May
25
Written by:
David Strickland
5/25/2007 3:17 PM
A couple posts back I referenced that I was planning on booking our airfare. Things got delayed for a variety of reasons but today I finally got it done. We leave the second week of August. I spent about 5 hours bouncing around the web trying to find the best deal. We talked to a travel agent out of Chicago that quoted us $900 per ticket.
If you do much research on travel to India one of the first companies you'll find is Air Indian. FLEE!! Run like the wind. Avoid Air India at all cost. We have had a variety of problems with Air India but we never seemed to learn our lesson. Most recently when my wife went to fly to India her flight was scheduled to leave at 1:00 pm. We checked in and everything said it was on time. So I left and started driving the 6 hours to get back home. Shortly before 2:00 my wife called and said they had been delayed. At 3 they were delayed again. Then again, then again finally about 10:00 pm they canceled the flight entirely and said that it wouldn't leave till the next day. 4 hours later around 2:00 a.m. I finally got a call that my wife had gotten to her accommodations for the evening. She had to fly out in about 6 hours. The next day as my wife was eating breakfast she got a chance to talk with one of the crew. The crew member acted surprised that the passengers hadn't been informed till 10:00 pm that the flight was canceled considering the crew knew the moment they touched down into Chicago. It seems an instrument had failed during the flight and a new one had to be ordered. They knew it wouldn't arrive until someone could bring one in and that wouldn’t be till the next day. The crew knew the flight was canceled 9 hours before they told the passengers. Needless to say we decided to NEVER fly Air India again.
However, since Air India flights have terrible service, are prone to mechanical failure and are seldom on time if they fly at all the company is able to keep their prices hundreds of dollars below every other option. When you are flying several people that adds up quickly and it gets awful tempting to put up with whatever they can dish out for the money it saves, if you choose this option trust me they can and will dish out plenty. Enter Malaysian Airlines. I was searching on Kayak.com and came across a flight from L.A. to Bangalore, India for ever less then Air India's flight from Chicago. Maybe it's just an introductory offer or maybe it's permanent but Malaysia Airlines beat every other price.
I learned a couple lessons however about Malaysia Arilines. Don’t try to book directly via their website. (Sometimes you can save some money by cutting out the Expedia commission by booking direct with the airline’s website). The Malaysia Airlines website is error prone and tends to error out, it will also timeout on you if your not careful and forget everything you typed. Booking over the phone to their international number isn’t as bad as the website but is still very frustrating. It went something like this.
First I tried the website and after several restarts and errors I finally got to the end where it accepts of rejects your credit card. At which point I got a popup asking me to provide a bunch of personnel details and “sign up” for “Verified by Visa”. Ok let me get this straight they want me to provide them with a bunch of personnel data so they can use it to to sign me up for a system so they can ask me for the same information again so they can verify I am who I say I am, this made absolutely no sense to me. So I called the internet “help” desk, they tell me I needed to talk to my bank. For some reason they want to blame my bank for the fact that their website is trying to sign me up for new services and not processing the order.
Ok taking another road I called their reservations and booking call center via their long distance international line. I waited on hold. Explained the situation and said I wanted to rebook the flight via the phone I was then summarily transferred to the Internet “help” desk who is still bound and determined it’s my banks fault.
Called back waited on hold, told them I didn’t want to speak to the internet “help” desk. Explained the situation explained that I wanted to rebook the same flight over the phone instead of via the internet got summarily transferred to the Internet “Help” desk.
Called back waited on hold. Of course by now I’m suffering from some Masochistic curiosity about what it actually takes to book a flight with this company. Told them I wanted to book a flight (Never referenced the internet). Provided all the same details that I put into the website to which I am told that the flight is sold out. Ask the phone rep to wait a sec. Searched the flights online via their website and find numerous seats available. Carefully mention to the agent that there seems to be numerous seats available via the website (adding that I do not under any circumstance want to talk to the internet “help” desk). He searches again this time finding a flight that is $500 more then the flight on their site. I tell him again what is available on the website along with flight numbers timings and fare type (adding that I do not under any circumstance want to talk to the internet “help” desk). He finally finds the flight I’m looking at with the fare I’m talking about. He then gathers all my details and tells me that I need to go into the LA office prior to June 10th and pay for the flight. I tell him I live 30+ hours from LA and won’t be anywhere near LA till the day of the flight. He talks with someone and then tells me to call the LA office and I should be able to pay over the phone. I thank him and hang up wondering if the phone bill I’m going to get this month is going to completely outweigh any savings I received.
Next morning. Sitting at my desk waiting for the booking office to open in LA. It occurs to me that I first found out about Malaysia Airlines on Expedia but went through all that pain to save a couple bucs. Went out to Expedia found the flight booked it and paid with my visa in about 5 minutes. I had to use a Multi-City booking and specifically tell Expedia the airlines and flight timings to get it to connect all the dots but we are now booked to India for $2,300. Called LA canceled the reservation.
Morales of the story.
#1 Do your research the Airfare search engines don’t always find the cheapest flight.
#2 It’s worth paying Expedia to do it for you especially if it’s an airline that you like because it’s cheap.
#3 Do not under any circumstance transfer me to the internet “help” desk