Woohoo! Got it ticketed! Not a smooth ride though. But I thought I should just share how I got my ticket and maybe of help for others who has a bit of a bumpy ride.
Anyway, I waited until 10:30pm and still no call, it was T-30min and it doesn't look like they were gonna call, so I decided to give LM a call again. I got an agent named Peter (from US call center, very helpful), rather than demanding him to transfer me to billing department, I said "I was promised someone would call yesterday but no one called. My reservation will be canceled if I don't ticket it in the next 30 min, please help me!" (In a desperate tone!)
Peter apologized and said he will contact the billing department and see if he could help me with the payment. So I was on hold for about 10 min, and as Murphy's law would have it, my Skype call dropped. While I was trying to call back again, Peter called back on my phone from his landline! By then he has already got the Spanish speaking billing agent on the other side, so we had 3 way conversation.
Then for some reason, there was a problem processing my payment! It's odd! I used the same Westpac black MC that I always use with Avianca and never had problem. Peter said they will need a couple of hours to confirm the payment and will call me back. I wasn't gonna let him go that easily as I was so close. I asked him why would it take that long. He put me on hold and spoke to the other agent. There was about 20 min of silence and I kept checking to make sure the call is still connected. He came back and said there is some problem with their system so can't process the payment now. Oh no, I am just 1 step away from the 60 min spa treatment!!!
I ask them to hold the reservation for me, and regardless of time, call me if there is a problem with payment. He held the reservation for me and promised to call back. By this time, there wasn't much I can do about it, and we were in the phone for almost an hour. So we hang up.
Afterwards, I immediately contacted Westpac to authorize any transaction that is coming from Avianca/TACA, I was told the transaction has already gone through! Then within a minute, LM called and informed me that eticket has been issued. The problem was that there system could not do the mileage redemption at the moment. They asked me to keep enough miles in my account so they can deduct it later. That's no problemo! (In my experience, they frequently forget about it, so I might be lucky!)
So, 20000 miles + $541 USD for TG first class NRT-BKK-SYD! I'd say that's a real bargain, consider some airlines would charge almost as much cash in fuel surcharge as well as miles. Is it worth the trouble? I'll let you be the judge! But if you have similar issues with them not calling, maybe beg them for help like I do rather than demanding to speak to billing department. I think technically they just can't do it, and even if they get you through, you need to speak Spanish.
In the mean time, I'll catch up the sleep I missed last 3 nights and dream about this trip!
