three days before we were to fly there were still no signs of the airport being opened so we called the airline again, they said they could not do anything directly, but to call the people we booked the ticket through and they could rebook us to a different airport or date. we called the online travel agency we booked through. they said there was nothing they could do until the day before we should fly, so wait until then. the next day we got sick of waiting, as we have other planes to catch in asia after landing in bangkok, and did not want to miss those flights. so we called the airline again, luckily we had gotten the numbers needed from the travel agency, so they could help us directly this time. they told us that all the flights to bangkok were full up to and including the 20th of december (we fly from malaysia to indonesia on the 23rd, so this was beginning to look real bad). little bit frustrating after having been told earlier to wait, and now it seemed to late. thomas found a flight on their website going to phuket on the 14th, but the agent said that she could not book us, because they did not sell that flight. after thomas insisting they sold the flight because he could book it on their website, she finally looked at it herself, and said, oh yes, i guess you are right, should i book you on that one then? yes, please! in the meantime she had offered to fly us to goa or the maldives instead, neither option would have really helped us catch our flight from kuala lumpur on the 23rd.
so there we were, readjusting to the fact that we were not leaving for 10 more days. that meant grocery shopping, as we had been emptying our fridge in preparation for our trip. also changing some plans and whatnot.
HOWEVER, the next day we recieved a call from the travel agency. we were flying on the 4th, but into the military airport 200 kms from bangkok. i was quite happy to be going to thailand afterall. thomas asked if we couldn´t keep the 14th, as we had already made plans and it would be a bit stressful, as we would have to leave that same day and stay over at his folks house in order to get to the airport early enough in the morning to make the flight. she said we had no choice, and that it was 100% confirmed, and we were going. we both asked her repeatedly if she had confirmed this with our airline as they had just rebooked us the day before. she assured us repeatedly that she had. okay, so we had about 6 hours to get ready, change all the plans again, finish packing and head south. farfar was very nice and came and picked us up.
so the next morning we all woke up super early and headed for the airport, once again super kind farfar drove us. we headed to the check-in counter. check our bags, ready to go, just waiting for our boarding passes, when the agent runs into a glitch. hmmm. there we stand for 30 minutes while he tries to figure out what it might be. finally he sends us over to a specialist, as he needs to check in the rest of the customers standing in line, as the plane is going to leave soon. this does not look good. looks like we might miss our flight. luckily the agent did not send our bags yet.
off to the specialist. she is confused. we are booked on a flight that has no clearance. the travel agent has book us on a flight that has not been cleared for passengers. the lady reassures us that you ARE NOT allowed to book passengers on a flight with this status, and the travel agent has made a big mistake, and that in their system we are still booked for the 14th of december. argh! so we are not flying today then? no, no way, sorry. okay, so all the stuff we did in a huge amount of stress to get ready to go was for nothing? yeah, i am afraid so. crap. so between paying for the bridge between sweden and denmark, the parking, and the gas, the trip to the airport cost us (and farfar) nearly 150 USD. not to mention we had avstalled our car, which means we cannot drive it. obviously we were pretty mad at the travel agency. anyway, we drove back to thomas´ folks and had a nice relaxing day with them. except of course for the hour i spent waiting on the phone to talk to someone from the travel agency, who just said they did not do anything wrong and the airline had issued the ticket, and there was nothing to discuss. those of you who know me, know i was not happy about this. however our only option at this stage is to make a formal written complaint. so that is the plan. in the meantime, travelpartner.se deserves to have some mud thrown in its face.
farmor and farfar were great hosts and helped us to stay cool and not get too upset. thomas made an amazingly delicious appetizer plate.
and then farfar blended up some yummy martinis. 
zoe was super funny, she really wanted to have a strange glass like we had so farfar put some water in a small glass kinda shaped like ours with an olive on a stick, and zoe was content. she is big fan of "skål!", that is cheers in swedish, so she was toasting and drinking her olive soaked water with gusto. so now it´s 14th instead, hopefully.
1 comment:
Oh, man! How frustrating! I'm pretty sure there are no protesters at the Salt Lake International Airport...at least, not enough to stop flights from landing. You could always come play here. There's diving in the Great Salt Lake, isn't there? =)
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