Taiwan?

[fedssocr]

flight is booked! Thanks for all of the advice. Now I just need to figure out what exactly I want to do. I decided to go in late Nov instead of being there for Taipei Pride. I plan to spend a couple of weeks in Thailand and the weather is usually a lot better in December than it is in November.

It seemed to make the most sense to go all the way to Taipei on the award booking. So I will go from Washington to JFK and then Cathay Pacific First class to HKG and CX business class from there to TPE. Then I will take a quick flight back to HKG and spend several days there before I go to Thailand. It seemed to make more sense to get home as directly as possible from BKK since clearing customs and immigration here at Dulles is easier and less stressful than going through it at JFK or Chicago and then having one more flight after that.

[fountainhall]

I decided to go in late Nov instead of being there for Taipei Pride. I plan to spend a couple of weeks in Thailand and the weather is usually a lot better in December than it is in November.

It seemed to make the most sense to go all the way to Taipei on the award booking. So I will go from Washington to JFK and then Cathay Pacific First class to HKG and CX business class from there to TPE.

Late November should still be fine weather-wise in Hong Kong and Taiwan. But take a sweater or two just in case there is a surge of the winter monsoon. I have known temperatures fall as low as 12 degrees celsius at that time.

If you have enough time when you transit HKG, Cathay's First Class lounge closest to Immigration control and Gate #1 has a few wonderful spa-style cabanas where you can shower, relax and generally freshen up (the lounge near gate 60 or so only has ordinary showers). Since very few flights to TPE have first class, they may try to put you in the business class lounge. Have none of it!

[fedssocr]

Unfortunately I wasn't as vigilant as I should have been and the AA aagent put me on the very next HKG-TPE flight out which is a very tight connection of 55 minutes. So there won't be much lounge time. It looks like CX does use one of their newer 773's on some few flights to Taipei so those have First class, but most are 2-class regional wide bodies.

Used 9000 BA "Avios" points for a CX business class seat back to HKG. That seemed like a really good deal. Economy seats just 4500 Avios. Now that they are basically using a distance based award chart, short flights are pretty cheap. All those credit card bonus miles I collected last year are coming in handy.

Going to book the Emirates A380 F class one of these days for the flight over to BKK. Only US$640, barely more than they charge for an economy seat on this route.

[fountainhall]

Personally I hate those tight connections so beloved by US airlines and their hub airports. WIth long-range flights, if the incoming flight is even slightly delayed, I spend a lot of time worrying - less about my getting on to the connecting flight than my bag making it. There's not much more annoying than getting to one's final destination and then having to wait a few or more hours for the bag to arrive. And if the incoming flight is early, it is usually not by enough time to get through security formalities and over and back to the lounge to really enjoy its facilities.

Still, if there is any kind of hitch, I'd rather it happened with Cathay and HKG!

[fedssocr]

yeah, I am not a fan either. I had a 50 minute connection at NRT last year. Luckily I was in F on TG and UA so there was a ground staff person waiting for me when I got off the plane who whisked me through transfer security and walked me to the gate. But boarding was already well underway. I was freaking out a little bit as the flight out of BKK was held at the gate for about 30 minutes past our departure time. And then we had to drive all the way around the airport at NRT once we landed. But it worked out in the end ok.

For this trip, even if I miss the connection at HKG there's another flight within an hour or so.

[christianpfc]

I would avoid booking a flight with less than 1 h stopover. I take at least 2, better 3 hours. I know from experience that 30 min delays occur regularly, and I had departures delayed by 1 h in about 1 out of 10 flights.

Strangely, travel booking websites offer flights with less than 1 h stopover. I remember, opodo offered flights from Londo or Paris to Bangkok with Finnish Airlines with 50 or 40 (I don't remember exactly) min stop in Helsinki.

[fedssocr]

well, every airport has Minimum Connect Times based on whether you are going between terminals, between airlines, international-international or domestic-international, etc. My check for HKG seems to say 1 hour I-I both flights on CX. So 55 minutes will certainly test the limits. But if I miss the connection there's another flight about an hour later anyway so I am not very concerned in this case. Not sure if there is transfer security in HKG or if all I will need to do is get to the gate. I think for the connection I made in NRT last year the MCT was only 45 minutes. So it's quite possible that short connections are allowable at Helsinki.

[fountainhall]

The Minimum Connecting Time between CX flights at HKG is only 50 minutes. Yes, you will have to go through another major security check, but as you are arriving in first class you’ll get there quickly. HKG has four or five transfer security check areas. The only negative is the possibility of arriving at a Gate near where a couple of other flights have parked a few minutes before you. Then you can be in for a good 15-minute queue.

However, CX is great if your flight arrives late. They will have someone at the gate to rush you through – provided the connecting flight has not already departed!

I remember, opodo offered flights from Londo or Paris to Bangkok with Finnish Airlines with 50 or 40 (I don't remember exactly) min stop in Helsinki.

I transited Helsinki last year. Finnair offers probably the shortest official international connecting time at Helsinki of any major airport anywhere - in my case only 30 minutes to connect from London and on to Hong Kong. Although I dreaded arriving late and missing the flight, there was no security check and the terminal is relatively small. I know, too, that as they depend on a lot of transfer traffic, they will hold long distance flights if an incoming short haul is a bit delayed.