Not A Good Day

[Banjo]

I've just completed one of the major travel disasters in my considerable experience.

I booked Adelaide/Sydney on Virgin Blue and Sydney/Bangkok on Emirates using Flight Center and Bangkok/Local domestic with Air Asia on the internet.

Virgin Blue had a computer failure and the Sydney flight was hours late missing the Emirates connection.
They put me up for the night in the Stamford, a mid range hotel near the airport. A $50 meal voucher was included, sounded great until I realised breakfast alone was $35.
Check out was 11am which left me 9 hours to wait at the airport, then when I finally checked in at Emirates I was told they had heard nothing from Virgin Blue and had declared me a "no show" and cancelled my booking.
Fortunately the plane wasn't full and it was fixed up.

When I got to Bangkok, Air Asia also had heard nothing from Virgin Blue and agreed to put me on the same flight that day if I paid an additional fee of about $70.
By this stage I just wanted to get home.

Currently composing interesting emails to several involved parties.

[Banjo]

Virgin Blue make a claim of being mainstream now, it's Flight Center's responsibility to get their customers where they are going in time for the connection. I did query the amount of time allowed and was assured that it was plenty.
I'm sick of people being given shoddy products and service and then the supplier claiming the the buyer should beware.
Building up for a seriously good row on ThaiVisa!

[Deleted]

Wow looks like you had a hell of a return flight.

I though we would have had problems with Air Asia Flights on our last trip, and guess what not one problem.

[Banjo]

I've never had a problem with Air Asia, not even a seriously late arrival.
I must have flown with them a dozen times.

[zorro1]

Are the savings worth it? frequent flyers may have an advantage with flying Thai airlines.

from memory when i had a gold card, every 4 or 5 (not sure) trips to oz gets you a FREE return trip on points . The gold card allows check in at the biz class line which is small. the card also allows 40kg of luggage plus upgrades to biz class
shorter point to point flights
etc etc etc
IMO the loyalty scheme is better experience and don't think it would cost that much more when the 6th free flight is factored in


however...

most importantly..

You get access to the air new zealand lounge at mascot. This has to be seen to be believed Amazing wine selection plus the usual star alliance stuff.

you could easily knock off a hundred bucks per flight also just by winning and dining

banjo you would have happily waited the 9 hours in that lounge.

[Banjo]

I'll check it out, sounds interesting.
Thai Airways aren't always more expensive than Air Asia, it's just the AA usually is cheaper if you need to fly within days of booking.

A mate had a similar deal with Philippine Airlines, he claimed he got every 4th flight free.

Yeah, I flew with a mate a couple of times who had a Qantas gold card and he took me into their lounge at Sydney. Food was exceptional with French champagne if your taste ran that way.

I got my first business class upgrade of British Airways coming up last trip, I'll have to get dressed up to travel a bit more often.