No Regrets!

Booking the rest of my Thailand itinerary has been a major pain in the ass. While booking flights in the US is relatively painless and efficient, pricing booking a complicated international itinerary is another thing altogether. There are a million sites proclaiming to have the cheapest airfares, but none of them really do. Then you have the actual airline sites, which are so buggy, un-user friendly, and time-consuming that they make me want to forget about the whole trip. Then, when you’ve finally pieced something together that might work and you start to get your credit cards involved, aggravation increases exponentially.

Why would Bangkok Airways show me a fantastic non-stop flight from Samui to Chiang Mai, let me start the booking process, and then tell me that there was a site error and that I should go back to the home page and start again, only to show that the flight I had previously selected is no longer available (and is still not available 24 hours later)? Did my booking attempt “block off” those seats on the flight? Or did someone really swoop in and buy the last remaining seats on the flight as I was going through the process?

You’d think calling them would fix the problem, but the representative only spoke five words of English. “Sorry, try the web site.”

Then I get on Travelocity, where I find another flight that works. Things are golden until I actually put in my credit card information and click “Complete the Reservation” button. THERE IS AN ERROR PROCESSING YOUR CREDIT CARD. I call American Express to authorize it, and they convince me that if I try the charge again, it will go through. So I try again. Well guess what? The flight I wanted is no longer listed. Did my booking attempt “block off” those seats on the flight? Or did someone really swoop in and buy the last remaining seats on the flight as I was going through the process?

I call American Express, and they tell me that I have not been charged for the tickets, but I HAVE been charged a $22 fee from Travelocity for each of the ATTEMPTS to book a ticket.

I call Travelocity, and the lady who speaks twelve words of English offers to connect me to the credit card services department to sort out my charges. I’m thinking I’ll be talking to Travelocity’s credit card department, but instead I’m connected to American Express. American Express lady and I try to figure out why we’re talking to each other for about 20 seconds before I hang up and call Travelocity back.

At last, I get a customer service representative at Travelocity who speaks 40 words of English. She explains that the itineraries I tried to book did not go through because of a credit card problem. Thank you very much. She then says that because the bookings were not completed, the two $22 charges will drop off my credit card after 24 hours. We’ll see about that. She then offers to complete my booking over the phone for an additional $25 telephone booking charge. I tell her what to do with the $25 and hang up.

Back on the Travelocity web site, BOTH flights I had tried to previously book are no longer listed. Did my booking attempt “block off” those seats on the flight? Or did someone really swoop in and buy the last remaining seats on the flight as I was going through the process?

I swear, booking these flights is like trying to pick up a chick. The harder you try, the less likely it’s going to happen.

Guess what, Doug? We are leaving Samui at 7:45am. Blame the Internet.

Oh yeah, I still have three more flights to book.