So, here is my promised update on transiting at Bangalore. I'm not really sure that this is going to be helpful because our circumstances were unusual but, here goes. It's not a pretty sight...
To recap, my wife and I were flying SYD-DUB with a 14-hour transit in BLR. The transit was from QF and then BA, both in J.
The flights were excellent on both counts and I thought the crews were really terrific.
A further recap is that we were planning to stay at the 080 Hotel, not to be confused with the 080 lounge which acts as a poor imitation of a QF or BA club. We had instructions from the hotel which were...
- Guest should hold an onward travel ticket from Bengaluru Airport, Valid within the next 24 hrs. in order to check in at 080 Transit Hotel.
- Guest should have proper Indian VISA to stay at the Hotel
- 080 Transit Hotel is located inside the terminal 1 on domestic departure hall before Security hold area next to airline check in counter no 1.
I couldn't really wrap my head around the concept that we were going to the domestic terminal or that we needed a Visa but I got a Visa anyway.
On arrival, I sought the local QANTAS staff help and she was really really good. Showed her the receipt from the hotel with the details. but unfortunately, I was advised that we had to get clearance from security to go into the transit area. 2 hours... Yes, really.....
There is more to that but we eventually got the clearance and happily went off to the hotel...
Except, dear readers we were taken to the lounge which was in the transit area, airside in Terminal 1 which is where the BA leg was talking off from. Oops.
But realizing the mistake, the manager of the lounge and the QANTAS ground staff put their heads together for another hour as well as appealing to the immigration manager's better nature to allow us into the country so we could go to the hotel.
The top boss, bless him, wouldn't budge so instead, a wonderful night was held in transit. To his credit, the manager and team at the lounge were lovely. They even gave us a semi-private area to sleep except that it was next to a very noisy kitchen so we moved to the couches in transit! The showers and food were welcome though.
Morning takeoff was interesting because I only had a printed version of the boarding passes. So the BA crew were scrambling trying to find us so that they could print the cards.
So - I would say that if you are going to fly and stay at 080 hotel, just do as you would do if it was the Taj. Enter the country, which of course is why we needed the visas... It's still airside because they will escort you to the security checkpoints so the hotel's entry point.
Why did that not happen for us? Honestly? I could not make any sense of the idea of going through immigration and so I sought help. The Qantas rep didn't know there was a hotel and the whole thing snowballed. In the end, it was my own stupid fault for not insisting we ring the hotel and understand their instructions better. I trusted and did not verify.
The other thing that is interesting is that a previous poster's in-laws were doing the same trip and were not able to check their luggage through to LHR. I discovered the issue here. According to Sydney check-in (these guys were legends) the system assumes about a 6 or 8-hour (don't remember) transit with different airlines.
They were able to circumvent it though and our luggage was checked through successfully to Dublin. So, well worth checking at check-in, as long as the ticket has the same PNR. It did take about 20 minutes for the supervisor to be able to do it though so patience will be key..
Thank heavens we were in J.....