What 2042 of our customers thought of New Zealand...

All the flights were really good. However coming back home from Auckland to Shanghai, I wish I’d been made aware that my suitcase would need to be collected at Shanghai and then rechecked in. It wasn’t a pleasant or particularly easy experience. Anyway it all worked in the end.

You are not to blame for the poor service I received on my business class flights from LHR to AKL via Dubai but I will not be booking Emirates in the future

No issues from your end but Dubai airport and Emirates were very poor as far as communication went during our six and a half hour delay.

Great friendly service. Makes life so much easier using them. They find you exactly want you want in a matter of minutes whereas in the past it's taken me hours

Great service and prompt attention

Great service as usual. Excellent phone pick up, good prices and wonderful advice about which airlines, stopovers and timings.

Zoe always delivers.

Annabelle C is amazing and I'd book again with her!

Lloyd was very helpful at all times

Thank you for an excellent service

You guys are great….will return to you when (all being well) we head back to Kiwi in 3 years time. Lots we didn’t get to do!

Thanks so much to Jim for his consistent help with my trip!

Again you excelled. Hotels were fantastic, close to all amenities and attractions. About to book again with you.

Great service as usual.

I appreciated the prompting and information regarding online check-in and luggage. The cherry on the top was the personal call to confirm all was in order for my trip.

Good service as usual. Just the one small hiccup

Our journey with Emirates went smoothly & the flight timings worked very well for us to minimise our jet lag.

Fantastic as usual, superb communication throughout.

I had to change my flight at the last moment because of a family emergency and the staff could not have been more helpful.

We were unimpressed with BA cabin service. The cabin staff were grudging and slipshod compared with ANZ and other Asian airlines. I will take this up with them separately; and second, transiting through Shanghai is pretty awful with lots of uncertainty and unnecessary bureaucracy which made many of us on my flight pretty fed up. Not a patch on Singapore, Hong Kong or Seoul.

Always an excellent service. Very professional in all aspects of the travel industry. Would always use and will always recommend

Always give the best service and advice. I always recommend you to others. There is always someone ready to help when needed

My thanks for your help in booking my trip to New Zealand . I will definitely use you again and recommend

Just to say thank you for making my trip trouble free

Travis and his team were just amazing. I would definitely use them again

Gary, as usual, went above and beyond to make sure we were very well looked after

Very appreciative of all aspects of your help and service. A great trip - thank you

I have used the service of DialAFlight for many years and they have never let me down. The best.

Helpful, knowledgeable and responsive. Great service!

Working with Emma is such a pleasure. I never used to use a ‘holiday agent' but I get so much care and attention with DialAFlight, that I will continue for years to come

Colourful Bangkok

A taste for Bangkok

Bangkok is more than just a stopover, as Isabelle King discovers on a culinary tour...

Bangkok is known as a stopover – somewhere to spend a few hedonistic hours before going on to the coast. Well, that may have been true 20 years ago. Now it's a place to linger.

Zoom up Silom road - through the commercial district - towards the shopping centres of Siam Square to see how the city has flourished.

The Skytrain monorail moves silently overhead. Designer labels abound. The shiny Siam Paragon shopping centre has a car park just for supercars.

Then there's Asiatique, a bustling night market of 1,500 shops on the banks of the Chao Phraya River.

Handicrafts and trinkets sit alongside fashion boutiques and gadgets and nothing closes before midnight. If you are laden with goodies, as I am, a fleet of tuk-tuks is waiting outside.

Racing away, we fly over holes in the road. A dramatic swerve and a loud judder tell me we've arrived back at the swanky Mandarin Oriental. They've seen it all here.

From writer Somerset Maugham, bedridden with malaria, to Mick Jagger insisting the windows in the royal suite be blacked out and Billy Idol wrecking his room completely.

Dining on the riverfront at the Mandarin Oriental

Celebs aside, the hotel has a cooking school and I take a class with chef Narain. A kaleidoscope of ingredients is laid out before us. Those we know: ginger, lime leaves; fish sauce, lemongrass. And those we don't, the tiny butterfly pea – a flower from which a brilliant blue dye can be used to colour desserts.

We watch, ask questions and taste. Then attempt Siamese baked desserts (small, dome-shaped pancakes); braised pork; fiery tom yum soup and a salad of grapefruit-like pomelo.

I slice, chop, juice and pummel. Chef Narain chats away. Chillies, it turns out, are a matchmaking tool. 'Mothers looking for a suitable wife for their sons spy on the neighbour's daughters to assess the speed with which they grind the spice,' he laughs. 'The faster the grinding, the better wife she will make.'

Food is a big deal in Bangkok. Take the Skytrain to Thong Lor and Sukhumvit Soi 38, a line of steamy, noisy, kitchens-on-wheels. There can be no better initiation to Thai street food.

Grab a wobbly table and gobble sticky rice with mango, curries, pad Thai, squid and duck. Delicious.

First published in the Daily Mail - June 2016

More articles below...

For more inspiration, read what travel writers have to say...

Thailand forecast

TV weather presenter Lucy Verasamy goes island-hopping and finds the warmest of welcomes

Thai for first place!

Koh Samui and Bangkok are the joint winners

One night in Bangkok

Jonathan Neal spends 48 hours in the Thai capital

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But they all have one thing in common. They love the unique DialAFlight approach. Read more here

98% would book again with DialAFlight
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Amazing Business Class Fares

Save on First & Business Class

Save on First & Business Class Fares

Let us extend the personalised service of your booking into your holiday with great prices on business class flights ready to add a touch of class to your trip.

Take the stress out of travelling with a host of wonderful perks on offer from priority check-in and premium lounge access to chauffeur service and fine in-flight dining, plus the supreme comfort of a fully-reclining seat.

Call us to see how much you could save on Business Class flights.

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Airport lounges

Relax in comfort before you fly

Beat the airport chaos. Swap the crowds for a luxury lounge

Airport Lounges from £25

Once you’re through security leave the crowds, kids and chaos behind you with a visit to one of our comfortable airport lounges.

All offer complimentary food, drinks, wifi and newspapers with some also including Fastrack through security. Prices from £25.

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Meet and greet

We'll arrange to meet you on arrival

Avoid the stress with our Meet & Greet service

Use our speedy private transfer service to avoid the stress of finding your way out of the airport terminal and looking for a taxi or bus on arrival.

With our meet and greet service, our driver will meet you in the arrivals hall. They will monitor flight arrival times giving you peace of mind that someone will be waiting for you with a name board even if your flight is late.

They will then assist you with your luggage and organise a private transfer directly to your hotel - there’s no waiting around for other passengers for shared transfers!

So no queues, no delays and less stress.