have never known it be this bad. The fact is that had the monsoon winds started in December as has always been the case, there would be no pollution at this time of year. December, January and February are usually amongst the clearest each year. This year is a freak just as the polar vortex presently over the USA is a freak of nature. Does the fact that temperatures in much of the USA are today lower than they have ever been before indicate that the USA is now a cold country? Of course not. Wikipedia has a list of the worlds 500 most polluted cities using data based on the PM2.5 annual mean concentration measurement as documented by the WHO. This was gathered between 2008 and 2017. Bangkok comes #474 just a fraction worse than Jerusalem. Many Chinese and Indian cities are massively worse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-polluted_cities_by_particulate_matter_concentration But it is right that the Thai government has to take a lot of blame for not doing a helluva lot more about the air in the city long before now. Yinglucks lot put more than a million new cars on to the city roads with only yards of new roads. End result? More traffic jams, more pollution. No government, elected or military, has ever done much about getting old polluting vehicles off the roads. Ancient buses and trucks spew fumes daily. Then there are the fools who come up with idiotic ideas like water spraying. These morons are like the Minister who in 2011 seriously suggested a pontoon like group of long tail boats with engines at full speed to push the flood waters back up river before they could inundate the capital. We know how effective that turned out to be! Much of the city under water for about three months. And that fool was a member of an elected government.

I think the system is to avoid scams - or make it easier register a complaint about drivers who have doctored their meters. If you look closely at the ticket, it not only gives you the bay number but also the name of the driver and the cab number. Even so, the system could easily be refined. Its nuts to have someone getting a ticket at the TG end of the airport having to walk the length of the airport to get cab. Re the Emirates A380, I once had to exit through first class and down the stairs. First has individual suites with doors! But EK is changing the layout in some of its A380s. Its dropping First and about 20 biz class seats and adding 130 coach seats in their place. This increases capacity from around 500 passengers to 615!

Definitely Ruen Urai. The food is great, its mid-price and the ambience unbeatable. Best to book in advance and make sure you can be seated downstairs rather than upstairs.

I have just finished an amazing first novel - The Final Retreat by Stephen Hough. It is a short book, less than 200 pages the size of a paperback. But it packs an almighty punch. To try and explain any detail of the story is to give away too much. So I will just say it is a series of entries into a notebook penned by a Catholic priest. No, this is not about pedophiles. But it is about being gay and being a priest. It is also very much a novel of opposites: loneliness and the desire for companionship, yearning and disgust, futility and the need for justification, age and youth, despair and the ache after even brief moments of ecstasy. The writing is quite superb. Hough is one of today's foremost classical concert pianists, a painter and goodness knows what else. The Economist magazine named him as one of 20 living polymaths - whatever that may mean! On the basis of The Final Retreat, he is destined to become an equally acclaimed writer.

Not missed at all! So now he's stuck with the Sawatdee crowd. Somehow I think the rattlesnakes deserve him. I really do wonder why Moses bothers with the Board.