Booking flights and hotels online is a breeze
provided you have a credit card. It’s cheaper too, than getting a travel agent.
Within a few minutes, your transaction is over, and all you have to do is wait
for the e-ticket or hotel confirmation and voucher. In 24 hours, you’ll receive
it via email. That’s the wonder of technology. BUT, amending your reservations
is another matter…
Four of us who are ASEAN IUC core group members are scheduled to have a meeting
with the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta. From there, we go to KL for
meetings with officers of ASETUC and Uni-Apro for the next AIUC which is supposed
to be in Aceh. The schedule was set, reservations were made… until our Jakarta
connection informed us that the meeting was moved because of the Director who
had to be in Myanmar and who will be back in Jakarta one week after.
Guess what? We can’t amend our flights from Manila online because we had paid
for everything including the travel tax which the ticketing office insisted we
pay. Arguing that we are on government official business and are tax-free and
that the travel orders and DOT certificates were being processed fell on deaf
ears. We had to pay the fares PLUS the travel tax, refund of which will take
months. With that first leg of the trip settled, next was the flight from
Jakarta to KL.
The airline for Jakarta-KL doesn’t have office in Manila. I tried to amend the
schedule online but to no avail. I wrote to customer service but for 4 days, I
was literally twiddling my thumbs because there was no reply. I decided to call
the KL office but the call center was busy the whole day. I tried calling
the Jakarta office and on second try, I got through!
Government officials should be taking budget airlines flights when going
abroad, so they know what lowly government employees have to go through!
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