Randomness! I’m going to a holiday destination within Malaysia next month, and as always, I choose Air Asia because I *think* it’s going to be the cheapest deal that I can get. Since this trip is going to be a bit special (will say why later!), I didn’t mind when Tron asked me to ensure that we have meals on the plane, that we get to choose our seats (lol), etc. The end cost was about RM650. Was a bit peeved at all the additional charges that I either didn’t notice before on Air Asia, or they are truly new. Stuff like having to pay extra $ if we do not do a self-check in. Paying extra RM20 if I choose to pay with credit card instead of a direct debit. What the.. credit card points also don’t want to let me earn ah!
Still, since I thought I was getting a good deal with Air Asia, I proceeded to do a direct debit instead. Then … I realised that when I clicked on the pop-up to pay… the amount shown was less than the total amount at the check-out earlier. No matter whether I chose to do a direct debit with CIMB, PBB or whatever (yes, got a few different accounts, wtf), it always deducted the same amount once I had click the pop-up to pay. Doing some basic math, I found out that the amount deducted was from choosing the seats. If I went back to choose my seats again, it would give me another error :
At this point, you might think – it’s fated. Just don’t select the damn seats. But as mentioned, this trip is going to be something special, so I WANTED the damn seats. -_-” What if we end up seated damn far from each other? My colleague later told me that you can just be kiasu and rush up the plane and randomly sit together, as long as it is not on the “hot seats”. I don’t think this is possible because I see that the seat selections can be booked for ANY seat on the plane, not just the hot seats (hot seats have to pay extra)… so it’s possible that you are kiasu, go up and grab a seat… and then someone says you are sitting at their place, and you have to bugger off somewhere else. I think you are randomly assigned a seat by the airline and it’s just your luck if you get to sit together! That’s why the airline charges you a “small” fee to “keep your travel party together”. Hmph!
I decided to contact them, but hesitated to contribute to their PREMIUM contact line. Last time I had to pay RM20 just to clarify something. Sigh. Their online “live chat” was also down — so looks like it’s not a 24/7 kind of thing. Finally, I decided to just email them as they said they will get back to me within 5 working days. I emailed them on February 5… the booking was not that urgent, so I thought I could wait… but they showed their sincerity by only contacting me TODAY. Gee. And guess what they said? Urged me to use Internet Explorer, which is one browser I will not use on my own personal laptop! Ban ban ban and hate it when websites (especially government websites!) are designed to only support IE!
How many people nowadays still use IE as their default browser? Grr… why can’t you make your app work on Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera etc etc. Anyway, I’ve successfully made booking for AA and picked seats using Firefox browser lo…
Oh, I also don’t appreciate them addressing me as “MR”. Hello, my name is so feminine! I have not met a GUY with the same name as me before. When in doubt, you have my account details. Or just drop the salutation…
In the end, I didn’t bother, cos after the 5 days I still didn’t get a reply back, I decided to book with MAS instead. Without all the hidden costs, MAS was surprisingly only RM40 more expensive than Air Asia. And I didn’t have to pay extra for my luggage, meals, check-in, extra surchage when pay by credit card, fuel surcharge (or whatever it is that Air Asia lists it as that suddenly increases RM100-RM200 to your amount). Ok, I have to admit that if you cut out the luggage, food, seat choosing, if you decide to fly in the weeeee hours of the morning (and ultimately pay the difference in cab fare surcharges) you will save more with Air Asia. But I already mentioned this is special case, right? So in conclusion, if you want to travel WITH frills, then don’t go with AA. If you want to be so frilly, then MAS is seriously not as expensive as you think it would / could be.
In case you’re wondering why I didn’t go with Fireflyz, it’s because my boyfriend is paranoid about the airlines ever since we took it to Lang Tengah. Hahaha!! Cos he doesn’t trust the small planes they use to fly domestic …. hahahaha….
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