Winter 2002, after one week vacation in London, time to pack our bag and return to our home sweet home. Heathrow Airport was busy as usual. People like us who went on “personal holiday trip” that was sponsored by owned pocket have to wait in long queue to check into economy class. I remember we were there quite early but the queue was just too long and too slow. When it came to our turn to check in, I could see the counter crew clicking very fast on her keyboard…. clicking….clicking… still clicking. Finally, she stopped and looked at us, “I have bad news and good news for you.” She continued, “The bad news is, the plane is fully booked.” She paused, “And the good news is I found you two seats in business class. However, two of you won’t be sitting together. Would you mind sitting separately?” We looked at each other with smiley face, replied simultaneously, “OF COURSE NOT!!” Smiling from ear to ear, we boarded the plane with business class VIP service (got satay to eat some more… heehee) and went home happily :).
So, we learned the trick after that. It’s very common that airlines overbooked their flights. For passengers who check in late, most likely they will be upgraded to business class or some first class or even compensation if there is really no more seat.
To prove our theory right, we tried our luck during a trip from Sydney to KL together with our ex-housemate, Kelvin. We purposely delayed our check-in time at the airport. And you know what? Both of us were upgraded to business class again (ate satay again… heehee..) and Kelvin was upgraded to first class since he is an Enrich Gold member. We were smiling all the way back to Malaysia again :))).
Our third attempt was 2005 in Auckland airport. Again, we “planned” to check in late, we were taking our own sweet time walking to the check-in counter. The counter crew looked at us and her face turned black. She talked to us in a very serious tone, “YOU ARE LATE!! Here’s your boarding passes and the gate is closing. YOU BETTER RUN NOW!!” We could sense that was not a joke. We quickly took our passports and boarding passes and ran like nobody business!! To make thing worse, even though that was our second time to Auckland, we totally forgot that the check-in counter is damn freaking far from the gates. We ran and sweated like crazy, finally we could see the designated gate. A big size female crew (I thought all air-stewardess suppose to be beautiful??!) standing at the corridor shouted rudely, “RUN! RUN FASTER!! THE GATE IS CLOSING!” True enough, once we dashed on board, the crews shut the gate. We were the last to board the plane ;p. While we were walking to our seats, all the passengers were starring at us with “one kind” look, must be thinking, “What’s wrong with these two Chinese idiots? Made us wait for so long.” We timidly walked to our seats and dared not look up at all :p.
Haha!! Silly us, didn’t get upgraded but “kena” scolded, and some more almost missed our flight! Tough luck, no more next time :D We have not tasted “business class satay” since our Sydney trip. Argh…. I miss the satay… :(
10 comments:
Hahaha I will adapt this "technique" if I do travel!
check the airport map 1st before you do the trick ;D
I'll pretend that I'm a poor lost soul at the airport as a newbie traveller ;p
l will try that gain... hehe.. ;))
keep trying :D
haha... i will try it in London and Sydney next time but not Auckland :)
Yeah... don't scold me if you miss your flight ya :D
Oh no... and you came to visit me. In New Zealand, we are tough, and don't give in to 'cheaters' or pretence. ;-P You were lucky indeed to even catch the flight. But now you have kids, and if you are travelling with your kid, I bet you won't try that again; unless you can use your kid to gain more sympathy. Oh my gosh...
By the way, I agree that we don't have the most beautiful air stewardesses in NZ.
haha... yeah Douglas, that was the trip. If we didn't manage to catch the flight, I think you'd have seen us return to your house and ask you to let us stay for one more night :D
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