good airfare/airline tips for SE Asia?

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I have been thinking of branching out of my Latin American traveling and have been looking at some of the Asia packages - the Orient express ones to Laos & Cambodia are some nice deals, however, airfare to SE Asia from Philadelphia is long and expensive!
Anyone have any good tips for finding a good fare to Asia - airlines to check, websites to check, etc.?
thanks

[kyshel]

Thai Airways frequently offers premium fare upgrades fro a small chunk. Highly recommend looking at either direction with an overnight--either Eu (Frankfort?) Dubai/Qatar to BKK or splitting the trip via Narita or Seoul Incheon with at least a day room.
I just did:
CVG/ SFO overnight
SFO/NRT 11+ hrs (departs noon)
2 hour connection
NRT/BKK 7 hrs
Arrives midnight
Return:
BKK/NRT 6am 6 hrs
1 hr cnx
NRT/DTW 12 hrs arrives afternoon
Other DL options are MSP, SEA, PDX, LAX, SLC
I have been up for 2 hours today but hit the hay around 9pm, with hour nap most days. Jet Lag is tough without stopovers. Previous trips did in Tokyo and Incheon.
We had business class on all four legs.
The past Hong Kong trip was nonstop from DTW in biz and we were whacky for 2 full days going. Not so bad on return tho.
Not so sure about going East tho, personally.
All I can say it's 12-13 hour time diff for SE Asia and the disorientation of day/night body clock can be fierce.
zuji.com
which air alliance do you prefer?
I'm working on the same pkgs right now--via BKK and the Kempinski for nxt year of maybe this Oct.
Gotta say our temps were varied and some were strangely cool or typically VERY hot and humid. This was first wks April.

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Never been to anyplace in Asia so don't even know the best time to go - do not want to get caught in monsoon season - I would imagine it is always warm in the Thailand, Cambodia, laos & vietnam area.
If we flew to SE Asia would be in coach - we do not fly enough to have any miles for free or upgraded airfare. We always fly Continental to Latin America and I think they are part of the Star Alliance. Also do not know all these airport codes - will have to get a cheat sheet to interpret - I know SFO, LAX, which airport is BKK?
Would you recommend overnighting some place in Europe? The only time we flew to Europe was 1 trip to Paris and the jetlag was not bad from Paris but the flight was not that long - around 7 hours or so from Philly. The only killer flights we took were from Philly to Hawaii a few times - 12 hr flight from the east coast and we did have some jetlag on the return - I hate long flights and I am guessing you pretty much loose a day when going to SE Asia area

[kyshel]

If you go eastbound to Asia--get as far as you can to split the flight time. I've only gone west.

BKK is Bangkok and the major connection city fro most US carriers--CO.UA and DL. I woudl overnight any time possible. Korean Air is aprt of our Alliance and we've used them as connection thru Seoul (ICN--Incheon--that airport is FAB from the Olympics...)

You cross the dateline and so when you fly say on Monday noon from SFO and arrive NRT you're arriving afternnon next day. BUT when you return that way you get to the States around one hour later than you left on the same day. Gotta watch the booking dates and aiprot pickups too!!

[omegaet]

kyshel & denise...we are considering just flying east all the way.....MIA-FRA (overnight), then (Thai) FRA-BKK. (Thai) BKK-LAX (overnight). LAX-MIA or FLL. We hate long flights in general, but heading west just seems to compound problems for us.