Airports and arrivals
Travellers' room · 2 threads
The queue, the touts, the late landing, and getting out of the terminal without overpaying.
Almost every trip to Thailand opens on the same puzzle: you land, often tired and often late, into a hall full of people offering to solve your transport for a price you did not choose. The threads here are readers working out the honest way out of arrivals, from the meter queue on the level below to the pre-booked car waiting with a name board.
| Thread | Replies | Last post |
|---|---|---|
| Can I use the free shuttle bus between Don Mueang and Suvarnabhumi if my two flights are booked on separate tickets? started by nomad_greg77, Aug 2, 2026 | 6 | Somchai R. Aug 5, 2026 |
| Landing at Don Mueang just after 1am with a sleeping toddler, is anything still running or do I take whatever is at the kerb? started by RetiredInUdon, Jul 14, 2026 | 6 | Hua Hin Hazel Jul 19, 2026 |
What separates the calm arrivals from the costly ones
Read a run of these threads and one pattern keeps surfacing: the people who arrived calmly had already decided their route before the wheels touched down, and the people who overpaid decided it in the first tired five minutes in the hall. The official metered queue sits one floor below the touts at both Bangkok airports, and it runs the meter precisely because it is a supervised rank. That single fact, known in advance, quietly settles most of the arguments that end up here.
The late landing is its own recurring topic, because the trains do not keep the same hours the taxi queue does. Readers who planned for a 2am arrival, rather than hoping the rail link would still be running, tend to report the dull, uneventful trips that never make a good story. If you want the daytime version of every route and the small-hours version side by side, the members here keep pointing newcomers at getting from Suvarnabhumi into Bangkok and, before a red-eye, arriving late at a Thai airport.
None of this is a promise about your particular flight or terminal, and the regulars are careful to say so. Confirm the current train times, surcharges and pickup points with the airport's own desk before you fly, and treat the threads as the notes of people who have stood in that exact hall, not as a timetable.