On the topic of airlines and air travel

When I first started planning this trip my intention had been to fly Emirates to Manchester as we did on the last trip.  However it seems that Emirates are no longer an economically rational airline.  Why is this so?  Could it be that having lined up with QANTAS they are taking instruction on client servicing from Buffoon O'Airline?

Whatever.  Plan B was to see what Expedia had to offer.  There was also some doubt about whether we needed to go through Manchester.  The only reelly reelly important thing was to avoid the world's worst airport (OK perhaps second worst - there is probably one in some regional centre of a small African country that is worse).  The key part of our trip was in Shropshire which is close to Birmingham (hereafter Brum as the natives call it) so I explored flights to that fine airport.  Expedia gave me a clue that KLM were the way to go having various flights to Brum.

I also wanted to stay the first night in Birmingham to have a look at that city and ensure we are in reasonable shape for the drive South.  So, on Saturday 9 February, I thought I would also book a hotel through Expedia.  Unfortunately doing the Hotel+flight option turned out that everything was driven by the choice of hotel (Wag that dog!) and one of the flights by KLM that looked particularly useful, due to being 4-7 hours shorter than any other, wasn't listed.

So back to the KLM site.  I was able to choose the flights I wanted and by doing an online bank transfer (Westpac Payanyone is fantastic) avoided the $60 slug involved with credit cards.  I also decided to reserve a couple of seats on the Kuala Lumpur - Amsterdam leg so that we stood a chance of getting some kip there.    That was going to cost me $165 each but whatever.  Then we got to the payment and it seemed to get to the checkout phase OK.  However

1. I couldn't seem to get it to charge me for the special seats;
2. their client service area wasn't open on a Saturday or a Sunday; and
3. there was some requirement to finalise all of this by Sunday!

Checking back to another part of the KLM site it appeared we had reserved the seats I wanted so I sent the money off - to some collection agency (Global Collect NV - presumably the NV stands for Nasty Violence, suggesting what will happen if you don't cough up).

So on Monday I rang KLM and it turns out that the payment situation was fine, but it will take 5 -7 days for Global Collect to send the cash to KLM.  At that point the tickets will be issued and I can ring KLM again to sort out payment for the seats.  The nice lady at KLM then asked if I wanted to reserve seats for other legs and was able to do it all except for the leg from Amsterdam to Guangxhou.  So we have a row of two from Guangxhou to Sydney, which is when I would really like to get some sleep.  Basically KLM end up getting a bouquet.

Interestingly, in looking up the link above for Global Collect I found that I could check on my bank transfer and it was rated as "In process" which is promising.  That is about the first time I have found one of these status check items to be of any help!

In rather less than 5 days I found a couple of e-tickets appeared in my email.  They mentioned nothing about the $330 I owed them so I rang KLM speaking to a very pleasant person with a Gallic accent.  He could help me out for $177.80 per seat!  I said what about the $165? There was then much fussing with him saying $177.80 was the go and me saying $165, but to his credit he nicked off- with me on hold -  and found it was on the web site for $165 so did something and made it so.  It took 45 minutes to save $25.60, so bad economics but good for my self esteem.!

Three days before we were due to depart I got an officious email from KLM stating they had to provide Advanced Passenger Information to the Poms.  Presumably to allow the police to alert News Limited to our impending arrival.  "Evenin' all."  This is annoying as the information that was shown as required came to name, age sex, citizenship and country of residence, all of which could have been collected at ticket purchase time.  However to get to that one had to go through three screen of KLM advertising.  Definitely Buffoon O'Airline style customer service!  They also had some optional fields for passport information but that:

• seemed rather like sending ones credit card information over an unsecured link;and
• I bet we still have to produce them about 5 times on the flight so thi would just make life easier for someone in KLM

so I passed on that but wished I had a Shillelagh in my hand and the Buffoon in range.

The fun continues.  The day before departure I got an email from KLM inviting me to check in on-line.  So I try to do so and get a screen saying I can't check in online.  One of the items you have to complete is the departure airport and it doesn't include Sydney in the pick list!!  Then I try to ring KLM and get told that they are open from 9am.  They are going to get a call which will pin their ears back a tad.