Having saved up for the holiday of a lifetime and aimed to stay in Thailand as long as financially possible, let’s say you’re budgeting about £2,000 all-in, and sensibly keep checking the Internet and Teletext for bargain flights.  Making the right savings on your airfare can mean the difference between a 2-week and a 4-week holiday, in my case it freed up an extra month’s expatriate living costs.

Package deals are usually on offer annually, that look good value at between £600 and £1,000 for two weeks duration.  These offers include connections and transfers inside Thailand, and breakfast at the hotel. They’re fine if you’re not of the mind for finding your own way in a foreign land, but way too expensive for those who know what prices are really like out here.

Do a lot more digging and you’ll find that during the UK summer (Thai rainy season and therefore not tourist high-season), flight-only, return-ticket deals to Thailand, can still be bought for as low as £285 + airport taxes. These cheaper flights do not include accommodation or transfers, and normally require at least one change of aircraft.

I’ll be covering more about accommodation costs and internal travel later in the series. Within sensible reason, the more you can save on the flight price, the more you’ll have for spending within Thailand, and the better time you’ll have.

I booked Aeroflot, and they had a couple of surprises for me.

First was that the aircraft were much more modern than expected. The fleet included brand new Boeing 767’s with passenger cabin information systems showing where along the route the aircraft was at any given time, and other such niceties. I chuckled watching the route make a sharp change in direction at the Afghanistan border, this was in 1999 remember!

For myself, at 6’2” tall the best bit was that the seat spacings are better than British Airways Business class. I had no problems stretching full length and plenty of elbow-room when eating, or reading one of the complimentary newspapers (available from a table immediately outside the door as we boarded).  Keep an eye open for those newspapers as they were not pointed out, and both legs of the journey are quite long. Heathrow to Moscow was 5 hours and Moscow to Bangkok was 10 hours, with about a 3-hour layover in-between. The direct Heathrow to Bangkok route is 12-13 hours, and believe me, by the time you land, a coccyx-ectomy is a remarkably attractive proposition, especially if you’ve ever had lower back injuries.

Another unexpected bonus, with Aeroflot, was that they permitted smoking all the way between “seatbelts off” and “seatbelts on”. I’ve no idea if they still allow that – certainly even Chinese airlines had banned all smoking on-board by early 2001 – and the Chinese are the most dedicated smokers in the world, beating even the French.

So that was my experience nearly 10 years ago, and the world has moved on a lot since then.  Nowadays, Teletext might not even exist as the Internet seems to have taken over everything.  But the base lesson remains – every extra minute spent researching prices can extend your holiday spending, and release money for improved accommodation once you get here.

There’s no need to be suckered into buying a package at an overcrowded beach resort either – get away from the crowds and see the real Thailand, and that involves no beaches, and no islands, just a far more adventurous,  interesting, and memorable, holiday.

If sunny beaches are your “thing” for holidays, “Hohum, yawn”, is all I can say, “Going to have lots of exciting tales and photographs to share with friends, aren’t you?”

Tomorrow – The colour of money matters.

Garry