Learning the Pains of Travel (part 2)

Friday February 12 - After what had been the most stress-induced day in my 6 months in China, the next day came with a bright and early trip to the airport. We had already planned out what we needed to do and in what order. We may not have been confident that we were going to get to Bangkok that day, but we knew what we needed to do to try to make it happen.

I’ll spare the needless details, but once we got to the airport, we spent the first hour bouncing back and forth between ticketing desks getting the proper documentation to prove we were not at fault for missing our flight. Again, I don’t know if it is the language barrier or the lack of motivation for some people to actually do their job, but getting these agents to help us get the documents we needed was enough to pull your hair out. It took me sternly saying to the woman trying to help 5 people at once that I was not going to leave the counter, where I was standing in a way so that no one else could really cut in, until she gave me the piece of paper I needed. That seemed to do the trick.

So off we went trying to get on standby for the next flight out to Bangkok with our airline. Of course all the flights were booked, but since we were the first ones there that morning we had priority. But I wasn’t going to sit around until 2:00 pm to find out if I would make it on the flight. So I set out in an attempt to figure out how we could get a refund from that airline and rebook with another. Calling my booking agent, I told my story to the 12th person that day. They replied “We’re really busy today. Someone will call you back.” And again, more waiting.

So about 30 minutes later, I get a phone call back. “Hello Ms. Smith. Unfortunately Thai Air will not refund your ticket if you cancel. They say it is not their problem you missed the flight.” I was irate and mostly because my friends, who were also taking Thai Air but used a different booking agency, were going to be able to get a refund if they needed to cancel. So, I got off the phone realizing that he was not going to tell me what I wanted to hear. I had hit a wall. I could no longer handle the lack of customer service of these people.

As we waited on standby for the 2:45 flight to Bangkok, Lisa made friends with one of the people checking passengers in. He already knew our story and how desperate we were to get to Bangkok. We gave him our sweetest most puppy-dog faces begging him to let us on the flight. And I will give credit where it is do. I am most certain that the only reason we were the first three standby passengers on the flight was because of Heather’s “Gold” status with the flight group of Thai Air, beating out the 6 or so others also anxiously pacing the ticket counters. We were on. Simple as that.

As we passed through immigration and made our way to the boarding gate, we were all amazed that all three of us were going to make it on the first flight out. Looking back I felt kind of silly about the tears shed, choice words and aggressive tones I had taken with those involved, but, in my defense, the outlook was bleak. However, for me, this was a pretty intense welcoming to just troublesome travel can be. And it didn’t help that this was the one trip I’d been looking forward to my whole life.

Despite the perils of actually getting there, Thailand was a great trip! And I have not been turned off to travel just yet. I took a lof of pictures (well for me a lot). Which you can check out here. Enjoy!

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