Posted by Seth on October 22, 2011 under Trip Reports | 
I’ve been working lately on cobbling together a rather ridiculous series of flights for our winter vacation this year. The plan is mostly South Asia, focusing on the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka, plus a quick stop in Bangkok on the way home. At least that’s the theory.
Initially I booked the trip using points for award travel round-trip between New York City and India. Since then the itinerary has morphed a bit so I’ll be changing things up (thank goodness for free award changes as an elite!) but I actually need to get a couple of the tickets purchased in order to make those changes, just in case. And it is proving incredibly difficult to buy at least one of the tickets.
If you had asked me a month ago, before I started all of this, I would have bet that the ticket on Sri Lankan would have been the hard one to acquire. I would have lost that bet. The transaction with them was smooth as could be, handled fully online and it was only a couple days later that American Express called to make sure that I really was buying a couple one way flights from Colombo to Bangkok in early January. It wasn’t even a big enough risk for them to call immediately.
Buying the flight from Bangkok to JFK on EgyptAir, however, is proving to be a ridiculous mess. I started with their website which looks pretty slick, at least for the flight selection search bits. It showed the fare I had seen otherwise online (about $150 less for each ticket than any other channel) and I went through the long process of entering in all our personal data to book the flight. At the final payment screen, however, the transaction was denied. Repeatedly.
My first call was to Visa to make sure my card was OK. It wasn’t, but they cleared that up. Waiting two hours didn’t help; still denied. Another 24 hours later and still denied. Even more strange, however, was that the credit card company didn’t even show the most recent transactions. It is as if EgyptAir never even tried to authorize the card; they just rejected the transaction. It took a couple calls but eventually I got in touch with someone in the EgyptAir ticketing office in New York to try to process the transaction. The first agent saw the reservation and the price I was quoted online. She transferred me to another agent to handle the transaction who promptly informed me that the fare was $300 higher. Ugggh.
So long as I was not going to get the discounted fare I figured I’d try to get some other value for the transaction. American Express offers bonus Membership Rewards points for travel booked through their portal so why not give that a go, right? Apparently their system is not robust enough to handle selling a one-way ticket in business class from Bangkok to New York City:
That’s is simply ludicrous, especially considering that probably a dozen airlines or more offer service on that route with a single connection.
And so I’m essentially left with a bevy of third party online travel agencies through which I can try to book the flight, but now I’m faced with wading through their differing fares and service fees to find the right price. Plus I’m stuck with dealing with one of them for service going forward rather than dealing with the airline directly. What a mess.
It shouldn’t be this complicated to spend money on a plane ticket.
Tags: American Express, Bangkok, Egypt, EgyptAir, India, internet, Membership Rewards, New York City, NYE2011, Sri Lanka, Thailand
Posted by Seth on March 15, 2011 under Trip Reports |
If you’ve traveled the twenty-odd hours on an airplane from New York City to make it all the way to Mauritius, odds are you’re going to stay for more than 24 hours. Then again, odds are you are not me, so you’ve got that going for you as well. I made the long trip across the Atlantic, across Africa and then across the Indian Ocean and eventually found myself on the ground in Mauritius for a scheduled 24 hour stay. It wasn’t a ton of time, but we absolutely made the most of it and had a blast doing so.
The inbound flight from Johannesburg was uneventful and rather empty. I even managed to squeeze in a nap between the meal and the drinks. This was useful as the jetlag was starting to kick in. On arrival we cleared immigration reasonably quickly and I learned that I had booked the rental car for the wrong day. Whoopsie. Fortunately they had cars available so that was quickly resolved and we headed out of the airport and across the island towards the hotel. It was time for a beer and a dip in the ocean at the Le Meridien Ile Maurice as we watched the sun set.
The hotel was fine, I suppose, if you’re into the isolated beach resort sort of thing. The upgraded room was nice and we were in the section of the resort that was kid-free so that helped a bit, but there was also not really much going on, particularly if you weren’t a couple. When faced with the prospect of a $60 buffet dinner we quickly realized that it was time to get out of there and to see a bit of the island.
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Posted by Seth on December 30, 2010 under Trip Reports |
Little did I know that, on the eve of our great North Africa adventure, our decision to screen Casablanca would be the inspiration for one of the reports from the trip. Sadly, however, it has come to pass that we are stranded in Casablanca, awaiting exit papers to Tunisia. Really it is more like we are awaiting the next flight but it feels the same: nothing we can do and nothing more the airline will do. And so we wait.
In our case the situation was a pretty simple yet rather egregious snafu on the part of Royal Air Maroc. The morning started reasonably enough. Some minor confusion upon checkout from the Riad regarding the bill but those details were quickly resolved and we quickly made our way to the airport. A line here, a line there and next thing we knew we were in the international terminal for our domestic flight from Marrakesh to Casablanca. The flight continues to London and I guess no one ever takes just the domestic portion. Either way, we were in the international transit area awaiting our flight amongst the hordes boarding Ryanair and easyJet flights to the Continent.
At the posted boarding time no gate assignment on the departure screens nor any update to the flight status. A full 20 minutes later – only 20 minutes to departure now – still nothing posted. I wandered over to the lounge (small but clean and decently stocked) and asked the agent there what was going on. Not to worry, she assured me, as the inbound was only delayed a little bit and the flight would leave soon. She was right. We were only about 10 minutes late pushing back and made it to Casablanca with 60 minutes to make the connection over to the second flight of the day.
Then things got ugly.
None of the departures screens in the terminal had any details about our flight. Through some dumb luck we happened across a wholly different set of monitors that indicated that departures to five countries, including ours, should proceed to a specific gate. We headed down to the gate, now about 40 minutes prior to departure to discover a desolate area. We were the only passengers there. Not good at all. There was a gate agent off in the corner flirting with a police officer. She seemed to suggest that it was fine, that we’d be fine and that she’d call a bus to take us to the gate. Ruh-roh.
Twenty minutes prior to departure we’re still waiting for the aforementioned bus to appear. By now we’ve been joined by three other passengers, two of whom were also headed to Tunis. I ask again about the bus, noting that it is very close to departure and that I am quite worried we won’t make the flight. Eventually a bus shows up and the five of us scurry aboard. And wait – and wait – and wait. Precious minutes tick away before we finally start rolling to transfer to the other terminal.
The bus drops us of about 150 feet from an aircraft, the one that happens to be bound for Tunis. Unfortunately, we aren’t going to head directly on board. Instead we have to go into another transit area in the new terminal. As we enter there is an agent inside who come out, calling for the Tunis passengers to hurry so that we can make our flight. We hurry, as instructed, only to get to the gates about 60 seconds later and watch as the other gate agents laugh at us and the plane rolls away. We’re now officially screwed.
At this point the four of us who have missed the flight become allies. It was of great help considering my limited French skills. A cacophony of French, Arabic and English overwhelms one agent after another. How to get help? “Nothing we can do for you here.” We head back to the original terminal where we visit the transit desk. “Nothing we can do for you here.”
So we immigrate. Again. In our case, because we never really left Morocco they actually just annulled our exit stamps and gave us additional entry stamps. Then the search for useful help continued.
No one was willing to help and few were willing to point us in the correct direction to even see help. Ultimately, whether by design or just dumb luck, we ended up in what I believe was the Royal Air Maroc Station Manager’s office. Even he wasn’t all that interested in lending assistance until we started to pull out chairs and make ourselves comfortable in his office.
Eventually we did get help. A guy took our boarding passes, wandered off for an hour or so and eventually came back with passes for the early flight tomorrow. They took us to retrieve our bags, only one of which was located.
They provided us with hotel and food vouchers at a pretty dingy airport hotel where the lunch offerings were pretty bad and the restaurant itself had not a single clean table. Needless to say we ended up buying our own meal at the other restaurant in the hotel to avoid that mess. There’s a cute little bar that is dingy, smoke-filled and over-priced, but the value of a wee bit of alcohol at this point is not to be underestimated. The WiFi doesn’t work and the room is pretty dingy though the sheets appear to be clean.
And it only took us about 3 hours to get all that sorted out.
Suffice it to say, I’m not really all that impressed with Royal Air Maroc. Or maybe it is me. We had similar troubles last year on our trip between Egypt and Barcelona for New Year’s Eve then.
Read more of my Marrakesh adventures here!
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Tags: Africa, Barcelona, Egypt, Flying, London, Marrakesh, Morocco, NYE2010, Photos, Royal Air Maroc, Trip Report, Tunisia
Posted by Seth on June 24, 2010 under Trip Reports |
I travel a decent amount, but apparently not particularly broadly. I thought my list of 40+ countries visited so far was pretty decent but with my most recent booking I’m also realizing that perhaps I’ve visited as many as I have because they have been relatively easy. And then along came a deal that I couldn’t say no to.
I needed to be in San Juan, Puerto Rico in mid-August. Airfare was running around $300ish round-trip. Not great but reasonable for the route. I was pretty close to booking that trip until I noticed that there was, perhaps, a similarly priced deal that would get me a ton more frequent flyer points. Instead of just flying to San Juan and back I’ll be flying in via San Francisco, Chicago, Brussels, Accra and Philadelphia.
Yeah, I’m going from New York City to Puerto Rico via Ghana.
This won’t be my first trip to Africa – I visited Egypt over Christmas last year – but it certainly will be the first trip into what I consider a “hard” country to visit. Among other things, the list of vaccinations required is pretty significant. Typhoid, Tetanus, Hepatitis A & B, Meningococcal Meningitis and – the big one – Yellow Fever. So on Tuesday I found myself hopping between clinics, getting vaccinated and giving blood to test antibody levels for some vaccines. I’m guessing that I’ll need a few more shots in a couple weeks when I get home, but the big one has been taken care of. I got my Yellow Fever vaccination and the certification card that will serve me for the next 10 years.
I’m not a huge fan of needles, but if this is what it takes for me to explore Ghana, Benin and Togo in August and other more adventurous destinations in the coming years, so be it. My obsession with travel is much, much stronger than my aversion to needles.
Tags: Accra, Belgium, Chicago, Egypt, Flying, frequent flyer, Ghana, New York, New York City, Philadelphia, points, Puerto Rico, San Francisco
Posted by Seth on January 25, 2010 under Trip Reports |
I’m that guy. I feel it is important to get that out of the way very early in this trip report. I’m the guy who went to Egypt and didn’t actually see the pyramids. I was given strict instructions by many, many people that I should see the pyramids. I did much research on how to best experience the pyramids given the short amount of time we had on the ground.
And then reality set in. We only had five nights on the ground and one of them started well after midnight. We would be diving for two full days so that was a decent chunk of the total time. And we had trouble with the flights as well. Around New Years the domestic flights are pretty full so that further restricted our options time-wise. Based on that – and a desire to have more than a few hours of time to actually see things – we were basically stuck. We could either do Luxor or Cairo and the pyramids. We chose Luxor over Cairo. That meant no pyramids, but we saw amazing temples, a pharaoh and an awesome collection of sphinx.
The ride in to Luxor from Hurghada was four hours through the middle of the desert. It is truly a beautiful and completely barren landscape. Rockier than I expected for a desert but absolutely stunning. And then we were on the edge of the Nile River. The transformation from desert to lush green is a stark change. It happens suddenly along both sides of the Nile. And it is amazing. You end up with views like this from the restaurant/pool area from the hotel:
The Temple at Luxor is simply awesome. Like many of the other ruins on display in Egypt it is hard to believe that they are thousands of years old. They look reasonably new. And they are wonderfully well lighted at night. The mosque in the middle is a relatively new addition to the site but the whole of the site is a wonderful walk-through.
On our one full day in Luxor we did the “standard” half day tour. A private car, including an English-speaking driver, was about $80 for us as arranged through the front desk of our hotel. That included visiting the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens and other temples. The admissions costs at the sites was easily another $75ish per person – lots more than I expected – but they were worth it for the most part.
The Valley of the Kings is a collection of tombs from a number of pharaohs who ruled about 3-4000 years ago. They decided to relocate their tombs farther south in Egypt, out in the middle of the desert, to avoid the typical looters of the pyramids. They found a site a few miles away from Luxor where there was a natural formation that resembles a pyramid – a sharp point at the top of the hill – and they excavated amazing caverns under the desert to hold their remains and possessions.
The number of tombs that are now uncovered and exposed to the public is quite impressive. The tomb of Ramses II is one of the more publicized bits of museum within the greater site. I do not think that it meets the expectations set by that publicity. It was the smallest of the three tombs we visited and the interior was rather unimpressive. Yes, there was a 3000+ year old corpse on display and that was pretty cool. And there is the hope that the money paid goes to the further maintenance and preservation of the site. But beyond that the tomb was really rather small, simple and notably less impressive than the other couple that we saw at the site.
After the Valley of the Kings it was on to the other side of the hill where the Temple of Hatshepsut sits. Hatshepsut was one of the more famous pharaohs, mostly because she was a woman, a rather rare bit in the lineage of ancient rulers in Egypt. And, for reasons that I cannot quite understand, that particular site is not excluded from photography like the Valleys of the Kings and Queens are. It is in just as good of shape as the others and it presents some amazing views of how the temples of the time were built. The hieroglyphic carvings are intricate and amazing.and are impressive even thousands of years later. But photos are permitted. I’m not complaining.
And then there are the Sphinx. Pluralize it how you wish. I like Sphinxen though I can understand where the term Sphinxes is more acceptable. Either way, there are tons of them throughout Egypt and they are quite impressive. Only recently was it discovered that there is a boulevard connecting the Temples of Luxor and Karnak, about two kilometers apart, and that the entire length of road is lined with sphinxen on both sides. Businesses and homes have been bought out using the Egyptian version of eminent domain laws and the path is being uncovered from end to end to put the sphinxen on display. The interruption to life is unfortunate but the history that they’ve been able to put on display is wonderful.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of these sphinxen on the road from Luxor to Karnak. And at either end is an amazing temple, thousands of years old and incredibly well preserved. Both are worth visiting but the site at Karnak is somewhat larger and truly amazing. Given no personal experience, if asked to describe an ancient Egyptian Temple the description given would almost certainly come very close to the reality that is the Temple at Karnak. The columns, the statues and the facades are iconic. And seeing them in person is not an experience that can be easily translated to words.
I can use the word awesome only so many times in a single post so I’ll let this be the last one:The Temple at Karnak is AWESOME. If it isn’t there already put it on your bucket list. It really is that impressive.
Following the visit to Karnak we headed back down to Luxor and settled in for a couple drinks, dinner and then heading off to the airport to start our overnight journey home. But that last afternoon and evening in Luxor gave us many wonderful discoveries. There were the couple amazing restaurants we found – probably the only two worth speaking of in Egypt from our perspective. There was the sunset. It was a beautiful blend of natural light, a range of colors and shadows and a handful of guys on the promenade, swearing that they could sell us a sunset felucca sailing even after it was clear that the sun had actually passed below the horizon.
The restaurants that afternoon and evening – Sofra and Casablanca, respectively – were both quite good. Finding an authentic dining experience rather than a greasy spoon targeting Brits, Germans and other Europeans on package holidays was incredibly hard throughout our time in Egypt. Asking at the hotel in Hurghada got us referred to a restaurant that was out of business. Asking elsewhere endured the risk of being sent to the place where the baksheesh was stronger than the actual quality. It was not a good situation.
There were many recommendations for a place on the west bank of the Nile that had all the details except for an actual address. We never found that restaurant. But these two, these tourist-focused but authentic cuisine shops, were truly outstanding. The food quality was some of the best that we experienced in Egypt and the service was top notch, almost too much in the case of Casablanca. Still, we finally managed to actually find some good food in Egypt and that was a tremendous relief. The trouble we had on that front is a big enough scar on the visit that it has actually made a return trip less likely than I had expected it to be.
Overall the experiences that one can have in Egypt are unparalleled. There is simply too much there that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world that it demands a few days out of every life. And it still demands a few more days of mine.
After all, I still have to see the pyramids.
More photos from the trip here.
Posted by Seth on December 29, 2009 under Trip Reports |
Sitting on board EgyptAir flight 362 from Luxor to Cairo right now, happily ensconced in the bulkhead aisle of the “business class” cabin and laughing to myself about the scene going on across the aisle. The flight is operated by the Express arm of EgyptAir on an Embrear E170 (my first time on this type, I believe) and the business class cabin is anything but special. The bulkhead seats have plenty of knee room and typical bulkhead legroom while row two has nothing special to speak of, save for the guy in 2K (starboard window).
Boarding off the bus and up the air stairs he seemed quite shocked to discover that the business class seats were really just regular seats. So shocked that he didn’t shut up about it, grumbling to his wife in the row behind for several minutes before calling the flight attendant over to inquire about the situation. Once informed that the only difference is in the food service on board he gave up, pulled his hat over his face and passed out. A bit strange, but it definitely goes to show that there are plenty of people out there who have no idea what they are buying when it comes to travel. For what it is worth, the sandwich we had was pretty decent though I found the dessert a bit dry.
Shortly before boarding started a group of about a dozen guys showed up at the airport in dark suits. Several of them went into one of the private waiting rooms in the gate area while the rest milled about just outside the door. Not so hard to identify VVIPs in this sort of situation. And these two definitely are. They are two cabinet-level ministers in the Egyptian government – Education and Youth/Sports. They were the last two on the plane (plus their rather conspicuous security guy) and the doors were closed pretty much right after they got on board. The flight attendant told me just how special they were when I asked and the body guard poked his head out to say hi.
I didn’t ask for a photo with them – I’ll blame it on not wanting to document the crazy that is my hair right now rather than having no real reason to ask and a lack of cojones to ignore that – but it was certainly interesting. Especially the part where a security guard cam running down the stairs after us to make sure we didn’t try to board their VIP van since we followed them directly off the plane.
Good stuff.
Posted by Seth on December 29, 2009 under Trip Reports |
I sit in the airport in Luxor, Egypt pondering the absolute insanity of the trip I’m beginning. Nothing quite like a 36+ hour adventure to travel from Luxor to Barcelona, Spain. It is just across the Mediterranean. It really isn’t that far. But I’m crossing the Atlantic Ocean twice – three hours apart – to make the trip. Yeah, it is crazy.
versus
Back over the summer Delta offered up a sale for flights to Spain so we bought a couple for the weekend over New Years. Celebrating in Barcelona seemed like a good idea. A few months later, we learned that my wife got a few extra vacation days for the time between Christmas and New Years. Use ‘em or lose ‘em, so we used them. A quick search of various reward inventory showed Egypt as a destination with premium cabin seats available and a destination where the country doesn’t shutdown over the Christmas period. Plus, it is a pretty soft introduction to travel in Africa. We were sold, and the trip was phenomenal.
But we still had to be back in New York City in time for our flight to Spain. No need to spend any extra time there. Three hours should be more than enough for an international to international connection. So we’re off.
We’ve got an 11:10pm flight from Luxor to Cairo followed by a 3:30am flight from Cairo to Istanbul and then a 10:30am flight from Istanbul to New York’s JFK airport. All in premium seats including the first class suites of the Turkish Air 777-300 wet-leased from Jet Airways. That should be quite nice. We follow that up with coach seats on a Delta 767-300ER. Probably one of the worst long-haul products out there today that crosses the Atlantic (likely still better than a Lufthansa 747-400 in the back), but the price was right. And there is plenty of potential fun and crazy along the way. Just the way I like to travel.
Images from Great Circle Mapper
Posted by Seth on December 29, 2009 under Trip Reports |
Walking down the street in Luxor, Egypt is, to say the least, an interesting experience. It is hard to pass much more than 15 seconds without being offered at least one taxi and one carriage ride. Usually there are many, many more. What was particularly interesting about our walk yesterday was that every cabbie who passed us – often in 70s era station wagons that were much less comfortable than they looked – had already set their price. Only 5 Egyptian Pounds. And that was before they knew where we were headed. I was tempted to hop in and say, “OK, 5 Pounds to Cairo,” and see just how quickly they threw me out on the curb. I restrained myself.
During this particular walk, however, my splendiferous wife and I were were laughing about the fares as we passed another couple walking the same general direction. Our conversation caught their attention and soon we were chatting with Christine and Mohammed. After a stint working for the mouse in Florida she up and moved from her home in the UK to Luxor in search of work. Apparently her customer service training spills over from the day job into random conversations on the street.
Next thing we knew we were in a cab with her – Mohammed had to run a quick errand – on our way to a market. Better than the typical bazaars, the market was low stress and no haggling. That was quite pleasant. And the product quality was rather better, too. Or at least it seemed to be. So we did some shopping and chatted with new friends and learning about Luxor the way I prefer to discover new places: from locals.
On the way out there was a discussion between Mohammed and one of the cabbies hanging out on the stoop of the store. He had a collection of Euro coins that he couldn’t really do anything with. Some visitors had paid with them but the bank wouldn’t convert them. We’re on our way to Spain next so a deal was struck. But I was out of Egyptian Pounds (a recurring theme throughout the trip). So Mohammed fronted the money to the cabbie and gave me the Euros. He then took me to an ATM. The whole thing was rather surreal, and also at a very reasonable exchange rate.
And then we were back on our own, hunting down dinner and trying to figure out what had just happened. Fun, entertaining and completely random, all at the same time. Just one more awesome travel experience to add to the long list.
Posted by Seth on December 28, 2009 under Trip Reports |
A few more photos here from diving in Hurghada, Egypt. Day two of the diving was much better than day one. The folks on the boat were more friendly and generally better divers so we had a much better time both in the water and during the boat rides and surface intervals. No pedicure service on the boat – that was rather disgusting – and a smaller and more friendly crowd.
There were a whole bunch of interesting animals to be seen on day two, including an octopus, several blue spotted rays, some tiny blue banded shrimp and plenty of clown fish.
And then there were the dolphins. Wow. Just plain wow. We saw them on the surface and knew that there was a chance we’d see them underwater. We headed in and didn’t see them right away but they showed up about 5 minutes into the dive heading away from us. OK, fine. We saw them. I can’t really complain. And then, about 45 minutes later, as we were wrapping up the dive, the dolphins came back. This time they were swimming towards us and they were not shy at all. I was able to get pretty darn close – enough that i couldn’t get a wide enough shot with my camera – and swim right with them. At least for a few seconds, anyways.
That was a TON of fun.
Lots more underwater photos (and the rest of the shots from Egypt when I get around to posting them later) in the gallery here.
Posted by Seth on December 26, 2009 under Trip Reports |
Not a ton of time to post now as we’re between diving and dinner but I wanted to share a couple photos from our first day of diving. Suffice it to say that all the hype I’ve heard about Red Sea diving seems to be entirely justified. It really is quite impressive. I wasn’t all that impressed by the dive or social skills of the other folks diving on the boat with us, save one pair, but overall it didn’t cause us too much trouble. Over two hours underwater today and looking for a repeat tomorrow. Much happiness, indeed.
