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Surviving the flight to Bangkok from the East Coast of USA


upgrayders
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... looking at an Emerites flight from Ft. Lauderdale, FL changing planes in Dubai then on to Bangkok ... a change of planes in Dubai. 3 hour layover. Easy?
Emerites is one of top/highly rated airlines of the world, using a fleet of A380's and B777's (probably Rolls Royce jet engines, too) and flying J or business class, you get complimentary limo services to/from FLL airport's 65 miles radius.

 

No experience flying this carrier but from what a quick read on Flyertalk (CC's forum counterpart) ... looking fine & great services, lie-flat beds in business class, pairs of seats by the windows are best for 2 traveling together. A 3 hour transit connection at their base/HQ in Dubai should be more than sufficient, as any delays resulting should prompt them to escort & get you to catch up to your onward flight or make alternate arrangements, both as prioritized behind First Class flyers, ahead of those in coach. Total trip time about 24 hours - it is also a polar route, north, over the top & down over European airspace - including the layover, and the official fares is very reasonable & good on my lookup.

 

Here's an image of the business class seating on their B777 3-class product, lots of legrooms - before it's slide forward for a lie-flat bed to sleep, and you should be a restful one en route - plus, option to dine at a time of your choice, and, of course, special meal request.

https://cdn.seatguru.com/photos/show?pid=12094&photoversion=1

 

On your return from Shanghai, Emerites doesn't look to have any good connections unless it involved a partner/alliance flight to connect to its gateway city, then onward back to FLL. Well, that is comissionable work for your good TA to come up & present to you.

 

Even in my old days of flying for business & living out of a suitcase (no rollerboards then) - avoiding alcohol was a must and coffee/caffeine drank only to deal with jetlag based on a proven program for frequent flying long haul business. Pack your own noise-isolating or reduction earbuds and be sure to pack medications with you at all times, and, keep track of time zones & clock adjustment to take them as scheduled.

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>>Emerites is one of top/highly rated airlines of the world, using a fleet of A380's

>> and B777's (probably Rolls Royce jet engines, too) and flying J or business class,

>>you get complimentary limo services to/from FLL airport's 65 miles radius.

 

 

Trivia but no RR engines on most of the 777s (-300ERS and -200LRs if EK has any of the latter). Those a/c came exclusively with GE90-115/110s respectively.

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We have flown with Emirates several times from the UK to the Far East and Australia, mostly in economy - but we did get a free upgrade to business class one time from Shanghai to Dubai. They are an excellent airline, great service and attention to detail.

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We have flown Emirates several times and it is definitely our first choice for flights to the east. We flew Toronto - Dubai - Singapore then Singapore - Dubai - Frankfurt on our most recent trip. The economy seats seem more spacious than most airlines and the service is excellent. Changing planes in Dubai was painless. We had about three hours layover, so had time to browse the shops and enjoy lunch. Our son, who travels on business says the Emirates lounges are spectacular. He also rates Singapore Airlines very highly.

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There is one good thing. Untited no longer, or at least they did not for the past few years. fly to Bangkok. If you book United your NRT-BKK flight will be ANA.

 

United, in our experience, has to be about the worst when it comes to economy seats in trans-ocean flights. Even Delta is better and that is saying something! We had far better everything on discount carriers such as Air Asia, Sky, Vueling, etc. than we have on United.

 

One of the challenges we have on the Narita-Bangkok part of the trip is that for us it comes after two other flights, one stop over in the US, and another in Narita that is often scheduled for two hours but sometimes stretches to three-five hours. After that six or seven hour to Bangkok, arriving late at night, really takes the shine off the entire air adventure!

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We have not chosen the airline yet. We will be leaving from Southeast Florida (Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach)

We will probably have to do an overnight in California. We just want the sanest method of getting there. Someone suggested Emerits(?) with a stop in Dubai then off to Bangkok. We will be flying business class.

Thank you in advance for your insights.

 

You might want to check with your cruise line to see if they have any special Business Class deals. There are many excellent Asian airlines (Singapore, Cathy Pacific, JAL, China Air (different from Air China), Korean Air, etc. Sometimes the cruise line deals are amazing. We were able to get a one-way Business Class ticket on China Air (with lay flat seats and all the other good stuff) for only $1500 from JFK! If we had booked on our own we would have opted for Singapore at double that price...or Emirates for even more money.

 

Right now, if we were flying to Bangkok from MIA we might consider Quatar.....who has some decent Business Class fares (plus they use a new A350-900 out of MIA). This airline has gotten itself caught in some political issues (it has lost rights to some of its Middle Eastern country neighbors) which we suspect has caused them to offer some good deals.

 

Hank

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Many years ago I purchased 3 seats for the 2 of us on CA. In economy. Roundtrip JFK BEIJING price was $1200.00 per person so the 3 seats cost us $3600.00 a lot cheaper then business class.

Had the row to ourselves. Very comfortable. Everything was fine until we had to return home.

When we checked into CA in Beijing on our flight home we hit a snag. The counter agents could not understand that we had 3 seats for 2 passengers.

After a half-hour we finally worked it out. Got our 3 seats home.

 

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Why are you starting/ending a cruise in Bangkok, if the flight there is going to be a chore may I ask? I fly business class these days but you must select the airline that offers the most comfort in the Aircraft, I would also suggest no overnights as you have access to business class lounges and no queuing to board the aircraft, you would have to join queues to leave through security, travel to hotels,and return in time for your flight more security, now thats a chore! unless you take a mini break of 3 days to tour the mid point city I would recommend going all the way in the way in one go.

 

 

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Why are you starting/ending a cruise in Bangkok, if the flight there is going to be a chore may I ask? I fly business class these days but you must select the airline that offers the most comfort in the Aircraft, I would also suggest no overnights as you have access to business class lounges and no queuing to board the aircraft, you would have to join queues to leave through security, travel to hotels,and return in time for your flight more security, now thats a chore! unless you take a mini break of 3 days to tour the mid point city I would recommend going all the way in the way in one go.

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I agree. I used to stopover en route on all my overseas flights. Now I travel business class and fly direct, as security made short stopovers an unpleasant chore.

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No need to further comment - some of you late to the this thread, OP has posted just above -

We decided to NOT take this trip. Too challenging at this time.

 

Nowadays, we've continued to smartly travel abroad in coach, sometimes upgrading to business class on earned points/miles, or, economy plus as an option. Otherwise, if load factor is light, go for bulkhead seats (personal noise isolating/reduction headsets take care of noises, screams or distractions while trying to get some rest and zzzz's) It's far, far more civilized than flying domestic business-first on mostly narrow-bodied tin cans.

 

Virtually all of the airlines mentioned here for OP to consider are rated by travelers as being the top 10 for service, comfort and reliable, safe and well managed.

 

Still scratching my head as to starting at Bangkok for cruising, as I would be more concerned about travel over land to the port of embarkation ... maybe it's SIngarpore, which would be an easy 1 stop connection from many, if not all US gateway cities. From Shanghai, there are nonstops PVG to JFK - making it fairly easy to - with a good connection & layover time - for a 3 hour domestic nonstop to Miami or FLL. If that's too challenging, time to find a different travel agency/agent to come with better proposals and routing.

 

But .. whatever, OP has given up and not going.

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No need to further comment - some of you late to the this thread, OP has posted just above -

We decided to NOT take this trip. Too challenging at this Time

 

Although the original poster is no longer taking this trip, we are taking our first trip to Asia next year (NY to Singapore) and I am picking up tips from this thread (including a tip from your post!)

 

So I encourage others to continue posting, if not to help the OP, then to help me:D

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If I do journeys such as these, I look at the arrival country first, in this case Thai airways, who are a great carrier and have excellent business class services, they should, as a national airline, get you as close to your home possible and they are part of Star Alliance. However, my last holiday was to Malaysia and I was not prepared to fly their national Airline, so used my home carrier (business class) Air New Zealand to Singapore with a stopover in Singapore then on Singapore Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpar. As it was a land based tour for domestic we flew Air Asia low cost carrier, thus avoiding MH flights completely, I am please the OP has decided to cancel, I would not be starting a cruise with such a difficult start, especially as Bangkok to the cruise terminal is a long haul too!

 

 

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Although ... we are taking our first trip to Asia next year (NY to Singapore) and I am picking up tips from this thread (including a tip from your post!)

... if not to help the OP, then to help me:D

Fair enough, that's different - folks tend to sometimes not read thru & jump to all sorts of conclusion and go off-track.

 

As a suggestion, post a new one for help, ideas, suggestions, etc. with JFK to SIN, fly-cruise in 2018, etc. something along that line ... with a link to this thread for reference. That would help the rest of us from repeating & responding to generic & off tangent replies.

 

We've been looking at Singarpore, Hong Kong and Shanghai as ports for embarkation/disembarkation - been to 2 out of 3 on air-land trips/tours (along with Seoul & Taiwan ... but not Japan in a while) so ...

Flights out of the Northeast, especially JFK is highly competititve and a good T/A that specialize in consolidator fares can get discounts & come up with routing proposals,

 

JFK - PEK is 13 hours nonstop

JFK - PVG is 14 hours nonstop

JFK - SIN is 16 hours via HKG plus 4 hours & connecting time (2 hours layover is fine, 4 hours to enjoy club/business class lounge)

 

Look closely at which port to embark & disembark, plus days for jetlag recovery, not sightseeing to rest up before local sightseeing and cruising ... work with the upside down time zone changes and body clock to readjust. EWR (Newark Int'l Airport) has some long haul flight options - regardless of airport, check to make sure you aren't flying on an airline alliance's code sharing partner or, else - get surprised & ended up on a United or Delta "metals" (aircraft)

 

Ground transportation logistics are far better in HKG, SIN compared to PVG as bigger ships are not docked at the Bund & in the remote int'l cruise terminal, especially one is not comfortable ... not speaking Chinese (Mandarin dialect) spoken by taxi drivers.

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Good idea, but I would not have chipped in as we live in New Zealand! This interested me as it was Bangkok, a city I know well! we are on a cruise leaving HK finishing Shanghai and have chosen a hotel in the city with their own shuttle to PVG, its 12 hours flying for us, so Cathay pacific to HK and Air New Zealand home, both Star Alliance airlines, so get the points, safe travels all of you!

 

 

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[ Cathay pacific to HK and Air New Zealand home, both Star Alliance airlines, so get the points, safe travels all of you!

 

Cathay Pacific is a member of OneWorld, not Star Alliance. Air New Zealand is Star Alliance.

 

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[ Cathay pacific to HK and Air New Zealand home, both Star Alliance airlines, so get the points, safe travels all of you!

 

 

 

Cathay Pacific is a member of OneWorld, not Star Alliance. Air New Zealand is Star Alliance.

 

 

 

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Strange, they must code share as my Cathay Pacific flight is booked with Air New Zealand and I get points!

 

 

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  • 3 months later...
Strange, they must code share as my Cathay Pacific flight is booked with Air New Zealand and I get points!

 

 

 

 

 

They must have some arrangement that I was not aware of. So, that is great for you.

 

 

 

Hi, just found out they are not Alliance partners, you are right, but have a special arrangement to code share from Auckland to Hong Kong only, obviously this is an important route for both of them!

 

 

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Strange, they must code share as my Cathay Pacific flight is booked with Air New Zealand and I get points!
Hi, just found out they are not Alliance partners, you are right, but have a special arrangement to code share from Auckland to Hong Kong only, obviously this is an important route for both of them!
Airlines don't have to be alliance partners to codeshare. There are very many codeshare agreements between airlines which are in different alliances, so there's nothing unusual at all about this.
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