Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Honeymoon Travel From Hell - Part 3

So... if you are new to the blog, or need a refresher, you can find Post #1 here, and then Post #2 here.

The way it was supposed to be:
- Plane #1 Toronto - Heathrow, London, England (Day 1)
- Plane #2 Heathrow - Columbo, Sri Lanka (Day 1-2)
- Plane #3 Columbo, Sri Lanka - Male, Maldives (Day 2)
- Plane #4 Male, Maldives - Maldivian Resort (sea plane ride) (Day 2)

We arrived at Heathrow in London on AC848 (Plane #1, but not actually the plane we were supposed to be on), hungry and having slept a few hours of that light-annoying-I-can-still-hear-the-people-around-me kind of way. I think it was 8:25am in London, but who are we kidding? My body knew it was really 3:25am REALITY (Ontario) TIME.

I was exhausted, and we had yet to figure out what, if any connections we had ahead of us, and which flights we had to try to book then and there in Heathrow.

We took the very, very long walk to the train to get from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4 (where the Sri Lankan air desk was located). After a 13 minute wait for the train to arrive, we trained it for 11 minutes to Terminal 3, where, at the Sri Lankan desk, there was not a soul to be found.

We had never considered that flights with a hub in Columbo, Sri Lanka, might not typically depart around 8am. F_ck. So, no help there.

We tried calling Canadian 800 numbers for assistance. Those bitches were sleeping at 3am, yo.
We tried calling some effed up numbers in Sri Lanka, and we couldn't get any of the calls to work, no matter the country code options.

When we got one to work, the person couldn't understand a goddamn word we said.

We tried the useless as f_ck airport information desk, who also tried dialling the same calls, with the same results. She then advised us to come back about an hour before the next Sri Lankan Air flight was set to depart.

"When would that be?" we asked, trying to be polite, feeling cranky as hell, and hoping the response would be in the range of "now" to "soon".

"Well, I don't know, check the boards" she grunted.

If any of you have ever been in an airport, you might notice they have a shit-ton of flights coming and going. And due to that fact, they only show outbound flights over the course of the next few hours on the monitors.

There was not a single Sri Lankan flight.

We took the long, long trek back down to the train, and returned (via an 11 minute train ride, while hauling our luggage) to Terminal 3. Why? Because there was a Star Alliance "arrivals" lounge, thank the gods, so we could access the bloody internet and attempt to figure out what was going on.

In the Star Alliance Arrivals Lounge:

In all fairness, the British women at the Air Canada Arrivals Lounge were absolutely kind and helpful. They helped us find alternate contact numbers for Sri Lankan Air, and were patient with us when The New Husband AKA the Former Feyoncé™ had to use their phone for TWO HOURS to try to get us on Sri Lankan air flights that would get us into Male, Maldives, you know, IDEALLY BEFORE THE END of our honeymoon.

They told us that our entire itinerary was visible on screen to Air Canada agents, including the flights that never connected. Turns out the assholes back in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at Pearson airport just didn't want to take the time to help us out, explain there was a problem, and prevent the mass confusion we endured over the next 20+ hours while trying to rebook.

I ate some wheat and some dairy out of desperation. I had a can of coke. It was about 6am Canada time.

We tried calling our insurance policy, purchased through Expedia.ca, to find out if they would reimburse costs to us for the rebookings. Their response?

"NONE OF IT IS COVERED."

What about the night we are missing at our non-refundable, pre-paid, expensive fancy-pants honeymoon resort in the Maldives?

"NOTHING PRE-PAID IS INCLUDED. See the limitations and exclusion clause at the end of your policy."

WHAT THE F_CK!?!??! We had both reviewed the travel insurance policy, purchased through Expedia.ca and provided by Mondial Assistance, but lo and behold we had missed this imperative clause below:

Um, kind of defeats the point, doesn't it?

So then The New Husband AKA the Former Feyoncé™ tried calling his out of country travel insurance through his work to ask for help.Guess what the person's response was on the phone?

"Didn't you just call me about this? I already told you it's not covered".

NO.WORD.OF.A.F_CKING.LIE.
SAME.FREAKIN'.GUY

Turns out his work coverage is completely identical to the shitty Expedia travel insurance plan, right down to the ONE GUY who answers the phone in the early morn, somewhere in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Unless your travelling companion dies, or some crazy-ass weird shit goes down, or one of you loses a limb under certain conditions only, expect nothing from MONDIAL ASSISTANCE.

It gets confusing here, and I have probably already lost most of you, but the bottom line is that after the The New Husband AKA the Former Feyoncé™ spent hours on the phone in the lounge, and after Sri Lankan hung up on him twice, we were put on a flight departing Heathrow to go to Columbo (Sri Lanka) 3.5 hours later than planned.  This was NOT our final stop, remember, and we had two more connecting flights.

With this new set-up, we were set to take plane #2 and ARRIVE in Sri Lanka at 1:00pm the following day.

The problem?

Despite all our calls and efforts, the next leg of our journey, AKA plane #3, AKA our "connecting" flight, DEPARTED the following day at 11:20am for Male.

See the problem there?

Seems that Sri Lankan Air has not yet grasped the definition of "connecting flight".



We were booked on an impossible connection, unless of course someone had purchased us those time-travelling spacesuits from our wedding registry last minute.

Turns out no one did.

Sadly, the arrivals lounge had to close at 1:00pm, and kick our tired, sorry asses out.
Remember now, we've been awake for about 24 hours at this point. We couldn't check our luggage because there was no one at the counter of our next, uncertain flight.

So we began the 4 hour wait before the Sri Lankan air counter opened up, to find out if the idiots on the phone had actually at least booked us some way to get to destination #2 out of 4.

And there's more....

_____________

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10 comments:

  1. mein gott!! ive had similar experiences before, but yours kinda takes the cake...if there is good to come out of this it is knowing that you have imparted valuable knowledge to me and others cos next time i up and go flitting round the world, those three agencies are blackballed by me...sweet lapdancing jesus you done it tough

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  2. Apparently, they expected you to purchase a time turner in the Skymall on the first flight. Of COURSE.

    But holy shit.

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  3. I feel like a total douche-canoe for laughing at your misfortune, so PLEASE FORGIVE ME, but you tell a story like no other.

    my thoughts and prayers however are with the insurance company staff who (DESERVINGLY I MIGHT ADD) will most definitely succumb to very painful deaths. Oh, and Expedia. And maybe the help desk peoples too? I am sure there are more that I am missing

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  4. dear mother of god I so know this pain!!
    Your words have made my shoulder muscles involuntarily bunch up into my eyebrows and my head start to feel like it is going to do the fucked-up-air-travel-explode!

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  5. @Dan - I seriously hope it helps you. All of them can screw up, but I see now that you get what you pay for... AND THEN SOME.

    @Leauxra - THAT'S where we went wrong! No Skymall catalogue on the outbound Air Canada/Lufthansa flight, dammit!

    @Carmen - One of the only thoughts that got me through the hassle was hoping for a good story to tell when we got back. So, you just made me feel better for it. :) Oh, and hotels.ca, but that is in the next installment.

    @Possum - HI there! I take it you travel on Sri Lankan (or any) airline? lol. Sorry, didn't mean to induce those symptoms. I just had to share how "fun" it was to get to Paradise. ;)

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  6. I can't take it any more! Please, please finish this story. I must know what happens. And how many people died when you got a hold of the people that screwed you over.

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  7. I seriously am sorry for laughing. I so cannot believe you two had to go through this bullshit. I just have such a hard time believing (at the same time knowing it's all true because no one could make this shit up) that Expedia and it's insurance (and subsequently your Hubby's travel insurance) and damned airlines can't or won't help you because they are the world's biggest fuckshits (pardon my language). I will give props to the nice people at Air Canada in some random international airport for being nice and actually assisting you.

    This just makes me so glad I work on a ranch because I'm pretty sure I will never fly again. Unless I'm on the run. Like, if Michelle Bachmann magically becomes President.

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  8. Im speechless. This is more drama than the final episode of "Amazing Race"
    You poor thing. Please tell me that you do get that cocktail soon

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  9. Wow. This is the biggest cluster I've read about in a long time. What a nightmare!

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  10. @Fearless Fibro Warrior - The death toll is still rising. I promise to finish the story soon... but I just downloaded random photos from my phone and have a plethora of stupid shit to blog about!

    @J. Day - Yeah, that is why the blog is titled what it is. Shit like this happens to me ALL.THE.TIME... you just shake your head because it's like "WTF??". If Michelle Bachman becomes president, this little debacle will be small beans. We'll all have to head to the Maldives.

    @Mynx - The cocktail is still another 23 hours away or so. For real.

    @On My Soapbox - It was a true test of our love, and how many times I could try to NOT cry and FAIL MISERABLY.

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