Made any travel mistakes lately?

Flashback said:
That's travel - need to roll with the punches. If you don't want to, then not much point really IMHO......
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It's not just about rolling with the punches. We are busy people with extremely busy lives. Cannot afford to put holiday on hold just in case an airline cannot do the thing you pay them to do?

I booked a flight to arrive 2:00pm so I can pick up a rental car that I will return at 2:00pm, 9 days later. It's OK for flight to be delayed a few hours.

Flight cancelled and the option is flight arriving 4 hours earlier or flight arriving 6 hours later.

If I take earlier flight I have to leave Pattaya at 5:00am and then wait around 4 hours to pick up rental car.

If I take later flight the rental office is closed.

That's not much of a choice. Or should I just book a hotel near airport and waste 1 day just in case airlines cannot do a simple thing like keeping to their schedules. And then they cancel flight and you lose your hotel booking.

It should not have to be this difficult.
 
stm1sydney said:
If you are extremely busy people, then pay a little extra for reliable airlines and don't mix and match your TAs for pax on the same trip just to save a few bucks. You get what you pay for.
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Please explain how to book reputable airline travelling from Bangkok to Chiang Mai? Air Asia, Nok Air, VietJet, Thai Smile and Bangkok Airways are the only airlines.

All LCCs. The last 3 charge a ridiculous amount for golf clubs on a per kg basis over standard weight allowance. The best schedule is Air Asia then Nok Air when they don't consolidate their flights.

Doesn't matter which airline I use I expect to be charged once not 3 times. Now I need to waste time chatting to Bangkok call centre which closes 9:00pm and I have to play golf.

Covid should not be an excuse for poor performance. Airlines should have let executive staff go during downtime not key staff they now cannot replace. Any old bum can be an executive. Need experience to be in customer service.
 
JohnK said:
Please explain how to book reputable airline travelling from Bangkok to Chiang Mai? Air Asia, Nok Air, VietJet, Thai Smile and Bangkok Airways are the only airlines.

All LCCs. The last 3 charge a ridiculous amount for golf clubs on a per kg basis over standard weight allowance. The best schedule is Air Asia then Nok Air when they don't consolidate their flights.

Doesn't matter which airline I use I expect to be charged once not 3 times. Now I need to waste time chatting to Bangkok call centre which closes 9:00pm and I have to play golf.

Covid should not be an excuse for poor performance. Airlines should have let executive staff go during downtime not key staff they now cannot replace. Any old bum can be an executive. Need experience to be in customer service.
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It's tough... quite some years ago but last time I flew (fly through) syd-cnx with Thai airways I think that the bkk_cnx was with Thai airways, great, quick seamless transfer. Now with their associated airline Thai smile, requires overnight stop in bkk on return leg. I haven't worked out the best solution yet, trip not until late in the year (due weather... motorbike ride)

And expensive ... almost exactly 2 x the price now, for Y.
 
Hvr said:
Is it time to have two sets of clubs? One in Australia and the other at your home in Thailand?

It would save you an immense amount of time faffing about, and open up lots of travelling alternatives.
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It is but not quite yet. I'd need 3 golf sets. One for Brisbane. One for Pattaya. One for Chiang Mai.

The biggest problem is flying AU-Chiang Mai return. Very expensive and not very consistent. Much cheaper to fly AU-Bangkok with side trip to Chiang Mai.
 
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SYD said:
I’m going to call this a “near miss”. Having spent weeks planning a road trip from SFO-SEA via Yellowstone in early April next year. Just as we were about to start booking things realised that West Yellowstone gate opens at the end of April… Instead of 30 miles into the park it would be a 4 hr drive each way each day from WSY…

I did have some hesitation about early April from a weather risk perspective and I feel vindicated. However, total trip plan is now down the toilet…
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SYD said:
So it’s a Pacific North West drive to SEA and some few extra days on the end of the trip in SoCal….
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So we’re in the middle of an alternate road trip along northern Cal coast and the plan was to cut across to eastern Oregon, up to Portland and on to Seattle. Turns out we’re probably also 2 mths too early for Crater Lake etc. The park requires snow chains year round(!) and with the long winter and snow, they’re expecting the rim road to open in June!

Snappy decision last night to go wine tasting in the Willamette Valley instead…

BTW, we didn’t have much choice but if you ever drive the US Pacific Coast Highway, do it north to south. I already knew that but we were locked into heading north…😔
 
SYD said:
BTW, we didn’t have much choice but if you ever drive the US Pacific Coast Highway, do it north to south. I already knew that but we were locked into heading north…😔
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yes I’ve made this mistake …twice. Call me a slow learner but in the 20+ years between trips, I forgot this important fact 😆
 
Put my sunglasses down on the lounge in the foyer of the Hilton Noumea whilst I was getting something out of my bag upon checkout and left them behind.

Called a few hours later when I realised, reception said they had found them when I went back next morning what they had were a coughpy pair of imitation aviators (like you buy from a $2 shop) and not my expensive polarised sunnies.

Theory being someone swiped mine to upgrade and left their coughpy ones behind.

A timely reminder to check you have everything before you leave, no matter how tired you are.
 
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SYD said:
BTW, we didn’t have much choice but if you ever drive the US Pacific Coast Highway, do it north to south. I already knew that but we were locked into heading north…😔
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Why? Because of the view?
 
Lynda2475 said:
A timely reminder to check you have everything before you leave, no matter how tired you are.
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yes, very much. Can’t do it with sunnies (unfortunately - I'm not Dame Edna) but I tie a short piece of pink ribbon onto my various charging cords and other little items I use in hotel rooms and elsewhere. I lost a pair of sunnies a few weeks ago, but no cords etc for quite a while .
 
gaz0303 said:
I have just inadvertently booked the family on a status run to NZ, staying in CHC for one night.
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I appreciate not everyone is happy to do it (due to refund times etc) but one of the benefits of booking directly through Qantas is the ability to cancel for free within the first 24 hours of booking.
 

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