tl;dr – It happens to the best of us!
For any points and miles enthusiast, there’s a unique ‘pain’ to opening up your email to see that the first-class itinerary you staked and successfully booked on points is no longer to be. Such was the case for me the other day when I received an email from Thai Airways informing me that my itinerary from Kansai airport (KIX) to Bangkok (BKK) had been updated and I would no longer be flying first class, but rather business class. (Yes, world’s smallest violin, I know.)
I actually booked this ticket specifically to experience and review Thai Airways first class for the first time. With reports that the airline is planning to deprecate its first-class product in favor of business-class suites, I didn’t know how many more opportunities I would have to check it out. Currently, Thai Airways’ first class is available on just three of the carrier’s routes – Tokyo, Kansai, and London. In fact, I had grand plans to double up on Thai premium cabin products, flying into Bangkok in first class, then a few days later flying Thai business class from BKK to Frankfurt. While Thai Airways has a stellar business class product, and I would have still been delighted/grateful to fly that cabin to Bangkok after being bumped, that plan never materialized due to other circumstances.
Unfortunately, due to delays by Aeroplan and Points.com, bonus points that I purchased during Air Canada’s 100% bonus sale took over a week to appear in my account (they are usually deposited instantly after purchase). These were points I planned to use to book my original Thai Business class itinerary (departing BKK for FRA), but as the points didn’t come in time, the Thai Business availability was snapped up. I took this as a sign that maybe Bangkok wasn’t meant to be this go-round, and I decided to add more time in Japan before hopping a flight directly to Frankfurt after a few more days in Osaka.
This ended up being a wonderful decision as I got a chance to review some stellar properties in Osaka including still-newish hotels such as the Patina Osaka (a sibling brand of Capella Hotels), the Waldorf-Astoria Osaka, and Cuvee J2 Hotel Osaka by Onko Chshin (the world’s first ‘champagne hotel’), as well as one of the city’s luxury mainstays – the Conrad Osaka.
Look out for reviews of these properties in the coming days/weeks!
