106: Lucky Me
I arrived in Hong Kong yesterday but before I got here I had another little adventure at Bangkok Airport 😉
I left Ko Samui rather early by catching the 6AM flight to Bangkok, arrivig at 7AM and leaving plenty of time to catch the connection flight to Hong Kong at 10:30AM.
Remember I had changed my Itinery flying out to Hong Kong from Bangkok rather than Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam as originally planned.
When I called the airline two weeks ago they said “No Problem..” and that I only had to make an extra payment at the Airport for the changes made to the ticket. So I went to the Star Alliance Office at Bangkok Airport and that’s where the trouble started. They said “No problem Sir all we need is the payment and the tickets and we will re-issue the new tickets for you”. The trouble was the woman was talking of “ticketS” rather than “the ticket”. She wanted ALL the tickets of my RTW trip, not just the one for the Hong Kong flight!
“Sorry I don’t have all tickets with me” I said. “Sorry Sir we cannot re-issue your tickets without getting back all the old tickets” *bother* I had left half my tickets back i Germany to be sent out to Charlie in New Zealand, mainly as a precaution in case I loose or get stolen some stuff that contained the tickets. Also because it was a big pile of tickets to carry with me.. So it seemed like a good idea to send half the tickets over to Charlie and only take the ones that get me to New Zealand with me.
To cut the story short, almost an hour later the Star Alliance People still refused to issue the ticket for the already amended flight to Hong Kong and suggested I buy a separate ticket to get to Hong Kong. A “ARE YOU MAD???” would have been the appropriate respose to this as it would have cost me a few hundred pounds to get a separate ticket but having lived in Thailand for 3 months I learned that keeping calm and putting a smile on whilst gently pursuing the issue is more fruitful than screaming at people… Eventually they suggested I go to Thai Airlines (the airline that flies to Hong Kong) if they can , as an exception, re-issue a single ticket for this flight. By now it was 9:00AM, 1:30h til flight departure..
I asked them to call the office on my behalf and explai the situation in Thai rather than me trying the same in english. They kindly agreed and 10 minutes later they said that Thai Airlines agreed to print the darn ticket 😉 “Thank your very much for your help” and off I rushed to the Thai Airlines Office. At 9:15AM I entere the Office and was greeted by a Lady who was already working on the case. I handed over my old ticket and made a payment.
“Please come back it 20 minutes, I need time to print the ticket” she said. “20 Minutes? OK I will wait” I replied but “Scream – what do you need 20 minutes for to print a ticket?” was what I really felt like saying 😉
She was done at 9:30 it seemed but and I almost had the new ticket in hand when she told me that she did something else because I could not stop over in Bangkok more than twice.. (a term of the RTW ticket) .
“Erm – I did not have more than 2 stop overs in Bangkok, I arrived here in December and now I leave, that makes two stops at Bangkok Airport” I explained.
“Oh you did not fly Ho Chi Minh to Bangkok?” she asked back?
Don’t know where she got that idea from but I confirmed “No I did not”.
“OK, I need to change ticket then, another 10 minutes”
“Arrrgh” that makes it 9:45 and I stil need to checkin..
At 9:45AM she said she had problems with the computer… She reverted back to whatever she had done earlier and said I should checkin with this amended ticket…
I rushed down to the checkin counter, was allowed jumped the queue and checkin.
Next through the passport control – 9:55 – massive queue..
Eventually made it thought and a neverending walk to the gate.
Around 10:15 I reached the gate, the plane was boarding and I was greeted by the Lady from the Thai Airline Office who tried to print my ticket.
She had finalkly managed to re-issue that ticket for me and had come down to the Gate to give me the new ticket… What a service 🙂
In the end I made it on the 10:30 plane to Hong Kong but guess what, we were delayed due to some missing passengers and had to wait in the plane for a whole hour before taking off at 11:30AM.
I guess I was lucky that Thai Airlines agreed to give me a new ticket for only this flight.. Had they not done this I would have been in trouble, spending a lot of money on a new ticket to Hong Kong..
Lets hope I don’t need to change Itinery again before I get to New Zealand and get access to the remaining tickets of my trip 🙂
Tags: Bangkok, RTW 2005/2006, Thailand
saschas
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