The fare I got was about 10 days in advance of travel. I didn't pay it....
Shame China Airlines have changed their policy. You used to be able to go business class with CI and they would let you fly economy from NCL-AMS, all ticketed together. As you say, this has benefits in case of missed connections.
Now it has to be business class all the way and adds £600 to the fare and I am not prepared to pay that. It also moves them up into the same price bracket as many other airlines. Bad move.
So this time I got CI busy class and KLM economy but that means they are not ticketed together so tough luck if you miss your connection (I assume. Maybe not the case if they are both part of the SkyTeam Alliance????? - advice welcomed there)
I didn't dare risk it so had to wait 7 hours at AMS for the later flight. As it happens CI was on time (13 hours from BKK, must have gone the scenic route and how much fuel is left after that?) so I went to the transfer desk to see if I could get the earlier flight. Turns out I shot myself in the foot by getting my luggage sent through all the way to NCL from BKK. It surprised me that they could put me on the earlier flight, even though I had checked in for the later one, but they couldn't press a computer button somewhere to change the luggage flight. Lesson learned.