A holiday experience<\/p>\n
In early September we reserved seven seats with Garuda to
\nLombok. By the end of November, the travel agent requested us to
\nissue the tickets otherwise the reservations would be canceled?
\nWe were very surprised also to learn that Garuda had issued a new
\nregulation on Oct. 23 stating that tickets for the season should
\nbe three month tickets. This meant that suddenly we had to pay Rp
\n1,000,000 more for our flight compared to the price issued at the
\ntime of reservation. Nice way to generate more income Garuda!<\/p>\n
In Lombok, staff of the Senggigi Beach Hotel (an Aerowisata-
\nGaruda company) went to the airport to re-confirm our return
\nflight to Jakarta three days before departure on Jan. 2. We
\nreceived the reconfirmation code Q8VSX4. On Jan. 2 we went to the
\nairport accompanied by a staff member of the hotel. While already
\nprinting our boarding cards (!) a group came to check-in. Only
\nhalf of them were reconfirmed but they supplied their tickets in
\nwhich some Rp 100,000 notes were folded. This was witnessed by
\nseveral other people. Suddenly they stopped producing our
\nboarding cards and we were told that regretfully not enough seats
\nwere available for our party of seven people.<\/p>\n
The Garuda manager was more than willing to help us if we were
\nwilling to help him as well (I just wonder what that means?).
\nThey also suggested that my two and a half year old and nine year
\nold daughter should sit on our laps (!) to Jakarta which we
\nrefused based on safety reasons. (By the way, why did I have to
\npay for my two and a half year old daughter a fare of 60 percent
\nof a one-year ticket which cost just US$5 less than a normal
\nadult ticket? And why were two kids aged nine and 16 years old
\nnot allowed a student discount?). GA's staff at Lombok told us
\nthat we had to accept the option of one person flying with
\nMerpati to Bali and then with GA to Jakarta on the 8 p.m. flight.
\nThat person, however was only on stand-by for Bali-Jakarta!<\/p>\n
During the discussions our luggage reappeared from the plane
\nand we were all simply thrown off the flight which took off
\nwithout us! We were then told that over the next few days we
\ncould be on the stand-by list and come daily to check whether
\nseats were available! Unbelievable! We told them that we had seen
\nthem receive money from the non-confirmed passengers and that was
\nwhy we were thrown off the plane and that we would go public and
\nfile a law-suit if we were not booked on a flight the next day.
\nThis was not possible since that particular flight was already
\noverbooked twice!.<\/p>\n
After I took photographs of the staff they suddenly gave us
\nboarding cards for the next day's flight. Please note that now
\nanother seven other people were just thrown off that particular
\nflight! Upon checking in our luggage the next day the staff of
\nGaruda were extremely impolite again and during our wait we
\nnoticed chaos again at the Garuda check-in with many, many very
\nupset and angry passengers. Please note that I have witness
\nreports and photos available of everything as described if
\nrequested.<\/p>\n
Garuda...your advertisements are promising...when will you
\nstart acting accordingly and professionally and how did you
\n\"earn\" the Indonesian Customer Excellence Award?<\/p>\n
LEO LAMMERINK<\/p>\n
Bogor, West Java<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/a-holiday-experience-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }