Redeeming miles on Thai Airways - Royal Orchid Plus

[MilesMax]

Hey All,

My experience with Thai Airways FFP Royal Orchid Plus and the possible Gotchas.

First, to see how many miles are required between places you can either check the award chart

Air Awards on THAI | Round Trip - THAI Air Awards Chart

www.thaiairways.com

or
create an account and check https://www.thaiairways.com/en_TH/rop/index.page

Note: You CANNOT book a round trip award ticket from the website with starting destination as India. No Indian airports are listed.
If you choose multi-city then you can. Direct flight is not possible which is strange.

Now sadly without transferring miles, you cannot see the availability of the tickets for Awards and the Tax amount. Customer care wasn't helpful either. Didn't get any reply to my emails. And the Toll-free number said they only do revenue booking. They don't have info on mile redemption.

I wanted to book BLR - BKK (round trip)
Since having India as the first destination didn't work. I thought let me just redeem for the return flight.

BKK - BLR (one way)



It costs 17500 miles + 7,269 tax

Now same flight on Skyscanner costs around 15k.




Let's calculate the reward rate for the miles:

14,952 - 7269 = 7683

7683 / 17500 = 0.43p

If you had transfered this through Axis Edge points at 5:4
Then you would have used 21875 ER points

7683 / 21875 = 0.35p (Bad value compared to Vistara or Krisflyer)

With different dates and routes you might get better reward rate upto 0.5p I haven't seen anything better than this for Economy flight redemption. There might be exceptions.

For Business class award

Miles required: 27000
Tax: 9000

Business class revenue price: 39000

mile value: 30000 / 27000 = 1.1 Re
Axis ER Value: 30000 / 34375 = 0.87p

Business does give much better value for the miles just like most airlines.

Some other findings:
For most dates I saw 4 Economy tickets and 2 Silk (Business class) tickets available for Awards. If you are planning to redeem for multiple people you'll have a rough idea as the quantity of seats reserved for awards.

 

[Ravi007]

Hey All,

My experience with Thai Airways FFP Royal Orchid Plus and the possible Gotchas.

First, to see how many miles are required between places you can either check the award chart

Air Awards on THAI | Round Trip - THAI Air Awards Chart

www.thaiairways.com

or
create an account and check https://www.thaiairways.com/en_TH/rop/index.page

Note: You CANNOT book a round trip award ticket from the website with starting destination as India. No Indian airports are listed.
If you choose multi-city then you can. Direct flight is not possible which is strange.

Now sadly without transferring miles, you cannot see the availability of the tickets for Awards and the Tax amount. Customer care wasn't helpful either. Didn't get any reply to my emails. And the Toll-free number said they only do revenue booking. They don't have info on mile redemption.

I wanted to book BLR - BKK (round trip)
Since having India as the first destination didn't work. I thought let me just redeem for the return flight.

BKK - BLR (one way)



It costs 17500 miles + 7,269 tax

Now same flight on Skyscanner costs around 15k.




Let's calculate the reward rate for the miles:

14,952 - 7269 = 7683

7683 / 17500 = 0.43p

If you had transfered this through Axis Edge points at 5:4
Then you would have used 21875 ER points

7683 / 21875 = 0.35p (Bad value compared to Vistara or Krisflyer)

With different dates and routes you might get better reward rate upto 0.5p I haven't seen anything better than this for Economy flight redemption. There might be exceptions.

For Business class award

Miles required: 27000
Tax: 9000

Business class revenue price: 39000

mile value: 30000 / 27000 = 1.1 Re
Axis ER Value: 30000 / 34375 = 0.87p

Business does give much better value for the miles just like most airlines.

Some other findings:
For most dates I saw 4 Economy tickets and 2 Silk (Business class) tickets available for Awards. If you are planning to redeem for multiple people you'll have a rough idea as the quantity of seats reserved for awards.

Nicely Explained

 

[Ravi007]

I believe spice jet can be one of the better options for me to book ccu-bkk flight with .50 paisa value per miles and taxes also paid by points.

 

[MilesMax]

I believe spice jet can be one of the better options for me to book ccu-bkk flight with .50 paisa value per miles and taxes also paid by points.

Nice.
But unfortunately Only Indigo and Thai airways operate from BLR to BKK.

 

[CARDBITRAGE]

I believe spice jet can be one of the better options for me to book ccu-bkk flight with .50 paisa value per miles and taxes also paid by points.

Do you mind sharing the points+tax component?

 

[Ravi007]

Do you mind sharing the points+tax component?

I did not booked yet .

But I understood their system is straight forward.You can pay tickets price at payment page by redeeming SC points @ .50 paise per point.

 

[Crusader4Credit]

Hey All,

My experience with Thai Airways FFP Royal Orchid Plus and the possible Gotchas.

First, to see how many miles are required between places you can either check the award chart

Air Awards on THAI | Round Trip - THAI Air Awards Chart

www.thaiairways.com

or
create an account and check https://www.thaiairways.com/en_TH/rop/index.page

Note: You CANNOT book a round trip award ticket from the website with starting destination as India. No Indian airports are listed.
If you choose multi-city then you can. Direct flight is not possible which is strange.

Now sadly without transferring miles, you cannot see the availability of the tickets for Awards and the Tax amount. Customer care wasn't helpful either. Didn't get any reply to my emails. And the Toll-free number said they only do revenue booking. They don't have info on mile redemption.

I wanted to book BLR - BKK (round trip)
Since having India as the first destination didn't work. I thought let me just redeem for the return flight.

BKK - BLR (one way)



It costs 17500 miles + 7,269 tax

Now same flight on Skyscanner costs around 15k.




Let's calculate the reward rate for the miles:

14,952 - 7269 = 7683

7683 / 17500 = 0.43p

If you had transfered this through Axis Edge points at 5:4
Then you would have used 21875 ER points

7683 / 21875 = 0.35p (Bad value compared to Vistara or Krisflyer)

With different dates and routes you might get better reward rate upto 0.5p I haven't seen anything better than this for Economy flight redemption. There might be exceptions.

For Business class award

Miles required: 27000
Tax: 9000

Business class revenue price: 39000

mile value: 30000 / 27000 = 1.1 Re
Axis ER Value: 30000 / 34375 = 0.87p

Business does give much better value for the miles just like most airlines.

Some other findings:
For most dates I saw 4 Economy tickets and 2 Silk (Business class) tickets available for Awards. If you are planning to redeem for multiple people you'll have a rough idea as the quantity of seats reserved for awards.

This was helpful. I am planning Del to BKK, and while I do like Thai Airway's flight timings, I think the best value would be Vistara using JAL. Would be interesting to see what changes AI rebranding brings though.

 

[MilesMax]

This was helpful. I am planning Del to BKK, and while I do like Thai Airway's flight timings, I think the best value would be Vistara using JAL. Would be interesting to see what changes AI rebranding brings though.

What's the mile + cash you are seeing in JAL for DEL - BKK route Business?
Directly on Vistara it's 52k CV points which is a lot!
Thai Airways was A350 which I flew return from BKK-BLR
Vistara is showing A321, not as good as A350.

 

[Crusader4Credit]

What's the mile + cash you are seeing in JAL for DEL - BKK route Business?
Directly on Vistara it's 52k CV points which is a lot!
Thai Airways was A350 which I flew return from BKK-BLR
Vistara is showing A321, not as good as A350.

I am seeing 23K roundtrip in Economy for 1 person. Another advantage with JAL is that I can use it for adding Siem Reap on this BKK trip as it supports Bangkok Airways redemption too.
I am thinking about Thai Airways too, but not sure how smooth the redemption process is. Would A350 vs A321 be a huge difference in Economy?

 

[MilesMax]

I am seeing 23K roundtrip in Economy for 1 person. Another advantage with JAL is that I can use it for adding Siem Reap on this BKK trip as it supports Bangkok Airways redemption too.
I am thinking about Thai Airways too, but not sure how smooth the redemption process is. Would A350 vs A321 be a huge difference in Economy?

That's a great redemption for economy.
What about tax?
No for economy it doesn't make much difference.

 

[Crusader4Credit]

That's a great redemption for economy.
What about tax?
No for economy it doesn't make much difference.

I hear that taxes are low as compared to VI; haven't booked yet so can't say for sure. My main concern now is that if there any changes due to AI rebranding.

 

[Crusader4Credit]

I hear that taxes are low as compared to VI; haven't booked yet so can't say for sure. My main concern now is that if there any changes due to AI rebranding.

Sorry, it's showing on the booking page

Taxes INR 6,434 (INR)

 

[MilesMax]

Sorry, it's showing on the booking page

Taxes INR 6,434 (INR)

So you are getting a value of around 0.78Rs per mile. Pretty decent value for Economy.

You need to wait for 60 days post account creation on JAL to even see the redemption available right?

 

[Crusader4Credit]

So you are getting a value of around 0.78Rs per mile. Pretty decent value for Economy.

You need to wait for 60 days post account creation on JAL to even see the redemption available right?

Yeah there is a 60 day cool off. But works for me as my travel is 6 months away.

 

[amajethia]

I am trying to redeem award ticket on Thai Airways, but I am unable to proceed with the tax payment using Axis Bank Magnus credit card. It's showing authentication failed. Has anyone faced this issue?

 

[amitr29]

I am trying to redeem award ticket on Thai Airways, but I am unable to proceed with the tax payment using Axis Bank Magnus credit card. It's showing authentication failed. Has anyone faced this issue?

Have you activated International usage? Thai airways charges in Thai Baht

 

[vengolf]

I am trying to redeem award ticket on Thai Airways, but I am unable to proceed with the tax payment using Axis Bank Magnus credit card. It's showing authentication failed. Has anyone faced this issue?

Try Amex. Axis usually bad with international payment esp airlines

 

[amajethia]

Have you activated International usage? Thai airways charges in Thai Baht

Yes. It's strange that I was able to redeem flight from BKK to India (payment successful at one go using Axis Magnus), but no luck with the multi-city redemption India-BKK-HKT. It's going through the final page for card details and then my payment is getting rejected.

For BKK to India, it charged in THB but for the multi-city it's showing INR in the payment page.

 

[amajethia]

Try Amex. Axis usually bad with international payment esp airlines

I have other cards but want to use Axis. Will try with other cards after trying for a few days using Axis.

 

[amajethia]

READ BEFORE TRANSFERING POINTS TO ROP

Hi All,

In continuation to my questions that I asked last week...

After trying 10+ cards (debit + credit) as well as two US credit cards, I was not able to book the multi-city trip India-BKK-Phuket using ROP miles. What I realized is that you won't be able to complete the payment if the origin is from India as the payment is to be done in INR and there is no way Thai Airways is accepting any cards (may be because they don't accept INR while booking through miles) My last option was to try Thai credit card, but I don't know anyone personally there.

I was able to redeem award ticket from BKK-India as the payment was to be made in THB.

Conclusion - Transfer and use ROP miles if you want to redeem award ticket where the origin is not India. I have now 60k unused ROP miles. God know when I will be able to use them.

Note - As mentioned in the first post by MilesMax, there is no option to book one way award ticket originating from India. You will get option if you book multi-city tickets.