Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus Award Booking Instructions

Since Thailand is a major destination for U.S. travelers, there’s a decent chance you may have flown on Thai Airways, the country’s flag carrier and largest airline. This airline is known for offering best-in-class customer service, excellent Thai cuisine on board, and its luxurious Royal First Class product. However, many travelers aren’t familiar with this airline’s frequent flyer program, known as Royal Orchid Plus.

Through the Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus program, members can earn rewards miles in a variety of ways and then redeem those miles for free flights on Thai Airways or any of its Airline partners. And, since Thai Airways is a member of Star Alliance, Royal Orchid Plus members can earn and redeem miles with any other Star Alliance airline (including Air Canada, United Airlines and many more).

Unfortunately, the Thai Airways website is slightly outdated, so the process of redeeming miles for award flights can be a bit confusing. So, in this article, we’ll give you a step-by-step guide on how to redeem Royal Orchid Plus miles for award flights. We’ll also cover how to sign up for the Royal Orchid Plus program and how to quickly earn miles with this program.

Joining Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus

Before you can start earning or redeeming miles through Thai Royal Orchid Plus, you’ll have to become a member of the program. If you haven’t done so already, you can enroll in the program by visiting the Thai Airways website and clicking the “Login/Enroll” button in the top-right corner of the homepage.

Next, you’ll need to accept the program terms and conditions and then click the “Next” button.

After that, you’ll be asked to enter some personal details including your name, date of birth, gender and nationality. Then, once you click the “Next” button, you’ll also be asked to enter your contact details, including your job title, company name, department, address and country of residence. You’ll also need to enter a valid email and phone number.

The next step in the process is to enter your seat preferences, meal preferences, language preferences and to create a PIN number that you’ll use to log in to your account. If applicable, this is also where you should enter the name of the Royal Orchids Plus member that referred you (existing members can receive bonus miles for referring new members).

Finally, you’ll be asked to review the information that you’ve entered and then confirm your enrollment and the Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus program. Once you do so, you’ll be provided with a unique membership number, which you’ll need to log into your account and earn miles. You’ll also receive a welcome email containing your membership number. We recommend writing this number down somewhere so you won’t forget it.

How to Earn Royal Orchid Plus Miles

As a member of the Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus program, you have many options for earning miles at your disposal. However, some methods of earning miles are far more effective than others. In the following sections, we’ll highlight some of the most effective ways to earn miles through this program.

It’s also worth noting that the minimum miles required to purchase an award flight is 7,500, which is the rate for a one-way Thai Airways-operated domestic flight within Thailand in economy class. So, before you can purchase an award flight through Royal Orchid Plus, you’ll need to have at least that many miles in your account balance.

Transferring Points from Citi ThankYou Rewards

For most U.S.-based travelers, the best way to earn Royal Orchid Plus miles is going to be to transfer points from the Citi ThankYou Rewards program. This is the only major U.S. credit card rewards program that allows transfers to Royal Orchid Plus.

So, you can accumulate Citi points by spending on a Citi credit card and then transferring those points to the Royal Orchid Plus program at a 1:1 ratio (this ratio is available for premium Citi credit cards; see your card details for more information about your ratio).

It’s worth noting that, while transfers from Citi ThankYou Rewards to most partners process instantly, transfers to the Thai Royal Orchid Plus program can take up to seven days. You should take this into account if you’re planning to transfer points to Royal Orchid Plus and then redeem them for a flight.

Flying with Thai Airways and Star Alliance Partners

You can also earn Royal Orchid Plus miles by taking paid flights on Thai Airways or any of its Star Alliance airline partners. To earn miles on flights, you’ll need to select Royal Orchid Plus as your frequent flyer program of choice and enter your membership number either when making your flight booking or when checking in for your flight. The amount of time it takes for the miles to land in your account depends on which airline you fly with.

When flying with Thai Airways, the number of miles you earn is based on the actual distance of your flight (in miles), your booking class and your status in the Royal Orchid Plus program. The following table includes how many miles you’ll earn per actual mile flown:

For instance, if you were to take a Thai Airways-operated flight and premium economy class (booking class U) with a distance of 800 miles, you would earn 880 Royal Orchid Plus miles (800 miles flown x 110% = 880 Royal Orchid Plus miles).

On Thai Airways-operated flights with a distance of less than 500 miles, members will always earn a minimum of 500 rewards miles.

If you have elite status with the Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus program, you’ll earn bonus miles on paid flights operated by Thai Airways. Silver elite members earn 5% bonus miles, Gold members earn 10% bonus miles and Platinum members earn 20% bonus miles.

You can also earn Royal Orchid Plus miles on paid flights with any Star Alliance airline. Here’s the current roster of Star Alliance airlines:

• Aegean Airlines
• Air Canada
• Air China
• Air India
• Air New Zealand
• All Nippon Airways (ANA)
• Asiana Airlines
• Austrian Airlines
• Avianca
• Brussels Airlines
• Copa Airlines
• Croatia Airlines
• EgyptAir
• Ethiopian Airlines
• EVA Air
• LOT Polish Airlines
• Lufthansa
• Shenzhen Airlines
• Singapore Airlines
• South African Airways
• Swiss International Air Lines
• TAP Air Portugal
• Thai Airways
• Turkish Airlines
• United Airlines

Each of the Star Alliance Partners listed above has its own earning table. These earning tables work essentially the same way as the table used to calculate mileage accrual on Thai Airways flights. To view these earning tables, you can visit the “Star Alliance Airlines” page on the Thai Airways website and then click on the partner airline that you plan on flying with. Just as with Thai Airways flights, all eligible Star Alliance flights will earn a minimum of 500 Royal Orchid Plus miles.

Other Ways to Earn

As previously mentioned, there are many other ways to earn miles through the Royal Orchid Plus program, including booking hotel stays, renting cars, using certain cell service providers, filing your taxes, dining out, going to the spa and more. In all likelihood, though, none of these other earning methods will earn you a ton of miles on their own.

Nonetheless, if you plan on using the Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus program often, then it may be worth paying attention to these other earning methods. They could help you get a little bit closer to your next award flight.

How to Book Award Flights Through Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus

Once you have enough miles in your Royal Orchid Plus account, you’re ready to redeem them for an award flight. You can book awards flights on Thai Airways or any of its Star Alliance partners through the Thai Airways website. However, this website is fairly outdated and can be a bit confusing at times.

To start the process, you’ll need to visit the Thai Airways website and log in to your account by clicking the “Login/Enroll” button in the top-right corner of the page and then entering your account credentials. Once you’ve entered these credentials, a one-time password will be sent to your email that you’ll have to enter to complete the login.

Once you’ve logged in, you can return to the homepage of the Thai Airways website and scroll down until you see the “Air Awards” button, which you should click on. Then, you’ll be brought to a new page where you’ll have to choose whether you want to book an award flight with Thai Airways, an award with Star Alliance partners or an upgrade award with Star Alliance partners. You can click on the “Read More” button next to whichever option you want to choose.

After that, you’ll be redirected to a new page with the terms and conditions pertaining to the type of award that you selected. Once you read through those terms and conditions, you can click the “Next” button in the bottom-right corner of the page.

On the next page, you’ll need to enter information about the passenger for whom you’re booking the award flight. If you are booking for yourself, you should be able to simply click a checkbox next to your name and your phone number and email address should automatically appear. If you’re booking for someone else, then you may have to populate these fields manually. Once you’ve done this, you can click the “Next” button in the bottom-right corner of the page.

Next, you’ll need to enter your trip details, including the type of flight (one-way, round-trip or multi-city), departure airport, arrival airport and travel dates. It’s worth noting that the Thai Airways website may take a while to present your airport options after you enter your departure and arrival airports. You may have to wait a few moments before your desired airport appears and you can click on it from the list.

Once all of your trip details are correct, you can click the “Next” button in the bottom right corner of the page. You’ll then be presented with a list of award flights that match your search query, including flights from any applicable Star Alliance partners.

You can adjust your travel dates while looking at your flight results by clicking on the dates to the left and right of the dates highlighted in purple. It’s also worth noting that the Thai Airways website does not explicitly state the operating airline for each flight result. However, you can find the operating airline by looking at the flight number and searching for which airline corresponds with the first two letters of that code. For example, if the flight number starts with the letters SQ, then that flight is operated by Singapore Airlines. If the first two letters are AC, then that flight is operated by Air Canada.

You can also see important information about each flight listing, including the departure time, arrival time, aircraft type and flight duration. You can choose your cabin class by clicking any available bubbles in the “First”, “Silk” or “Eco” columns. When booking Star Alliance partner flights, the “Silk” column corresponds with business class. Once you’ve selected your cabin classes on your desired flights, you can click the next button in the bottom-right corner of the page to proceed to the payment phase.

On the next page, you’ll be able to see the total mileage required and total taxes and fees for your selected flights. Unfortunately, you can’t see the price of flights before you select them. However, the Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus program uses a single zone-based award chart to price all partner-operated award flights. So, all flight results in the same cabin class should require the same number of miles (because mileage is based on your zones and not which airline you’re traveling with).

To confirm your award flight booking, you’ll need to enter a payment method (such as a credit card) to cover any applicable cash taxes and fees. Once you do so, you can confirm the booking and you’ll receive a confirmation number, which you’ll need to check in for your flight. We recommend writing down this number somewhere you won’t forget it. You should also receive a confirmation email containing this number.

If you want to book certain travel extras such as seat selection, special assistance and more, you’ll need to do that with the operating airline. The Thai Airways website does not allow you to book these types of travel extras for award flights.

You may cancel an award ticket that’s been issued to you and be refunded the full amount of miles as well as any taxes and fees. However, you may be charged a fee of up to $190 per ticket, which is rather high. So, we recommend only booking an award flight through this program if you’re sure you’ll be able to make that flight.

The Bottom Line

All in all, even though the Thai Airways website is a bit outdated, the Royal Orchid Plus program is a pretty decent frequent flyer program. Thai Airways is a member of Star Alliance, which means that you can both earn and redeem Royal Orchid Plus miles with any Star Alliance airline. Plus, this program uses a single zone-based award chart to price all Star Alliance award flights, which means that it’s possible to find flight awards that offer several cents per mile in value.

Perhaps most importantly for U.S. travelers, the Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus program is a 1:1 transfer partner of Citi ThankYou Rewards. So, if you have a Citi ThankYou Rewards-earning card, you can transfer points you earn with that card to the Royal Orchid Plus program for free. This makes earning miles with this program much easier. You should be aware, though, that transfers from Citi to Royal Orchid Plus can take up to seven days.

In many cases, Citi cardholders may want to book Star Alliance award flights through another program (such as Avianca LifeMiles or Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer). However, it’s always worth checking the Royal Orchid Plus award chart to see if this program offers the best rate. And, if it does, you can use the instructions in this article to help you through the process of booking that award flight.