If you fly on Thai Airlines make sure you never lose your ticket; their replacement policy is terrible.
I found myself stranded in BKK airport last week in my own personal version of THE TERMINAL:
Me: I have a problem; my ticket was never returned to me when I checked-in at HCMC for my flight to BKK.
Ticket Agent: This not good; ticket is same-same cash. You must buy a new ticket.
Me: Can you not re-issue me a new ticket to replace the lost one?
Ticket Agent: No, of course not! You must buy a new ticket. If no one uses your old ticket after 3 months then you get money back.
Me: Well I don’t have money for a new ticket or a credit card. What can we do?
Ticket Agent: You lose ticket; not our problem.
3 hours of waiting and arguing later:
Me: So even though I’ve paid for my seat you’re going to leave me stuck in BKK airport with $900baht in my pocket?
Ticket Agent: Now my supervisor says you must pay $2,200baht and we can give you a new ticket.
Luckily I have $2000 NT in my wallet as my Taiwanese bank card is of course not working outside of Taiwan.
They exchange it for $1800baht. The flight has now already left when I return to the Ticket Office.
Me: Here is the $2,200 baht. Can I have my ticket now please
Ticket Agent: I also need to scan your credit card.
Me: But I’ve told you ten times already; I DON"T HAVE A CREDIT CARD!
Ticket Agent: Then there’s nothing we can do; sorrry, not our problem.
At which point I lost my temper (big mistake) and smashed the number counter on the desk and ranted and cursed until the airport police arrived. After talking with the police for a while, and explaining I had been robbed by Thai Airlines, they finally agreed to issue me a ticket for the next day, but on stand-by the day before Chinese New Year! So after a sleepless night in a dirty motel I returned the next day with $40 baht left to find I’d gotten lucky and there was a seat for me. Only problem was that my bicycle was 2kg overweight!!! After opening the box and conducting a mock-auction of my pedals and seatpost in the departure line-up they decided it was ok and I was finally allowed to leave BKK.
This is not only an issue with Thai Airways. I had a similar problem with EVA in KHH. Luckily I had enough cash available to buy a new ticket and wait for the refund. I think this is pretty common in the airline industry. Much better to get e-tickets whenever you travel.
I don’t get it. You’re trying to travel without a ticket. Unless you have some other incontrovertible proof of having purchased a ticket, how else can they be expected to react? I’m obviously missing something here.
[quote=“Ktownboy”]At which point I lost my temper (big mistake) and smashed the number counter on the desk and ranted and cursed until the airport police arrived. After talking with the police for a while, and explaining I had been robbed by Thai Airlines, they finally agreed to issue me a ticket for the next day, but on stand-by the day before Chinese New Year! So after a sleepless night in a dirty motel I returned the next day with $40 baht left to find I’d gotten lucky and there was a seat for me. Only problem was that my bicycle was 2kg overweight!!! After opening the box and conducting a mock-auction of my pedals and seatpost in the departure line-up they decided it was ok and I was finally allowed to leave BKK.
Beware Thai Airlines!!![/quote]
I’d say you best beware. What country in the world do you think would allow that kind of carry on in its international airport? You were very lucky they didn’t shoot you. Hopefully this historic anomaly will soon be overcome by you opting to throw your next hissy fit in the US.
Sandman:
I don’t get it. You’re trying to travel without a ticket. Unless you have some other incontrovertible proof of having purchased a ticket, how else can they be expected to react? I’m obviously missing something here.
I had the reciept from my travel agent for the tickets, as well as the printed itinerary of my flights.
Their computer clearly showed my booking for that day; unless someone else has exactly the same name as me they can’t use the ticket.
They also confirmed my purchase of the ticket with my travel agent by phone.
The point was that unless I had the means to re-purchase my ticket. I was just out of luck; not their problem.
Is it really standard practice with other airlines to expect you to purchase a new, full-price ticket if yours gets lost?
Is a ticket really the “same as cash; your problem if you lose it”?
Great travel story. I agree with you - the airline puts your info into a database that tells them how many seats they have available and if you’re a terrorist; they should let you on. Many airlines are going ticketless, just show ID.
I’m really not sure what this thread is about. Are you suggesting to other people not to fly with Thai because of this? And, you yourself have declared no more Thai Airlines for you? So next time you need to fly somewhere and Thai is the best deal by say $100USD, you are going to fly with another airline just in case you might lose your ticket?
Airline tickets are issued on IATA standard tickets (unless e-tickets), so I would presume this policy you refer to would apply to all airlines. It is my understanding that there is a charge associated with issuing an IATA ticket, and I believe it is about $15USD, but I might be wrong. The point is, there is a cost associated with reissuing an IATA ticket (the amount Thai may or may not have asked for this is irrelevant) so I am pretty sure none of the airlines will give you a replacement IATA ticket without charging you something for it.
If what you are saying about losing your temper and smashing things at the counter is true, it is lucky you were allowed to get on the flight at all…Just makes me wonder about the whole approach you might have taken with this. After all, did you consider who put you into this situation in the first place?
As a side note, I saw a story on CNN a month back about IATA ticketing and they say by the end of this year ALL ticketing will be e-ticketing, so all that anyone will need to check in soon will be a booking number and a passport. The days of needing a paper ticket will be gone which means you will even be able to fly Thai without that ‘risk’ of losing your ticket.
You were acting totally out of line. You should be thanking your lucky stars that they bent the rules for you so that you could get another ticket and you repay them by throwing a temper tantrum like a little baby? This sort of behavior reflects terribly on all Westerners in Asia.
Only if the reflector is a racist, bog-dwelling arsehole.
My sister was attacked and beaten up by a Chinese guy once, in England. That really reflects badly on Asians in Europe. Billions of people who have never met him but have the same colour of skin should also feel ashamed for his behaviour, especially those from China. Shouldn’t they?
Yes, no question I was out of line; I was very lucky to not have more serious consequences.
I’ve been travelling in Asia for a long time, and have always made an extra effort to stay calm in the often frustrating situations that occur.
I know losing your temper is the worst possible thing you can do in a situation like this; and yet…
I stayed very calm and polite this time too for 4 hours of questions, debate, waiting, missing my flight, changing answers and an overall generally rude treatment by the staff I dealt with; quite unlike anything I’ve encounterd with Thai people in my previous 20+ trips through Thailand over the years. They seemed to take personally my explanation for having lost my ticket: It was not returned to me by a Thai Airlines employee when I checked-in at HCMC.
I really felt like I had been pushed into a corner though; no credit card, no money, useless bank card. What was I to do?
I was fully prepared to pay a fine for the re-issue; Even the rather steep $60US they quoted I said ok and set about getting the money.
It was when I returned with the money, after having done exactly what they told me to do, that they took back their offer and again repeated; No ticket without credit card… I was stuck in BKK airport with no way home; not a nice feeling.
Perhaps the title “Beware Thai Airlines” is too strong and this is more of a cautionary tale:
Don’t leave your credit card at home. Always carry enough money to buy another ticket at the end of your trip.
And never lose your ticket. Luckily, it’s so easy for foreigners to get a credit card in Taiwan, that no one else with have this happen to them.
Why on earth would you travel to a foreign country and plan it so that you only had that amount of cash in your pocket with no easy access to any other cash?
Sorry to hear of your experience. I also had no idea that losing your ticket could cost so much (time, money and stress).
The whole policy sounds like a pile of shit to me. In the old days, yes…tickets were literally worth the cost of the flight. But these days…you can board a plane using an e-ticket (which you don’t even need to print off) meaning they must somehow be sure you are the right person. Here’s my question…in an age of technology and identity checks, what information (on their computer) can be so different between the two types of ticket?
I just don’t get it
Wish I was there for the auction - I could do with a new bike.
Thai Airways usually only give e-tickets, no? I go to BKK fairly regularly with Thai Airways from HK and I only get given e-tickets. Wonder if that wasn’t a scam. That frigging new airport has the old no taxi need to get a driver and car thing happening with gay abondon at the moment. Seriously, the depth of corruption in Thailand is fucking appalling.
I found the Thai airways staff rude and unhelpful at Bangkok airport.
Here was our situation:
The Auckland-BKK-TPE route includes a compulsory stopover with a ‘complimentary’ stay in the airport. I thought this was an airport hotel. It wasn’t. We’d spent all our cash to get rid of the NZ currency. Just had credit cards and ATM cards.
ON arriving at BKK airport we’re told that the hotel is in downtown BKK. MY wife (Taiwanese) needed a visa. Visa is 1000 baht and they wouldn’t let us use the credit card. It was also a few hundred baht for the photo. We didn’t have enough.So we hiked back from the visa counter to the transit lounge to find a money machine (a long way). No money machines in transit. None of the banks will issue cash advances off a credit card. The aiport staff at the visa desk were useless. The Thai airlines staff were incredibly rude.
In the end we figured out that we had enough for the visa but not the photo. I then realised I had a photo of my wife in my wallet (5 years old) and we used that.
What with that and the cost of the taxi into Bangkok city and back, it was hardly a ‘free’ hotel.
It was just ludicrous that you have to pay for this visa but can’t use a credit card or access cash in the transit lounge. One of the airport staff actually said to me “this happens many times every day”. :loco:
Shouldn’t the airline company have records of ticket purchase and booking in their databases? That would be adequate proof, I believe.[/quote]
If it is a paper ticket the airlines will accept nothing else but the ticket. Passport and/or all the ID in the world will not move them. My wife got caught like this. She was leaving work, hassled by another worker wanting a last minute signature and forgot her ticket as she ran for the bus to the airport. As a result she had to buy another full price ticket (Taipei-SYDNEY!!!) with her CC at the airport.
Why did she have a paper ticket? Company policy - for paperwork trails, e-tickets doen’t exist as a file therefore can’t be accounted for!
Maybe this will help us all…no more paper airline tickets!
Care to explain why would you let them take the ticket and not request to get it back? It seems a bit strange for me that anyone would continue a journey without a ticket that the person knows is required later.
[Rascal]Care to explain why would you let them take the ticket and not request to get it back? It seems a bit strange for me that anyone would continue a journey without a ticket that the person knows is required later.[/quote]
Simply a bit careless. I was tired after chasing around HCMC all afternoon looking for a bike box and got careless.
The month long cycling trip from Hanoi had taken it’s toll I guess. There was a bit of confusion at the check-in counter about my bike and an airline worker started taking it away and beckoned for me to follow when I hadn’t quite finished at the counter. The check-in counter handed me my passport, boarding pass and ticket envelope and I hurried along to follow my bicycle. Unknown to me at the time, was that the ticket envelope was empty. Normally I check all my documents are in order before leaving the counter, but I let myself get rushed and didn’t check inside the envelope. Lesson learned the hard way.
Anyway, I was quite unaware how serious a matter losing a ticket is, having previously never lost one. The fact I would have to re-purchase a ticket came as quite a shock and has now made me reconsider how I handle my finances while on holiday.
Have now moved on to more pleasant thoughts about how great the cycling was in Vietnam and decided not to dwell on this bad experience any further.
