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Booking Hotel and Flight


Siam Addict

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Planning a trip in December but wary of losing any deposits for hotels if Thailand goes back into lockdown so looking at Agoda where they offer that you don't pay until couple of days prior to arriving, does anyone know does Agoda take any payments now? Or is it 100% just before arriving?

A couple of hotels I am looking at are saying they are fully booked for the days I want so, I don't want to leave it too late to book in.

 

Another issue is that I need to book Business Class due to leg issues and at the moment flights from the UK are over £3k direct, this is from early December, if I book 9th December the price jumps up to £4k direct. Do you think I should hold on booking the flight till September/October hoping that the prices may drop and hopefully more clarity on Covid?

I'm not a newbie, I have been plenty of times before but not been since 2019 and with Covid the rule book seemed to have changed so thanks for any help.

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I would love to be able to give you some advice, but given the past couple of years, no one knows what to expect, if the trend follows where we have been going towards, then one may expect fewer restrictions and more flights being available and hopefully reduced prices, but given the increased fuel cost and less people having funds to travel then it's still a lottery. 

All you can do is book at a price that you personally think is within your budget and not fret over it after. I always book at the last minute and if I decide it's too expensive then I don't go, or book non direct and suffer the change over.

Good luck either way.

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Agoda has all sorts of different deals with different places, but if they say nothing to pay until xx, or full refund if cancelled by yy, then that's what you get.

Flight prices are a pain just now.  I've got my next couple booked (including one originally booked for May 2020) but I'm looking for flights ex UK or EU around October and not finding anything I consider reasonable.  I'm holding off for now with the hope that some normality returns in the next few months, but only time will tell if that's the right strategy.

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13 hours ago, Siam Addict said:

Planning a trip in December but wary of losing any deposits for hotels if Thailand goes back into lockdown so looking at Agoda where they offer that you don't pay until couple of days prior to arriving, does anyone know does Agoda take any payments now? Or is it 100% just before arriving?

A couple of hotels I am looking at are saying they are fully booked for the days I want so, I don't want to leave it too late to book in.

 

Another issue is that I need to book Business Class due to leg issues and at the moment flights from the UK are over £3k direct, this is from early December, if I book 9th December the price jumps up to £4k direct. Do you think I should hold on booking the flight till September/October hoping that the prices may drop and hopefully more clarity on Covid?

I'm not a newbie, I have been plenty of times before but not been since 2019 and with Covid the rule book seemed to have changed so thanks for any help.

If the deal is "buy now pay later" Agoda will take your card details but will not charge a cent until about 5 days before your booking, whereby it is then paid. Be careful about using this method if you need 2 step authentication for online payments via your banking app though, as it'll reject the payment and your reservation will be cancelled unless you authorise it in time. given that they don't tell you when the payment is being taken out, it can cause an issue.

Another way of doing it is to do the pay later option, but ring their Customer Service a week or so before you arrive and make the payment through them then.

There is also the option for immediate payment but a full refund if cancelled no later than a week before you arrive.

Regarding flights, they are getting cheaper but Xmas is always at a premium due to school holidays. The closer into the middle of Dec you get, the more they will cost due to it being a peak travel period. I think at the moment demand is outstripping supply in the Travel Industry. If you can do it, non direct will be cheaper. Singapore Air Biz were around 2.5k to Manila for Xmas when I checked last week.

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13 hours ago, Siam Addict said:

Thanks Guys, I will check out some hotels and pay later.

I think I'll hold off on the flight until later, hopefully prices will drop, my dates are flexible so I hope I might make savings there!

I've also found some Agoda deals are really good at the moment. Page 10 hotel on Soi 10 is great, normally it's 1800THB or so a night, Agoda doing a deal for 1050 THB in Sept. Also, if you register for Agoda, you might get a 5% discount online voucher drop in your inbox.

Some of the LK group are also doing good deals, but a few of them are shut. Royal Wing on Bukhao is, for example.

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