Help Required... Urgent!

[perkie173]

Hi guys

Huge problem. Me and my husband are currently in Vietnam on a visa run holiday. We are due to fly back to Bangkok tomorrow morning at 7.45am and 30minutes ago I received a text message from AirAsia to say the flight has been cancelled, sorry for any inconvenience. Well its a fricking huge inconvenience as we have to re-enter Thailand before the 22nd May to receive the last 3 months on our non immigrant O Visas. They sent me a phone number to call but say there working hours are 8am to 9pm and we are supposed to be on the plane by then. I have looked online for similar stories as the AirAsia site says nothing that I can find to do with cancelled flights and it seems people have been forced into paying for a later flight on the same day at almost triple the price and not offered a refund or any credit for this flight. We are also meant to be flying back to Koh Samui (flight booked for 7.45pm tomorrow night) and so this flight is going to be wasted as well (The only other flight available tomorrow on their website does not get into BKK until 7.25pm). Please please can someone tell us what to do, we are sat in our hotel room in Saigon now completely panicking. Please help somebody please!

Laura and Wes

[perkie173]

I'm not sure why this topic has been moved as it is travel related but please can anyone help? Has anyone flown AirAsia before and had a similar problem, what did you do?

[bazmlb]

Move to Visas as the part of the OP's problem is "as we have to re-enter Thailand before the 22nd May to receive the last 3 months on our non immigrant O Visas"

I suggest the visa mods would say to go to the thai consulate or embassy with the details and they will be able to sort out an extension for the entry permit.

Air Asia should be able to provide a re issued ticket for a later flight for the canceled flight, I am not sure about Bangkok Airways connecting to Koh Samui, but I would suggest they may be able to change the ticket depending on the class of ticket, if it is a discount fare the flight may be lost, do you have travel insurance? This should cover any re booking of flights lost because of canceled flights.

[THAILIBAN]

Try to call their callcenter in the UK or in Australia, which - according to AirAsia's website - is operating 24 hrs a day.

But bnot sure if they can be of much help (but who knows, maybe the call center is actually based in India or the Philippines).

UK number: 0845 605 3333

OZ number: 1300760330

you will have to add the country code of course (44 for the UK, 61 for OZ).

no idea if these are special service numbers which can maybe not reached from other countries. but may be worth a try.

where are you anyway ? in HCMC or Hanoi ?

well, the 22nd is still a few days to go anyway.....

If your flight to Samui is on Bangkok Air, you should be able to change the date. that's usually not a problem with Bangkok Air, particularly as they don't have those non-rebookable Super-cheapo-fares to Samui. phone +66-2-2706699.

take the evening flight on AirAsia tomorrow, then try to change your flight to Samui to late evening, there are flights operating almost until midnight....

In my opinion, no need to panic too much.....

[dcychan]

I'm not sure why this topic has been moved as it is travel related but please can anyone help? Has anyone flown AirAsia before and had a similar problem, what did you do?

Sorry to tell you that Air Asia's is a low cost carrier that is why the fare is so low with alot of restrictions.

You have no choice but to take the flight to Samui since you are already booked. Please note that the

Thai Govt declared public holidays 19-21 May for whole of BKK, this means immigration office will be closed

and you will have to wait till 24 May Monday to get your visa done.

Regret unable to be of any assistance. Further information is BKK and 20 other provinces

are on curfew from 8pm tonight 19/5 till 6am 20/5.

[perkie173]

Try to call their callcenter in the UK or in Australia, which - according to AirAsia's website - is operating 24 hrs a day.

But bnot sure if they can be of much help (but who knows, maybe the call center is actually based in India or the Philippines).

UK number: 0845 605 3333

OZ number: 1300760330

you will have to add the country code of course (44 for the UK, 61 for OZ).

no idea if these are special service numbers which can maybe not reached from other countries. but may be worth a try.

where are you anyway ? in HCMC or Hanoi ?

well, the 22nd is still a few days to go anyway.....

If your flight to Samui is on Bangkok Air, you should be able to change the date. that's usually not a problem with Bangkok Air, particularly as they don't have those non-rebookable Super-cheapo-fares to Samui. phone +66-2-2706699.

take the evening flight on AirAsia tomorrow, then try to change your flight to Samui to late evening, there are flights operating almost until midnight....

In my opinion, no need to panic too much.....

Thanks for your help, husband really doesn't want to risk travelling Air Asia and them cancelling the later flight too but I don't see that we have much choice as the Vietnamese Airlines flight is nearly £150 each. Bangkok airways are not open until tomorrow morning so will have to phone back then, fingers crossed they will change the flight. We booked through ebookers rather than through BKKair direct so do you think they will still be able to deal with our change of flight or will we need to phone ebookers instead? I am just worried that there will be a huge charge to change the flight as we are on a budget. Would you go to the airport in the morning for the planned flight or just stay where we are and try and rebook a flight?

I know Air Asia are a low cost airline but from reading the comments online this seems to be a common thing for them, very little notice, no information online and no refund or help for their customers. This seems really really bad even for a low cost airline. Thank you for everyone who is trying to help us we are in HCMC by the way.

Dcychan - we don't need to go to an immigration office. Normally we just get a 3month stamp when we re-enter the country which is normally done at the airport. We just need to try and get to Bangkok in the next 2 days as cheaply as possible and sort around changing our ongoing flights. This is so stressful and last minute too - I should be in bed by now lol.

[My Friend Same]

Yeah I think this is a case of wrong place wrong time. I think you'll just need to do as you say and get cheapest tix to samui when you can, then get your 30 day stamp if after your deadline.

[shadiadi]

i had the same problem in phuket when the yellow shirts closed the airport there go to their office do not take no for an answer if they cancelled the flight it is probably because there are not enough bookings for flight demand they get you as near as possible phuket if need be, if not to kualar lumpar then phuket they have to help you they took your money already iis their problem, from phuket it is about 3 1/2 hours by bus to the koh samui ferry, but do not take no for an answer

Edited May 19, 2010 by shadiadi

[cpofc]

happened to me with Air Asia going from BKK to Penang. I remonstrated, stongly, so they put me on the next flight to KL, then, from there to penang.

[perkie173]

i had the same problem in phuket when the yellow shirts closed the airport there go to their office do not take no for an answer if they cancelled the flight it is probably because there are not enough bookings for flight demand they get you as near as possible phuket if need be, if not to kualar lumpar then phuket they have to help you they took your money already iis their problem, from phuket it is about 3 1/2 hours by bus to the koh samui ferry, but do not take no for an answer

Will do exactly as you say tomorrow and will let you know how we get on. Fingers crossed!

[THAILIBAN]

i had the same problem in phuket when the yellow shirts closed the airport there go to their office do not take no for an answer if they cancelled the flight it is probably because there are not enough bookings for flight demand they get you as near as possible phuket if need be, if not to kualar lumpar then phuket they have to help you they took your money already iis their problem, from phuket it is about 3 1/2 hours by bus to the koh samui ferry, but do not take no for an answer

Will do exactly as you say tomorrow and will let you know how we get on. Fingers crossed!

actually no need to go to the airport in the morning when the flight is cancelled. probably there won't be anyone from AirAsia in the morning to talk to you. Just call their hotline early in the morning and tell them to put u on the afternoon flight instead. then call BKK AIR and try to change the flight to a later time in the evening. it probably doesnt matter if u booked directly with them or with any agent, important is which booking class you got. the booking classes tell if there are amendments possible or not.....

after what happened in the past few days here in Bangkok, you can hardly blame AirAsia for cancelling one of their two flights. in the end, they need to earn money and particularly the THAI AIR ASIA already suffered a lot in the past 2 years from all the turmoil....

BTW, big airlines do they same: they just CANCEL a flight when there is not enough demand. I was flying from KUL to Shanghai last year on Malaysian, only to be told a few days before that the booked flight would be cancelled and I had to fly at midnight instead of 8 in the morning as planned..... how lovely.....

[THAILIBAN]

I'm not sure why this topic has been moved as it is travel related but please can anyone help? Has anyone flown AirAsia before and had a similar problem, what did you do?

now you know the reason why your flight was cancelled:

ALL AirAsia flights departing BKK before 9.00 a.m. are cancelled ! Check-in counters open at 7.00 a.m.

which makes sense somehow as ground staff and crew have no chance to get to the airport early enough during the curfew.

same thing might happen again tomorrow.....

[CNXSTEVE]

You could take the bus to Pnom Penh %10, visa to Cambodia $20. then the bus or plane to thailand

[perkie173]

Hey just to give an update, we are at the airport now. AirAsia's attitude was simply tough luck and they would not even put us on their later flight as they said they were fully booked. We had to fork out £130 each for a one way flight to Bangkok with Vietnamese Airlines in order to get back in time for a visa and also to make the flight from Bangkok to Samui (1 hour between flights, hopefully long enough). I will never fly airasia again, a simple holiday has turned into an expensive stressful time.

[kevbap]

Hey just to give an update, we are at the airport now. AirAsia's attitude was simply tough luck and they would not even put us on their later flight as they said they were fully booked. We had to fork out £130 each for a one way flight to Bangkok with Vietnamese Airlines in order to get back in time for a visa and also to make the flight from Bangkok to Samui (1 hour between flights, hopefully long enough). I will never fly airasia again, a simple holiday has turned into an expensive stressful time.

sorry to hear your problems....i really think you should put this on the airasia facebook page, as they make out they are a caring airline!!!

no one wants bad publicity!