More Drama With Air India :(
I swear – it seems like there will never be any resolution with Air India. I had purchased my tickets via CheapTickets.com for two round trip tickets from Orlando, Florida to Bangalore, India. The first bad run in with Air India occured right off the bat when I got charged for 4 airline tickets (of course I was only sent two tickets and only learned I was charged for two when I checked my credit card statement online). I contacted cheap tickets who contacted Air India and after a month there was still no resolution and no refund for the two additional tickets. So I finally contacted American Express and disputed the charges so they could resolve the issue. After another month I was finally refunded the money for the two additional tickets I was wrongfully charged for!
When I decided I would be extending my stay in India and then continue my travels from here, I checked the CheapTickets website to see about changing my tickets. The website said I could not do it online b/c I had already completed the first leg of my trip. So I contacted Cheap Tickets on the phone to change the tickets. Well they told me that I would have to go through Air India directly b/c I had already completed the first leg of my flight, and because they were paper tickets (However, Cheap Tickets had NO CONTACT number for me to contact Air India to handle this problem). So I looked around and found a contact number, called Air India, and they were so rude and useless to me….The lady gave me a number, and when I called that number I was given another number. This occured a few times until I reached another rude individual who said that it was not possible to change these tickets online or on the phone – she said I had to go to the nearest Air India ticket counter to change these tickets – and the nearest ticket counter was in Bangalore -4 1/2 hours away. Ok, so feeling like this was my only option, Linda, Kwang, and I drove to Bangalore a few weeks ago. We finally get there about 6:30pm to find out the Air India ticket counter doesn’t open until 10:30pm. We wait and wait and when we finally speak to someone he is able to cancel our tickets for us but unable to rebook to Bangkok, Thailand for us (so he said – BS RIGHT?). He told us we had to go through a travel agent to re-book these tickets. So we went home! In the last week we have been to four travel agents. The first three “just couldn’t help us”; and finally we asked Shiva to help direct us to someone who could. He sent us to a friendly travel agent – but she too could not help. We went there and told her the situtation, she said to come back tomorrow. We did and she then said she needed to send our paper ticekts to the Air India office to rebook our flight – so we gave them to her (she told us to come back in a few days). We went back today and she said Air India told her they could not refund us or allow us to use the credits towards another booking, which was bs b/c it’s written on Cheaptickets website that we can change that ticket – and the officers at the Air India ticket counter in Bangalore told us we could use those credits, but THEY could not rebook for us. So we called Cheap Tickets back, after printing up THEIR OWN fine print that says we can change our ticket minus the cancellation fee and any other fees that apply….After over an hour on the phone with them and the US branch of Air India on threeway – STILL NO RESOLUTION.
We are to call cheap tickets and the Bangalore Air India office at 9:30am tomorrow. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS??? I sure can’t. All I can say to anyone reading this blog – PLEASE LEARN FROM MY EXPERIENCE: DONT’ USE CHEAP TICKETS AND DON’T FLY AIR INDIA! -There are tons of other airlines that fly to India – and there are tons of other discount airfair services on the web – use one of the many out there – but avoid cheaptickets and STAY FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR AWAY FROM AIR INDIA. _________________________________________
Aside from all this drama the day was quite nice! My practice this morning was wonderful; the walk Kwang and I took was awesome – got some really great pictures of kids around the city! I gotta say it is really quite sad sometimes to see the way many people live here – and it really hits home when you see tiny little malnurished children walking around dirty, unsafe areas of town with little to no clothing.
When we returned from our walk I made a mean omelete with tofu, onions, cabbage, bell peppers, and okra (may sound a little strange to some, but I’m telling ya you gotta try it). I then spent a few hours working on a ton of different stuff online! Got a lot of work done but never seems to be enough time to get everything I plan to accomplish in one day. Around 2:30pm we headed out to do the trillion errands we had to take care of for the day! We got most of them done – I took care of some faxes I needed to send off, went to the post office to mail out some letters, went to the bookstore and got some notebooks needed for our Sanskrit classes, we dropped our laundry off to be cleaned, went to the grocery store to get food ’cause our fridge was looking really bare, and we went to the travel agent to get our very disappointing news. Once we got home we went to Anu’s to make the phone call to CheapTickets.com and spent over an hour dealing with them. When we finally got home I had cereal for dinner as I was just too tired to cook anything. It was a long, but very productive day – and aside from the very long drawn out dealings to change our plane tickets – today was a great day!
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