At the end of April, I have to fly to Brussels for a 1day meeting and then onto Thailand for a week\u2019s vacation and three weeks of business.\u00a0 Flying to Bangkok in coach\u00a0isn’t\u00a0the most appealing thought in the world\u2026.so I had to find a way to fly business\u2026on a budget.<\/p>\n
Flights to Thailand in coach were ranging from $2200 \u2013 2800 and in business from $4800 \u2013 6000.\u00a0 After hours of research and planning I couldn\u2019t find a way to make it happen.\u00a0 I called the US Air Chairman\u2019s Preferred Desk and spoke with a wonderful agent named Anna.\u00a0 She was extremely creative in helping me find a way to fly business.<\/p>\n
First, we booked a round-trip ticket from Charlotte to Frankfurt on US Airways in coach for $700 and used two upgrade certificates so I could fly Envoy \u2013 each way.\u00a0 I will take the train from Frankfurt to Brussels and back to Frankfurt .<\/p>\n
Since US Airways doesn’t fly to Bangkok, we looked at Star Alliance Partners. We couldn\u2019t find a business class ticket from Frankfurt to Bangkok on Thai Air that was affordable, and we couldn\u2019t find an upgradable fare with Star Alliance Upgrade Award availability, but what Anna did find was a round trip ticket in Business using frequent flyer miles \u2013 on the exact dates I needed – for 90,000 miles. \u00a0US Airways is running a special \u2013 through today, April 15 \u2013 to buy miles and get up to 100% bonus.\u00a0 For $1750 I bought 45,000 miles and got 100% bonus to total 90,000 miles.\u00a0 To get 100% bonus, you have to sign up for a Points.com account and register your US Airways #.\u00a0 If you already have a Points.com account with a registered US Air account #, you are only eligible for 50% bonus miles.<\/p>\n
The total price of the trip \u2013 Charlotte to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Bangkok and back again \u2013 came to $2450.<\/p>\n
The only downside to this is that I won\u2019t earn miles on the Frankfurt to Bangkok leg \u2013 I hope that doesn\u2019t hurt my status this year \u2013 and if it does, I can always buy up on US Air.<\/p>\n
During my trip to Thailand, I’ll have lots of great reviews – The Westin Grande Sukhumvit, The St Regis Bangkok, The Sheraton Krabi and one other hotel in Phuket yet to be decided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the end of April, I have to fly to Brussels for a 1day meeting and then onto Thailand for a week\u2019s vacation and three weeks of business.\u00a0 Flying to Bangkok in coach\u00a0isn’t\u00a0the most appealing thought in the world\u2026.so I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n