Day 57 - Railay bay
Trip Start
Sep 02, 2007
1
58
243
Trip End
May 01, 2008
Railay Beach,
Krabi,
Thailand
Monday, October 29, 2007
We spent some time working out a way to see my little sister Bex in Christchurch (NZ) for Xmas, and then at the last minute BA put a spanner in the works by trying to charge us over US$300 each to make a change to our tickets, which should only be costing us "a very small sum"!!!
At least that was what we were told by Trailfinders when we bought our round-the-world tickets. Not sure about you but I don't think 150 quid is a "very small sum"?!
I must say that we're getting increasingly frustrated with our "One World" round-the-world ticket.
We bought this ticket because Trailfinders told us that it was "totally flexible", and "easy to make flight changes" for a "low cost". We were advised that we should just give them rough dates when we bought the ticket because it was "cheaper to change flights once you start travelling".
What a load of rubbish, it costs an absolute bloody fortune.
Needless to say as soon as we started to travel, and needed to make changes, practically no-one we spoke to in British Airways knew how to make changes to our ticket (because it's paper, not electronic) we've being quoted some very high costs to make very simple changes.
The tickets themselves were nearly £2,000 ($4,000) each, so we didn't expect to be paying out hundreds of pounds on top to make basic changes, otherwise we obviously would have bought a different ticket, with a different airline group. I hate feeling like I've been ripped-off, but we definitely were in this case.
The ticket was either deliberately mis-sold to us by Trailfinders, or they simply gave us unfair & misleading information when they sold it to us. We weren't given the correct information regarding the costs of changes. Either this, or British Airways customer services staff are incorrectly charging us for the changes, which would also not surprise me.
Either way, it's a nightmare for us when we're on a tight budget and we'll end up paying significantly more than we'd planned on travel after such a huge outlay for round-the-world tickets...
Trailfinders didn't give us any written confirmation of the flight amendment costs, and we foolishly trusted what the girl in Trailfinders told us verbally, and now we don't know who or what to believe, we just know that we're getting screwed everytime we try to use the alleged benefits of the ticket which was sold to us!
It's impossible to travel round the world for 8 months and plan all 18 flights perfectly before you leave, the whole point of these tickets is COST EFFECTIVE FLEXIBILITY, and that is absolutely NOT what we are experiencing.
Allegedly there's a BA office in Singapore, so we're going to have to visit them and try to understand what the hell is going on, and hope that they are rather more helpful than their colleagues in Ho Chi Minh City, if you remember that bloody shambles!
Anyway, this means that our plans for seeing Bex at Xmas are now up in the air as no-one in BA can tell us what the confirmed cost of our changes will be.
So after spending ages on the internet searching for flights, and ages on the phone with BA, it was nice to be able to relax.
The day started brightly but then clouded over by the time we'd dressed for the beach and applied our sun tan cream! Typical.
So it was back into the internet cafe, and at least we were able to spend time planing our route around Australia in a bit more detail, but in true Al & Katie style we're trying to squeeze a ridiculous amount into 5 weeks. But more on that later...
After chilling out we did some (expensive) laundry, had a good value lunch (for once!) and booked a boat trip around the islands tomorrow.
I can't remember exactly which islands the boat goes to, but it should be a good trip. Will give you more details tomorrow ;)
Lots of love,
Al & Katie xx
