I must admit, I love Thailand. Fair enough, it is a cheap place for us Aussies to travel but the few times I go there I seem to come back with less money than I intended to spend… That might just be the nature of holidays. If you are like me and are always looking for some budget ideas then listen up. Some of the flights directly to Thailand are getting quite expensive.

If you would like to take a trip to Thailand and you would like to save a few dollars then I would recommend travelling Air Asia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
You can then get a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok or Phuket. Be aware that Air Asia is quite small. So if you are a big person, then it can be a little uncomfortable. But if you are looking to save a few bucks, then it really isn’t a problem.

When booking online however you must be careful. Myself and my wife booked our flights from Gold Coast to Kuala Lumpur and from Kuala Lumpur to Phuket and back again only to realise that Air Asia gave us separate seating! I was stunned. So were the other people. I must admit that I have never heard of this. Seems like they want you to pay extra to choose your seating preference when booking. I had no idea that if you didn’t do this then you would be seated 10 rows away from each other despite obviously booking at the same time.

After a little light negotiating the staff were quite pleasant to arrange for us to sit together. I know that others on the plane were not so lucky. This was a real shame.

Apart from this weird situation that Air Asia put a lot of people in the flight was good. The staff very polite. The plane was smooth and the landing was light as a feather – thanks to the pilots.

Overall it was a good experience. Apologies for harping-on but they really must stop this seating dilemma – it is things like this that can cause customers to say that they will never fly on Air Asia again. No one likes to be separated from their parters or children on an international flight!

If they want to arrange their flights this way then they should let customers know when booking and make it clear!

Anyway, as I digress… Getting to phuket was quite easy (maybe helped due to my negotiations). I was also happy with the money that I had saved which may have made the flight even more enjoyable.

If you are looking to book hotels in Phuket then we recommend booking through Thai Hotels Phuket. It has links to the major hotels and resorts in Phuket.