Beijing to Bangkok

October 24, 2008

I know I didn’t write much about yesterday, but I don’t think I’m really going to. It was a great day, but also very tiring as I walked miles around the city of Beijing. I started my day by taking a taxi north to the Olympic Park. I normally don’t swing by Olympic Stadiums in my travels, but the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube had garnered so much attention this summer that I felt compelled to see them. The Water Cube was rather boring; the Bird’s Nest was actually quite interesting to see up close.

The Forbidden City was second on my list for the day. I walked around exploring it in the early part of the afternoon until my attention waned. My last big sight to see was the Temple of Heaven Park. I should have done myself a favor and hopped in a cab rather than walking…I did enjoy the journey but it was almost 4pm when I got there and I was getting pretty tired. I had been walking for more or less 6 straight hours and this was my fourth consecutive day of some pretty heavy touring. Finally exhausted, I took a cab back to the hotel. Afternoon tea was still underway (it wasn’t over until 6pm, which I thought was a bit late but was quite pleased about) and so I enjoyed a Chinese Jasmine tea with English tea sandwiches, scones and clotted cream. An interesting but thoroughly enjoyable combination.

I decided to simply relax for the evening, and spent some time replying to emails and booking some hotels for this trip that were still outstanding. I really planned most of this trip in the week leading up to it and did a pretty good job of actually booking the majority of the 16 flight segments and 22 or so night’s worth of accommodations. In general I am happy with everything that I booked, but there was one flight that was bothering me – my flight to Bangkok from Beijing. I booked the ticket on Expedia in one of those ‘I just need to book something’ moments a day before the trip started. The flight I booked is on Sri Lankan Airlines from PEK-BKK, obviously continuing on to Colombo. The issues here are multiple: 1) I’m in coach, 2) It is a non Star or OneWorld Alliance partner, so I don’t even have status, 3) the website kept bombing so I couldn’t even select seats and 4) SriLankan isn’t listed on SeatGuru so I didn’t even know what seats I would want if I could pick them. All of this had me a bit out of sorts. Rachel (thank you again!) tried helping me out by calling United to see what Star Alliance carriers had business class available on miles, but they only had coach and first on both Thai or EgyptAir. It is a 5 hour flight, but 80,000 miles for a one way ticket in F vs the $327 ticket I had booked on SriLankan seemed a bit excessive. Then I checked the Sri Lankan website to see how much a one way business class ticket would cost. Upon seeing the mere $600 price tag I was a bit ticked at myself that I hadn’t checked that first. But at this point I’d have to cancel my coach ticket and throw away the $300+ to book a $600 business ticket. I decided I would survive coach.

Fast forward to today. I entered the check in area and really only glanced at the mob of people in line to check in for economy before changing my mind. Not only could I not do the line of pushy people, this is actually a 2000+ mile flight of about 5 hours. I walked straight to the (empty) business class desk and told the agent that I had a coach ticket but would like to buy up to business. She asked if I was going to Bangkok only or on to Colombo. Only Bangkok. Yes, she said, there are seats available...’but it will cost $200’. !!!! Sold. In all of 10 minutes I happily had a business class boarding pass, an invitation to the lounge, and a smile on my face. All for a total of only $525 – at least $75 cheaper than the cheapest one way C class fare on line. And the interesting thing was that she didn’t ever look at my ticket or my fare class/restrictions. I don’t know much about SriLankan’s fare system, but it is clearly much more simple than that of any US carrier. The check in staff wasn’t even from the airline – it was ‘Beijing Ground Staff’ that quickly and seamlessly handled the request.
I’ve done this before…paying for a cheaper ticket and flying coach sounds like such a good idea when I’m still in the US and planning a trip. Then I get to the airport and see the hoards of people and I simply can’t make myself go stand in that line. My ticket from Hyderabad up to Delhi in India was a similar scenario…I got to the airport, saw the line and promptly walked to the ticket counter with my credit card to buy up. Some day I’ll learn.

Anyway, I’m happy. I did some shopping and then enjoyed a snack in the lounge. The boarding area was a zoo, but there was a separate area for biz class similar to the UA red carpet. I’m on the plane now. The service has been excellent. The food was actually quite good, as was the wine. There are only 6 of us out of 18 seats (2 class plane), so it is a nice roomy comfortable flight. I can’t even get near reaching the seat in front of me with my leg outstretched on the footrest. The lesson here is that it really does pay to ask – I’m sure there are a lot of people on this flight who would have happily paid $200 more to upgrade but assumed that it would be really expensive to do.

We land in about an hour – we are just passing over Vientiane now (a city high on my list, but that will have to be another trip…). I am spending the night in Bangkok, although without the usual crowd here I expect it will be a tame night. It would be hard to beat the trip where the 8 or so of us ended up in the Thai brothel, but that is a story for another time…

Tomorrow I fly to Siem Reap, Cambodia to explore the Temples of Angkor Wat. For now I’m going to relax and finish my cheesy chick lit book, have another glass of wine, and generally enjoy my well spent $200 :)

Have I mentioned that I love to travel?