I’m busy planning my next trip to The Land of Smiles. Well, not too busily, and so far the plan is a hazy June, maybe July, possibly August. It’s not a trip that takes much planning. I do it every year. Just need to pick out the weeks and then decide where else I’d like to spend a few days. It’s not the best time to visit Thailand. It’s hot, humid, with a good chance of rain. Though with global cooling, predicting rainy seasons has become iffy at best.

Half the world is on holiday at that time of the year, so there are always crowds to consider. Planes fill up quickly, as do hotels. It is not high season in Bangkok, so hotel rates are reasonable. But the airlines don’t care where you are going: it’s holiday time to them and that means it’s time to gouge their customers for as much moola as possible. As airline service has gone down, airline fares have gone up. Throw in the peak travel period and all of a sudden the trip to Bangkok from California is running over two grand. Pricey regardless of the reason. Or the season. I’d put the trip off until the airlines’ peak season prices drop, but by then I already have my autumn trip in the works. And that is too far away anyway. Thailand is calling. Once again.

I filled my car up with gas today. For the first time I paid over $4.00 a gallon. $4.01 9/10 to be exact. I think that since gas is now over $4.00 they can go ahead a drop that 9/10. Rounding up to an even penny would make sense. And that 1/10 would probably add another billion dollars to their year end profits. With the cost of gas being high, most people use it as some sort of base to determine if other prices are too high or not. I often hear as justification for a high price, “Yeah, well, gas runs over $4.00 a gallon now”.

Bread is now $3.89 a loaf. Ouch. But, yeah, well, gas runs over $4.00 a gallon now. They want $1.69 a pound for onions. For onions? But, yeah, well, gas runs over $4.00 a gallon now.

I tried that ‘yeah, but . . .’ on for size to justify EVA’s fare for my June / July / possibly August trip and it didn’t help. I don’t care what gas costs, I paid $1,500 for that ticket last year. Knowing that in my mind the cost hurdle needs to be jumped or I’ll never book a ticket (until it is too late and the price is even higher) I ran some calculations using my new $4.00 a Gallon Gas Price Index. And then promptly picked out a three week period and booked my ticket. EVA assumes the roundtrip milage from SFO to BKK is 16,010. Being a proud American, my car gets 22 miles to the gallon. At $4.00 a gallon, the gas for driving to Bangkok would cost me $2,910. So I’m actually saving $480 by flying. What seemed outrageous, is actually a cheap flight.

And when my friends ask how much my ticket to Bangkok cost, I’m gonna tell them $3.34 a gallon. They’ll be envious.