Air Asia Go Holiday

Last Songkran holiday, I travel to Phuket with my family using the AirAsia Thailand Go Holiday and below is the review :

Booking
If you plan to go on holiday, based on my experience it's always cheaper to book the flights and hotel in advance from the internet rather than contact the airlines or hotel directly. This time I book through Air Asia (AA) holiday package, flights and hotel (http://goholiday.airasia.com/) for the first time. I have booked the package early in mid Feb for traveling in mid Apr. By doing this I managed to get the cheapest seat available around 1500-1800B (US 43-52) one way pp Bangkok (BKK) - Phuket (HKT) excl. tax. The price is rather expensive because it was in the Songkran period. There were 4-6 daily flights, so there are plenty of seats, of course the odd hours will be cheaper. I checked few weeks later, the price of my flight has gone up by 300-500B one way pp.

Note 1: while it's always cheaper to book early, AA also often does promo activities with huge discount even zero fare which cheaper than the early booking, but you will never know. Visit their web often to catch their promo.

Note 2: as per 1 April 2008, AA will charge 50B (1.5US) for every checked in baggage. You can pre-pay online at 30B. Baggage allowance pp is 15kg + 7kg hand carry (but I never see them weigh the hand carry bag)

Since it's a package, AA provide around 20-25 list of hotels in several locations in Phuket ranging from 2 to 4 stars rating. I choose Andaman Cannacia resort (http://www.phuket-cannacia.com/) in Kata Beach, because it matched the budget. I browsed the internet and the hotel seems OK.We stayed for 5D/4N, total package cost 31,000B (885 US) incl tax for 2 Adult, 2 Children.

Payment
AA said that they will charge our CC the full amount immediately, however mine is billed one month later and I finally paid just few weeks before departure. Nonetheless, it does not mean we can cancel the booking few days later. Please read their terms and condition for cancellation.

Flight
The advantage of AA is that they operate via Suvarnabhumi, Bangkok new airport, while the other LCC such as Nok Air & One Two Go operate via Don Mueang, the old airport which now only serves domestic LCC.

AA has many domestic all flight check in counters in Suvarnabhumi, hence the queue is manageable. Also in Phuket, there were only short queue compares to the one of One Two Go which extended back until the x-ray counter near the entrance gate.

Somehow my flight back to BKK was rescheduled from 15.20 to 17.10, and I received the SMS notification long before I went to Phuket. AA Customer Service also speaks good English, so you dont have any problem communicating. Both flights were considered on time.

In Flight Meal
Like many LCC, AA in flight meal is not included in the ticket price, not even a glass of water.
The flight from BKK to HKT took around 1 hour, by the time the meal service reach the end row, the plane was already preparing for landing. So you better eat first before you fly short distance. Nonetheless, the food & drink price were very very reasonable, so I dont think they made profit out of this.

Verdict : while booking in package (flight & hotel) is fast and convenient, however it has a major drawback. The choice of hotels are very limited. Phuket has tens of hotels and the hotels provided by AA may not be the best hotel to suit your needs. I checked later on, if you booked the same hotel separately, the total cost will be more or less the same. The point is that, you will be able to find a better place to stay rather than sticking to the package deal which is not going to give you financial gain anyway. Therefore, unless your fave hotel is on the package list, book separately, but never go show.

Note: please note that AirAsia is operated in several countries by different sister companies. Quality of service may be different.