Strange Thing Happened

[tuky]

I flew from Aust. to Bkk the other day, I flew business class and the day I travelled also happened to be my birthday so I enjoyed a few wines ect as my whole birthday was going to be spent alone in airports and on planes.

When I arrived in Bkk it was around 11.30 pm so still my birthday, so imagine my suprised when I was met by a Thai staff member with name on a board. I thought it was a lovely thing for them to do to say happy birthday.

The young lady took me through the diplomatic line at passport control and then on the the Thai office, I was thinking to myself that I really don't need a cake as well but curiosity got the better so I went along for the ride.

Arrived at the office to be told I owe them $100...<deleted>??? and they had also lost my luggage.

It turned out somehow I had been charged $100 less for my ticket than I should have.

I bought the ticket in Thailand from Thaiair over the phone.

Great way to finish a lonely birthday.

So, what do you think happened?

I have travelled a lot of planes, pretty much monthly for the 10 years but I have never had anything like this happen to me before.

WHat is your take on it?

[sbk]

Wow. That is bad. Sorry to hear your b-day was so crap

I would refuse to pay, once the ticket is issued and the flight coupon used, then it is their problem. Are you a FF with thai? If so, I would complain mightily.

[tuky]

Wow. That is bad. Sorry to hear your b-day was so crap

I would refuse to pay, once the ticket is issued and the flight coupon used, then it is their problem. Are you a FF with thai? If so, I would complain mightily.

I paid it and got a receipt, I just wanted it to all be over but I was really really confused, how can this happen?

I also felt really bad because I took it out on the young girl whos answer to me when I told her all I want to do is go home was "Me too, I just want to go home too". I know it was not her fault.

But it was amazing how they could trak me like that and have someone waiting for me, a business traveller with gold ROP membership.

[Raptor7]

wow, that IS something to complain about...

I would tell them to apply it against the charge levied for losing your luggage...

[madjbs]

One time Thai airways tried to bill me using my debit card in a credit card bill machine (the one that makes a copy of your card). They sent the tickets through the mail even though I hadn’t been charged. They only realised I hadn’t yet been billed for the ticket several months after I had returned.

[yorkman]

................................

It turned out somehow I had been charged $100 less for my ticket than I should have.

I bought the ticket in Thailand from Thaiair over the phone.

...............................

So, what do you think happened?

I have travelled a lot of planes, pretty much monthly for the 10 years but I have never had anything like this happen to me before.

WHat is your take on it?

Well it seems pretty clear somebody has given you the wrong price over the phone

I would not have paid either, the deal is done.

But the thought occurs that perhaps if the person makes a mistake they are expected to make up the difference themselves? It happens in other businesses in Thailand if somebody makes a mistake.

Ohh well perhaps a lesson. Never follow a smiling young lady with your name on a board

[eljeque]

It is always better to complain in the West.

If you purchased your ticket in Aussie, complain in Aussie.

You paid for ticket, received a ticket, and there is no more to it than that.

What Thai airlines did to you was extortion.

Thai Airways in Aussie issued the ticket an is therefore responsible for it.

Contact them in Aussie, and work your way up the totem pole until you get someone who has the authority to provide you wih compensation.

Good luck and please make a update when you return home.

[ovenman]

WHat is your take on it?

I've never heard of anything like this happening but coming from Thai Airways, it really doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Just about any other airline in the world, upon discovery of a pricing mistake such as this, would have simply eaten the cost and not bothered the passenger involved. The ticket was sold and paid for, it's a done deal. Even more so for somebody flying business class, and yet even more so for somebody that is an elite member of their frequent flier program (are you Royal Orchid Plus gold?).

[tuky]

It is always better to complain in the West.

If you purchased your ticket in Aussie, complain in Aussie.

You paid for ticket, received a ticket, and there is no more to it than that.

What Thai airlines did to you was extortion.

Thai Airways in Aussie issued the ticket an is therefore responsible for it.

Contact them in Aussie, and work your way up the totem pole until you get someone who has the authority to provide you wih compensation.

Good luck and please make a update when you return home.

Actually Thailand is home, I was just returning to Aust to see the family after xmas and NY which I spent with my own family here.

So I actually bought the ticket over the phone with Thai air the day before I travelled out to Aust. Paid on the phone with my credit card too.

I agree with everyone, once I purchased the ticket and received the ticket the contract (if you could call it such) was complete, there shouldn't have been anything left to do, except perhaps pay airport tax if for some reason this wasn't included, which according to the ticket certainly was included.

Funny thing is I already a $150 voucher from Thai after they left me stranded at DBX airside for 24hrs, I was one for two transit passengers and once again flying business class. My connecting flight was due to take off about 3 hours after my previous flight landed, when I went to check in at the transit desk I was told come back again in 2 hours, 12 times I was told that until the same time flight the next day was due to leave, I got a seat on that one. When I spoke about it to the guy next to me on the plane he said when they checked in land side Thai had busses for everyone and they all spent the 24 hours in a hotel. I must admit I was absolutely furious, they did come through as I say with a $150 voucher, but no the point, I coulnd't check into the DBX airport hotel because I kept being told to come back in 2 hours.

[tuky]

WHat is your take on it?

I've never heard of anything like this happening but coming from Thai Airways, it really doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Just about any other airline in the world, upon discovery of a pricing mistake such as this, would have simply eaten the cost and not bothered the passenger involved. The ticket was sold and paid for, it's a done deal. Even more so for somebody flying business class, and yet even more so for somebody that is an elite member of their frequent flier program (are you Royal Orchid Plus gold?).

Yep, ROP Gold.

[guru]

I was once undercharged a ticket by 500 bt and the travel agent called my hotel begging me to come down to the lobby and pay her otherwise she would have to pay it herself. That was fine because it was immediately after and unlike the OP I already had a feeling she had made an error as I was charged 500 bt less than the price she had earlier quoted.

I dont know TG policy but if the OP had refused or couldnt be tracked down, maybe that staff member would have had to pay the $100 out of her salary for the error?

Anyway, in my opinion it was too late for them to notice errors and demand payment and their action in the airport was very unproffesional. I expect that if you had refused then they couldnt have done anything more and maybe would have deducted it from the sales clerk's salary.

Edited January 31, 2008 by guru

[britmaveric]

bday expectations and get a bill instead. Very disappointing. (never heard of such a thing - interesting though) Shows you what TG is about.

[ovenman]

WHat is your take on it?

I've never heard of anything like this happening but coming from Thai Airways, it really doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Just about any other airline in the world, upon discovery of a pricing mistake such as this, would have simply eaten the cost and not bothered the passenger involved. The ticket was sold and paid for, it's a done deal. Even more so for somebody flying business class, and yet even more so for somebody that is an elite member of their frequent flier program (are you Royal Orchid Plus gold?).

Yep, ROP Gold.

It's astonishing that TG would pull this crap on a ROP Gold member (they shouldn't be doing it to anybody though). I am not ROP Gold, by choice. As I said above, coming from Thai Airways this level of "customer service" really doesn't surprise me in the slightest and it's the sort of thing that makes me take my business elsewhere.

[tuky]

Anyway, in my opinion it was too late for them to notice errors and demand payment and their action in the airport was very unproffesional.

I agree, I ended feeling like and perhaps even being treated like a cheat and a criminal, the whole process added an extra 2 hours onto my departing the airport for no reason or mistake of mine whatsoever, which not only on my birthday but on any day is not the way anybody never mind an ROP Gold club member and customer should have to deal with.

I expect that if you had refused then they couldnt have done anything more and maybe would have deducted it from the sales clerk's salary.

Who was? I have the reference number from the telephone sale, I presume that would be in ther records too.

I was quite grumpy and it showed, then I would reign myself in and tell her I know it is not her fault.

She was really annoyed at having to go through it all too, she said her shift finished at 11pm, and all she wanted to was go home too. So we bother managed to get free at around 1.30am.

I swore I would never fly Thai again, but well what can you do? sometimes I have no choice.

[Cobalt60]

Money must be getting tight at TG, if they can be bothered with the logistics of hunting someone down for £50.

The way they are reigning in the miles awarded and loosing miles award partners must tell a story of hard times.

[Jingthing]

100 dollars gained.

A million dollars in bad publicity lost.

The power of thaivisa!

[onethailand]

Terrible - sorry to hear of your problem.

I would write a letter to the Post and see if that elicits a response... writing to them directly will be of no use whatsoever as their PR department is where all of the misfits are sent. Normally Thai Airways does pay attention to Postbag... one thing they are acutely aware of is bad press

[sriracha john]

Additional $100 demanded...

Luggage lost....

Look on the bright side, tuky... You didn't contract food poisoning from the in-flight meal.

Happy Birthday

[IMA_FARANG]

I flew from Aust. to Bkk the other day, I flew business class and the day I travelled also happened to be my birthday so I enjoyed a few wines ect as my whole birthday was going to be spent alone in airports and on planes.

When I arrived in Bkk it was around 11.30 pm so still my birthday, so imagine my suprised when I was met by a Thai staff member with name on a board. I thought it was a lovely thing for them to do to say happy birthday.

The young lady took me through the diplomatic line at passport control and then on the the Thai office, I was thinking to myself that I really don't need a cake as well but curiosity got the better so I went along for the ride.

Arrived at the office to be told I owe them $100...<deleted>??? and they had also lost my luggage.

It turned out somehow I had been charged $100 less for my ticket than I should have.

I bought the ticket in Thailand from Thaiair over the phone.

Great way to finish a lonely birthday.

So, what do you think happened?

I have travelled a lot of planes, pretty much monthly for the 10 years but I have never had anything like this happen to me before.

WHat is your take on it?

A similiar thing happened to me. in June 2007 I purchased a business class ticket from on Thai International to from Athens to BKK from a local travel agency here in Greece. I paid them and used the ticket. Thought nothing more about it. In January 2008 I went back to the same travel agent to get an another ticket on Thai, this time an economy class ticket. While I was booking that ticket I was informed that Thai had a charge of 30 Euro on the previous ticket in June 2007 that I had not paid, supposedly a fee for changing that ticket (in June) from an economy class to a business class ticket.

It was impossible to argue that I had originally purchased the June ticket as a business class ticket. I ended up paying the 30 Euros extra charge for the ticket conversion fee.

[Nignoy]

its funny the extremes with thai airways, we flew with them cattle class from Brisbane to Bkk last september, the young lass at flightcentre on bribie must have noticed we were flying on Mrs Nignoys birthday, to our pleasant surprise during the flight, my wife was presented with a birthday cake, chocolates and a bottle of bubbly, so they obviously do TRY Nignoy

[PhilHarries]

I wonder if they had overcharged you $100, would they have had a lady waiting to escort you to get the refund on your arrival?

bahahahahahah.......................I'm having a giraffe!

[JacknDanny]

bday expectations and get a bill instead. Very disappointing. (never heard of such a thing - interesting though) Shows you what TG is about.

Agreed.

TG is now nothing like it used to be.

I refuse to fly with them.

Business Class is far better on Cathay/Singapore and even BA

[KhaoNiaw]

If you'd refused to pay they might have pointed out that 'lost' luggage sometimes can't be found. Hope it's turned up.

[tgeezer]

The amazing thing to me is that anyone has a firm idea of what the price of the ticket is! In my opinion a company that can't absorb this sort of mistake is not worthy of the name.

[tuky]

If you'd refused to pay they might have pointed out that 'lost' luggage sometimes can't be found. Hope it's turned up.

Actually, that was where I was lucky. Because it was so important I pay my $100 the girl took my baggage stickers and gave them to pleb so he could collect my luggage. He came back to the office as I was finishing saying mai mee so we all went back inside (luggage collection area, office is on the check in level) and to the lost luggage office, I had completed my lost luggage forms whilst watching the carousel and seeing the only people still milling around were the business class folk. Eventually everyone (B/Class) ended up in lost luggage with me.

They had lost the Priority luggage container...can you believe it?

Anyway, they eventually found it and by the time we all got our luggage it was mixed in with the next flights bags.

This all happened a couple of weeks ago, I needed the couple of weeks to cool off before posting seeing as I am a mod I need to set a good example with my language and ferocity levels

[TaraLotus]

Oh my!! I work for an airline in reservations and if we, a large full-service carrier, make a boo-boo with fair BEFORE travel and BEFORE ticketing occurs, then we call and ask the passenger if it's ok to take extra from their card. If they say no, then we have no choice but to suck it up and it goes on the centre's charge card.

I once had this booking that I was watching where this chick had made a change on the day of travel, costing quite a bit to go up to business class instead of the economy ticket she'd initially had. I watched the booking as I could tell from her history she did this a lot, changed at the last minute and made a hefty upgrade just a couple of hours prior to departure. Our tickets are sent off to a queue for ticketing and it doesn't always happen in a timely manner.

Ended up that she got to checkin, was checked into the business class seat by the staff there (dummys didn't check) so I watched them check her in, rang the check in counter and spoke to the supervisor and by the time all of this had happened she had boarded the flight (she checked in late too so as not to bring attention to her additional monies needing to be paid as checkin would be in a hurry to get her on the flight).

The check in supervisor then went ON THE PLANE, bailed her up and said that she hadn't paid her additional fees! LOL ... but because she chucked a fuss as she was already on board the aircraft, we couldn't do a thing, as she well knew, and she flew business class for an economy class fare.

People are so dishonest at times.

[SeaVisionBurma]

I had my strange birthday experience on the way here a few weeks ago. Used my ROP Gold birthday reduced mileage to book MEL-BKK-HKG-BKK-MEL business class on TG. Flew out of Melbourne on night of my birthday, nearly to arrival in BKK early next morning - the flight attendants and even one of the off-duty flight crew came up and sang a rather odd tune of Happy Birthday to me. Then presented me with:

1. a bottle of their best champagne

2. 3 packs of Thai playing cards

3. a comb

4. a toothbrush

5. 2 eye shades

and they even had the sense to seal it in a tamper-proof bag in case I was transiting (I wasnt).

Was rather embarrassing as all the other business class pax woke up when they started singing.

Thank goodness there wasn't a hottie with my name on a sign waiting with a bill when I disembarked.

This is nothing though compared to their 'Lucky Draw' promo in September 2003 - remember when they had the inflight lucky draw, around the post-SARS period?

Myself, 2 Japanese colleagues, and a mate from UK were business class from Yangon to Bangkok (and then on to Hong Kong), and entered the lucky draw.

They asked me (they picked any random passenger) to come back down to economy and make the draw in front of the entire economy class.

I obliged, and smiled like an idiot as I stuck my hand down into the plastic bag and drew out someone's filled in form, handed it to the attendant and staggered back through the curtains to get to my seat.

They had to call me back, as I had drawn my own entry! I tried to tell them to draw it again, but they said the rules stated first correct entry drawn, and wouldnt budge.

Got a free return ticket, same class, same route. HAHAHAHA

Edited February 18, 2008 by SeaVisionBurma

[sbk]

I had my strange birthday experience on the way here a few weeks ago. Used my ROP Gold birthday reduced mileage to book MEL-BKK-HKG-BKK-MEL business class on TG. Flew out of Melbourne on night of my birthday, nearly to arrival in BKK early next morning - the flight attendants and even one of the off-duty flight crew came up and sang a rather odd tune of Happy Birthday to me. Then presented me with:

1. a bottle of their best champagne

2. 3 packs of Thai playing cards

3. a comb

4. a toothbrush

5. 2 eye shades

and they even had the sense to seal it in a tamper-proof bag in case I was transiting (I wasnt).

Was rather embarrassing as all the other business class pax woke up when they started singing.

Thank goodness there wasn't a hottie with my name on a sign waiting with a bill when I disembarked.

This is nothing though compared to their 'Lucky Draw' promo in September 2003 - remember when they had the inflight lucky draw, around the post-SARS period?

Myself, 2 Japanese colleagues, and a mate from UK were business class from Yangon to Bangkok (and then on to Hong Kong), and entered the lucky draw.

They asked me (they picked any random passenger) to come back down to economy and make the draw in front of the entire economy class.

I obliged, and smiled like an idiot as I stuck my hand down into the plastic bag and drew out someone's filled in form, handed it to the attendant and staggered back through the curtains to get to my seat.

They had to call me back, as I had drawn my own entry! I tried to tell them to draw it again, but they said the rules stated first correct entry drawn, and wouldnt budge.

Got a free return ticket, same class, same route. HAHAHAHA

Welcome back SVB, long time no see

Nice story, tho. I never win anything

[jingjoe]

Oh my!! I work for an airline in reservations and if we, a large full-service carrier, make a boo-boo with fair BEFORE travel and BEFORE ticketing occurs, then we call and ask the passenger if it's ok to take extra from their card. If they say no, then we have no choice but to suck it up and it goes on the centre's charge card.

Some of you may be unaware, that with workers rights such as they are in LOS, these type of errors are NOT "worn" by the company/airline/hotel etc.

These short falls will come out of an employees pocket, not anyone up high that might be able to wear a 500-5000 THB deduction in salary, but instead kicked ALL the way to the BOTTOM, and then deducted out of the lowest employee on the ladder's salary.

Slightly off-topic, but if the people who think they're clever by not paying their mini-bar or other extra hotel charges, think that they've had a win because the hotel will just wear it, think again... You've just robbed some poor bugga of 1, 2 , 3? days pay.

[SeaVisionBurma]

Welcome back SVB, long time no see

Nice story, tho. I never win anything

Thanks for the welcome back - it has been a LONG time, but nice to kill a few days in Bangkok sneaking around the forum.

Yeah, winning is extremes for me - I either win a lot of stuff in a short period of time, or have the worse luck ever, lose luggage, have flights delayed or cancelled etc - still, it keeps life exciting, eh?