no amsterdam

I was looking at fares, hoping to get Fernando and me to Amsterdam in the fall. We really, really like Amsterdam. But Euro fares are crazy right now. We're used to paying between $400-$500. But for early November, it's going to be closer to $700-$800. About $300 of which is fees and taxes. It also seems impossible to find out who you're paying for what, between flyover fees, landing fees, etc. I'm all for worthwhile taxes, but international passengers seem to get screwed on the deal. I should clarify, by saying Atlantic passengers. We've dumped the Amsterdam weekend notion for a Thailand week. A premim economy seat with the best cabin crews on earth, 17 hours from JFK to BKK, is about $1400. And this is not cramped into a US Airways 767. This is Thai's spankin' new A340-500, in a cabin with 42 inches between seats and a billion some channels of video on demand. And free booze. Plus, the 17,000+ miles are what we're really after to keep our "silver preferred" status on US. Air travel isn't much different from bus travel these days, so the preferred perks are needed just to keep the experience from getting any worse.
Now, back to work.