My AirAsia Experience

As a certified airline promo abanger I got the chance to avail a promo seat offered by Airasia.

  

June 2012,  I excitedly book for an openjaw flight of Clark– Hongkong and Macau-Clark for December which only cost P9,979.96 and that’s already for 3 adults and 1 3yr old kid.

October 2012, since our trip is already approaching we decided then to book for our accommodation. With Adamant Travel and tours we easily accommodation both for Hongkong and Macau.

Aside from booking a hotel, my wife and I already filed for vacation leave – a long negotiation with our boss, and luckily, VL application… approved.

October 22, we received a text message and an email from Airasia and that’s the start of our trouble.

Airasia informed us that they are implementing a flight changes (or re-alignment) and our flight schedule is affected with the flight re-alignment or whatsoever.

Though they are offering options to address the issue but I think with the option they provided, we are still the one who's at a disadvantage.

•     One-time free move of flight to another date before 01 December, 2012

       - if we are taking this option, we have to re-apply for vacation leave, and to change our hotel   bookings with fees, possibly!

•     Cancel guest’s flight and convert the fare into a 90-day Online Credit Shell –  

      - if we are taking this option – we have to cancel our hotel booking and let our deposit to be forfeited, and have to rebook a flight in any destination we choose but no guarantee to having the same rate as we availed. In short, more likely we have to shell out money again for the next booking.

•     Cancel guest’s flight and refund fare –

      - if we are taking this option, we have to cancel our booking and let go our deposit and of course disappointment because this trip supposedly my Christmas gift for my mom – her first flight outside the country if ever.

Imagine, with all options, dehado at argabyado talaga kami. Then I call their hotline and explain everything, including the consequence in our part of the flight changes they implemented. But unfortunately, the agent told me that she has nothing to do.

I explained the case to my wife, and we decided to pursue the trip or else my mom gets disappointed, to end the story short, we take the first option.

 So, what we did...

• re-apply vacation leave and set a trip before December 1
• Rebooked for our hotel accommodation and luckily there are still available rooms for the date we chose.
• Call airasia again and chose a flight, it was a bit pressure to select a flight because once you choose a flight it is still depending on availability. Hay! Dagdag pressure si agent. Finally, we got Nov 28 Clark-Hongkong flight and Nov 30 Macau-Clark.

November 16, we received again a text message from airasia informing that our flight schedule from Macau-Clark has minor adjustment. Flight will be earlier than the schedule.. The consequence?? We have to shorten our planned Macau trip in order to arrive at the airport earlier.

Hindi ba hassle kung sa inyo nangyari yung ganito? Kahit naman siguro promo fare lang yun, still they have to treat us as a valuable client. Tama ba?

And I remember when Jetstar implemented also a flight changes, they offered a 500JPY voucher to use on in flight food, drink, entertainment as a form of apologizing with the inconvenienced they caused.

But with Airasia, we got nothing out of the inconvenience and extra cost we had because of their implemented flight changes.