Blessing in disguise…

Sometime ago, my daughter told me that they were asked to choose whether they would want to come back on the 11th or the 26th of November…and she chose the latter as she wanted to stay on a bit longer to enjoy New Zealand before returning here for good. Of course, I had no objection to that.

They were also informed that they would book the air tickets for everyone to fly back to their respective stations, not just to KLIA. In other words, my girl would get tickets to fly all the way from Wellington until she reached Sibu. Well, knowing how the people up there work, I did not get my hopes up too high…and told Melissa to just wait and see and I would see to things when the time came. True enough, in the end, they only booked the flight tickets for them up to KLIA only…and I was not in the least surprised.

Then, the itineraries arrived last week, trickling in one by one – a few for those leaving on the 11th and one got his – flying on the 24th night to Auckland…and after midnight, to KLIA arriving at 7.25 a.m. the next morning (25th). I assumed that my daughter would be on those same flights so I quickly booked my ticket to KL on the 24th to meet her on the morning of the 25th and fly home together that same evening, never mind that we would have to wait the whole day at the airport.

Later that day, my daughter told me that her itinerary had arrived so she forwarded me a copy and I duly downloaded and printed it. Trouble arose the next day when I was going through all the documents that I had printed out to highlight the dates, times, flight numbers and all for my flight to KL, our flights back to Sibu as well as Melissa’s flights from NZ to KL. To my horror, I found that she would actually be flying 25th night, arriving 26th morning – now how would we be able to fly back to Sibu on the night flight on the 25th when Melissa had not even left New Zealand yet at that point in time?

I contacted her and she checked and true enough, her dates were different from those who got their itineraries a day earlier…and she asked around and found that her friends’ were like hers too and they too never realised it…and some of those supposed to fly on the 11th found out that they would be leaving on the 12th instead.

I had no choice but to go to the MAS…

*recycled pic*

…office in Sibu to change the dates. One funny thing was when I made the booking online, everything went well – I received their confirmation notice…and when I checked my e-mail, I only got the insurance policy. The airline had not emailed my my itinerary. In the past, I would get both simultaneously and almost instantly.

At the office, there was a very nice Ms Wee (No, we’re not related!) who attended to me and she could not locate my booking at all in her system!!! She called KL…and they confirmed that everything had been charged and payment had been accepted but MY DAUGHTER’S AND MY NAME WERE ON THE WAITING LIST!!! I could hear that Ms Wee was quite annoyed with them and she reprimanded, “If their seats were not confirmed, then why did you accept payment and charge the passenger?” Then, she went on to request for the change in the dates of flying that I wanted – from the 25th to the 26th.

The people in KL took a long time to sort things out and eventually, they informed us that the KLIA-Sibu flight was full but they could put me and my daughter on a KLIA-Kuching flight, connecting another flight from Kuching to Sibu at no extra charge despite these flights being much more expensive. Other than that, we would arrive in Sibu around 5 something in the evening…and not at around 9.00 p.m. had we taken the direct flight – now operated by that airline named after an insect. MAS does not ply direct between KLIA and Sibu at the moment…PLUS I would not be charged for changing the dates – usually, passengers would have to pay RM50.00 for rescheduling or re-routing…and double that for cancellations.

So all’s well that ends well…and that indeed was a blessing in disguise. Imagine Melissa and I going to board the flight on the 25th and being told that our names were not on the confirmed list! Incidentally, the flights between here and KLIA are very heavily-booked and most of them are already full as it will be the holiday season then…and many people are flying over and beyond on their year-end vacations.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed right now in the hope that nothing else would crop up between now and then. There is just so much that this old heart can take… Tsk! Tsk!