Posted by Seth on December 30, 2009 under Trip Reports | 
I should be in the air over the Atlantic Ocean right now, curled up in a First Class suite on Turkish Air. Instead I’m on an Airbus A321 over the Mediterranean on a non-stop flight to Barcelona. Indeed, the trip has taken a much more direct routing and quite substantial turn. In the end, I still get to celebrate New Years in Barcelona with the splendiferous missus and we even get to sleep in a real bed tonight rather than in coach on a Delta 767-300ER. Still, the scene today in Istanbul’s airport can only be described as frustrating and trying, with a bit of misery thrown in as well as a reasonably successful tactical retreat.
Last night, while waiting in Luxor for the departure of the flight to Cairo, I learned that the Istanbul-JFK flight for that day had been delayed pretty badly. Over three hours, in fact. That plane was turning around to come back to Istanbul and then would be used for the flight that we were scheduled to be on. Except at the time I didn’t know that it would be that plane, and there was no one in Luxor I could ask. There wasn’t really anyone to ask in Cairo, either. So I went into the flight to Istanbul hopeful and optimistic, as well as truly exhausted.
As first class passengers we were greeted at the end of the jetway with a sign and a golf cart to whisk us away to the security checkpoint and then the lounge. It took them a while to round up the necessary supplies for us to shower but we managed to get that done and settled in for breakfast. Everything seemed OK.
Failure
And then the bottom fell out. The lounge agent came over to me and handed me the house phone. An agent on the other end of the line was explaining that the flight would be rather delayed and that she had arranged for a day room at the hotel in the terminal for us. Ruh roh. Just how delayed would the flight be? At least 3 hours (it turned into 5 by the time we left the airport). That completely ruined our 3 hour connection in JFK. Time to scramble.
There was a flight to Frankfurt leaving in 40 minutes that would get us to the early Frankfurt-JFK flight by the woman could not (or would not) make the change for us. While I tried desperately to negotiate through the language barrier and explain my predicament the minutes ticked away and the flight was closed. That was our last chance to make it to JFK in time for the Delta outbound flight. Game over.
It is also worth mentioning that at this point my laptop decided it didn’t want to power on and my BlackBerry went into a reboot cycle every 5-10 minutes. Ouch.
Recovery, Part 1
The Delta tickets we had were bottom of the barrel priced sale seats. The change fees for them were more than the actual tickets cost. That money was now gone. Poof. Still, I had a mind to celebrate New Years in Barcelona more than I cared about getting the Istanbul – New York flight in Turkish Air first class (a five day vacation is always worth more than an eleven hour flight) so it was time to start making things happen. The lounge had no phones available for customers and there was no means for me to reasonably call the United States to get in touch with Continental, the carrier that issued our tickets. Things were getting worse, not better.
There was a flight leaving for Barcelona in 45 minutes and the agent was willing to put us on that flight, right up until she realized it was a reward ticket. Then she was quite willing to sell us a walk-up full fare ticket and let us deal with our “travel agency” to handle the flights that were missed. Not gonna work. Still, I managed to revive my laptop and get the Skype client working and continental.com’s reward search inventory up on screen. Even more amazing, I actually found two seats available from Barcelona to New York in business class on the date we were scheduled to go home. A glimmer of hope.
Karla answered the phone for Continental and was incredibly patient with me as I explained my needs and desires over a rather questionable voice quality connection. I was able to feed her the flight numbers and she saw the inventory available. She just wasn’t sure if she could change the flight as I had already started the return trip. She had to call a supervisor and in the mean time the 45 minutes to the Barcelona departure were ticking away with great speed. Karla made the necessary changes, inserting an open jaw into the ticket and leaving the Istanbul – Barcelona segment open for us to fill. She was still working on confirming it but we had to go immediately to catch our flight. I gave her my credit card number without knowing the charges and hung up to hop on the plane to Barcelona that was now 30 minutes away from departure.
No can do. The agent was reasonably polite about the situation but it was quite clear. We weren’t getting on that plane. Rebooking the Continental tickets took a bit too long and that flight was closed for sales, even with 30 minutes remaining. I had made the changes that she agreed to and now I was still stuck in Istanbul.
Recovery, Part 2
At this point we had some time to play with. Continental was already reissuing the return ticket so we just had to find a way to get to Barcelona at a reasonable price. There were a number of options, including overnight connections in Amsterdam, Riga and Athens. All were slightly cheaper than the non-stop afternoon flight to Barcelona. In the end, however, we settled on the non-stop flight. Better to go for a relatively sure thing. Besides, we don’t have winter coats with us so Amsterdam or Latvia would be pretty unpleasant tonight.
We booked the flight through Travelocity because is was half the price that the agent wanted in the lounge. Such transactions are normally completed pretty quickly but after 20 minutes we still only had a reservation, not a ticket. Time to make another call. The Travelocity agent initially just wanted me to wait it out. Only when I explained that the flight was 4 hours away did it get properly escalated. Apparently they were worried about fraud for a last minute, one-way ticket purchased from Istanbul to Barcelona. I can’t say that I really blame them. Another 10 minutes on the phone assuring them that I really was me and that I really was buying walk-up tickets and the ticket was finally issued.
The agent had also previously offered us that hotel room for our wait. I now called that one in, asking that we be able to still use it. She agreed and we soon were laying down for a couple hours’ nap time that was much, much needed. Everything seemed OK at this point. We had our flights to Barcelona and the onward flights from Barcelona to NYC, albeit on a somewhat circuitous routing. And we had a bed for the first time in 30 hours. Not all bad. Except one little thing.
Recovery, Part 3
For some reason, Continental couldn’t actually make the change to our reward ticket. The agents I spoke with (and there were several of them) all insisted that we were still checked in for the Turkish Air flight from Istanbul to JFK. As long as we were on that flight they couldn’t remove it from the itinerary and substitute in the three segments to get us home from Barcelona. Time and time again I approached the agents at the counter and asked them to confirm that we were not checked in anymore on that flight. Each time they said we weren’t but the folks at Continental said we were. My worst nightmare at this point was getting to Barcelona and having Turkish reporting us as a no-show for the flight, canceling out the remaining value of our tickets. The price for Istanbul-Barcelona was bad enough. Shelling out for Barcelona-NYC on top of that probably would have driven me over the edge.
I finally had our Turkish Air “handler” from the morning back at the counter so I called Continental one more time with the plan of having the two of them talk it out so I didn’t have to stay in the middle. By coincidence I managed to get Karla on the phone again.
“Karla with a ‘K’?” I inquired. Yes, she said, somewhat befuddled. “I talked to you earlier with the crazy re-route from Barcelona to New York via Brussels and London; remember me?”
I’d like to think that she has fond memories of me now, if for no other reason than I’m pretty sure I was the most entertaining customer she had today. In reality, I’m just really happy that I didn’t have to explain my story one more time. The minutes were now starting to tick away on the afternoon departure to Barcelona and I had already paid for those tickets and I wasn’t about to lose them, too. Fortunately Karla proactively got another supervisor on the phone while I was talking to the agent at the desk. The supervisor apparently has some magic “refresh” button (Karla’s words, not mine) that made the reservation sync up again and show that we were no longer checked in for the flight.
Finally.
Karla then was able to issue the new ticket, collect the $40 additional in taxes and confirm the new flights for us.
Success
And there we were, six hours after the bottom initially fell out, with our flights rebooked and a new itinerary ready to go. Sure, it cost us some cash and the price actually went up as the rebooking process continued. Still, the overall goal was met. We’re going to celebrate New Years among friends in Barcelona and we’re going to experience some fun times on premium cabin flights along the way. The new return flight gives us about four hours at the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse in Heathrow along with our Upper Class seats across the pond. I’m sure that we’ll be exhausted on Tuesday when we get back to work but overall the adventure remains mostly alive, even if it means no Turkish Air first class. Based on their ground handling I’m not entirely sure it would be worth it.
Lessons learned from this experience:
- Betting on Turkish Air arriving within 3 hours of on-time for the NYC route is a rather large gamble. I lost.
- Creativity and flexibility can find all sorts of reward seats if desperation sets in.
- Sometimes the adventure costs a bit more than expected, but the stories are generally worth it, especially when the rest of the travels are happening on the very cheap side of the ledger.
- A good agent at the airline can really make things happen. Karla did it for me today and others have in the past. They make this whole game run just a bit more smoothly.
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 September 12, 2008 under Uncategorized |
The traffic in Istanbul sucks. There is no two ways about it. The city is on the water, with the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus major impediments to travel there, funneling all traffic through a couple of bridges that are woefully undersized to handle the loads. They are apparently planning on adding an additional bridge on the Bosphorus, but that is still a ways out, as it has only just been approved by the government and the final site hasn’t yet been selected yet. A taksi from the airport to downtown is easily a 45 minute endeavor, at a rate of something around YTL30, which isn’t horrible, but also certainly isn’t cheap by any stretch. The roads are just ridiculously crowded. Not quite as bad as Delhi or Saigon, but close.
Fortunately, they have a pretty solid mass transit system in place. And we rode a lot of it. We didn’t take a bus in Istanbul, but there are plenty of them and it seems there is pretty reliable route coverage and frequencies. Similarly, the ferries cover the water crossings way better than a car possibly could; as busy as the waterways are they are still way better than the bridges. There is even an aerial cable car that operates just below the Hilton Hotel near Taksim Square, crossing over a park for those who don’t want to walk or drive around to the other side. Those are the pieces we didn’t get to try, but there are plenty that we did.
There is a Metro system – actually a few light rail systems that connect at transfer points – that cover the city, from the airport in the West to the Sultanhamet to the Beygolu area across the Golden Horn. There’s another tram system that runs on the Asian side as well, with easy ferry connections. With trains running about every 10 minutes and air conditioned, modern cars the light rail was truly phenomenal. From the airport to the Sultanhamet area was about a 45 minute trip, the same as a taksi, and the cost was two tokens – YTL 2.80 – per person. The one thing that is a bit annoying is that transfer between the various lines requires a new token and fare to be paid, but that’s a minor inconvenience considering how convenient the trams are to the vast majority of the areas that most folks want to visit.
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| The engine that drives the funicular. |
There are also a couple funiculars (inclined trains) that run in the Beygolu area. One of them is almost brand new (~10 years old) and the other is actually the third oldest mass transit system in the world (behind London and a now defunct Brooklyn route), over 130 years old. We tried to ride on both one day and managed to find the new one pretty easily, but the older one was elusive. As we departed Istanbul for Cappadocia we actually still hadn’t found it. As we had a 7 hour connection on our return through Istanbul, however, we had a second chance to find the old one and ride a piece of history.
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| The tunnel for the older funicular route. |
The older funicular was more fun, with the tunnel looking its age and the tram car somewhat newer, but not a ton. And we managed to take the Metro in from the airport, ride the funicular up to the Tunel Square area, have a very long and relaxing brunch and repeat the trip in reverse in about 5 hours. Plus the old funicular has a different fare, YTL 0.90, so we had to buy a different token and that meant another fun souvenir for me. I’ve now ridden on at least the three oldest, so I need to find out what the rest of the old ones are and start planning some new trips.
They also seem to have a “tap-and-go” system where you can put money on a card/pass of some sort rather than buying individual tokens. I certainly don’t speak enough Turkish to try to figure out how that works, but it seems like an easier option if you don’t want to mess with tokens during a visit, though I have no idea if there is a charge for the card and/or a discount for using it.
I’m a big fan of mass transit in general, and even more so when it goes to/from the airport. This wasn’t as easy as the Metro in Washington, DC or BART in San Francisco, but it was pretty darn close, and it was way cheaper and mostly easier than a taksi in from the airport. It will definitely be my transit choice next time I’m in Istanbul.
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| The view inside the car of the newer funicular. |
The platform for the newer run. |
Posted by Seth on September 3, 2008 under Uncategorized |
We got a kilim instead.
I really thought that we might make it. We didn’t even stop at the carpet shops as we passed through the Bazaars of Istanbul – we just weren’t all that interested. In Cappadocia we actually stayed one night in the pensione attached to a carpet house, but again not all that interested. By the time we made it to Kayseri we still weren’t particularly interested (at least I wasn’t).
A young man chased us down to “practice his English” and escort us on a tour of the city as we did some wandering through the old town here, and it just happened that his uncle is a carpet merchant, and somehow our tour ended up in that section of the Bazaar in Kayseri. As an aside, the bazaar in Kayseri is way better than the one in Istanbul. People actually shop there, rather than just putting on the show for the tourists. Anyway, back to the main story. We had tea and talked about the history of the carpet industry and the various types of finished product they produce – there are four. We talked about where we live in New York and how he travels across Turkey working as a wholesaler to the various regions with his 80-90 employees working on the manufacture of products for him in the outskirts of town. We talked about why they couldn’t share tea with us (Ramazan) and how the guy was featured in a book (From Here to There) that was a travel memoir of some guy who passed through about 20 years ago.
After all the talking and a rather delicious glass of apple tea he finally started in on the sales process. It was everything I expected, with the guy going through quite a few of the kilims in the store to show us a variety of options in various colors, patterns and themes. And I was completely ready to walk out without buying if none of them met my fancy. One of them, however, did. It is apparently made of undyed yarn with the various colors coming naturally from the sheep. And I like the pattern, as an added bonus. Finally, as we eliminated a couple dozen of the other options and got down to the two carpets we’d consider some prices were tossed about. They were in the ballpark and I figured that the piece was nice enough that I’d take a stab at the negotiations. He started with the asking price and I came in at about half of that. He started to come down and I inched up a hair, but really not much at all, guessing that I was probably already over the minimum he’d accept and knowing that I’d be OK walking away without the piece. The end of the negotiations went something like this:
Him: What’s your absolute maximum?
Me: Nnn <Number omitted to protect the innocent>
Him: I’ve come down 200 and you’ve only come up 50. Be reasonable.
Me: I started at Zero. I’ve moved further on the number than you have. And that’s my maximum.
Him: Shake my hand. Let’s go to the cash machine to get the money.
And then the deal was done. I’m still not completely sure that I can get it packed into my suitcase to make it home without carrying it as a brown paper bundle on the airplane, but that just adds to the fun. And it really is a beautiful piece, even if I did pay more than I had to for it. Besides, the rug it is replacing is vile, so I’m happy to be able to get rid of that.
Other than the kilim, nothing really all that impressive to recommend Kayseri as a destination while in Turkey. We probably wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for the 6:45am flight out tomorrow. And it certainly presents challenges for tourists, particularly those who don’t speak much Turkish. We managed to get by at dinner and it was actually quite delicious (Iskander, if you’re ever here and looking for something to eat), but if we hadn’t already been here a week I fear that the results would not have been so positive.
Posted by Seth on August 31, 2008 under Uncategorized |
Among the many “must-do” recommendations we received for our trip to Turkey, one was a restaurant in Istanbul, right on the Bosphorus serving phenomenal seafood. The restaurant is Korfez and my friend isn’t the only person who thinks highly of it; there has been coverage in the NY Times and other travel publications as well.
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| View from the private boat as we crossed the Bosphorus |
I was able to make the reservation easily enough and we left the hotel an hour before our scheduled trip on their private ferry across the straits, thinking that we had plenty of time. How wrong we were. The traffic in Istanbul is miserable. Still, following a rather stressful taksi ride to the ferry slip we made it onto the boat and out into the Bosphorus. I knew that the restaurant was supposed to have pretty good views, but I wasn’t really quite ready for just how amazing it was. It is situated right on the water. The boat actually lets you of directly into the outdoor dining room area on the water. Sitting in the shadow of a bridge across the strait and watching the boat traffic flow by we settled in for what would be a delicious meal.
The food was absolutely amazing. Nothing all that crazy on the ingredients list or the preparation methods. Actually, everything was rather simple. But it was done absolutely to perfection. The Dolmas with a mixture of fish were divine, both for the fish and the perfectly prepared grape leaves. The house special for fish is a sea bass backed in sea salt, but my favorite restaurant in NYC does the same thing so we went for something different (though 4 of the other 6 tables did have the specialty). Ours was a bass baked with spinach, tomatoes and caramelized onions. Very simple but unbelievably delicious. The fish was perfectly prepared (and swimming in butter, which certainly doesn’t hurt), the spinach appeared to have been prepared with a bit of cream, but not so much as to be steakhouse-style creamed spinach and everything just fit together perfectly.
But the only part of the menu with numbers on it was the drinks list. Everything else was just the food descriptions without prices. There was a note indicating that the fish was priced by weight so it would necessarily vary, but no indication of what the per 100 gram price was for the various options. It led to a very entertaining game of “guess the bill amount” at the end of the night, and we were both pretty close to getting it right. I think that we got off quite nicely on the total bill considering how nice the place was and how good the food was. If you ever happen to be in Istanbul and are looking for dinner plans, set aside the time to make it happen. It was absolutely worth the schlep and the price.
And a special thanks to Mike for the recommendation. I hope I can repay the favor in the future.
Posted by Seth on August 29, 2008 under Uncategorized |
After a much needed night’s sleep to reset our bodies to local time, today was spent meandering among the various sights in the Old City area of Istanbul. We met some friends and then began the tour, covering the Blue Mosque, the Haggia Sophia, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, the New Mosque and the Galatta Bridge. All of them are worth seeing as long as you’re here. I was much more impressed by the New Mosque than the Blue Mosque. Other than being somewhat smaller, the latter mosque was much more impressive, with much more of the interior still in good condition. Of course it is also a couple hundred years newer, so it hasn’t had as much time to deteriorate as the Blue Mosque has.
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| Inside the Spice Market |
The Grand Bazaar was impressive for the architecture more than the shopping opportunities. The Grand Bazaar is just huge. The wares in the Spice Bazaar were more fun to look at, mostly because they had piles of spices and other dry goods out on display which are very photogenic. Other than that, there isn’t really a ton to recommend these markets over those in the rest of the world (the cinnamon sticks were bigger in Vietnam, for instance). That being said, they are markets, and if that’s your thing they are worth a stop.
I am starting to get a bit tired of the constant shilling of the shop owners to come inside or to sit at their restaurants. I had one come up and shake my hand today to try to slow me down and that wasn’t cool at all when he didn’t want to let go. Fortunately I managed to avoid an international incident. I’m also trying to come up with enough words in a language they don’t know so that I can just pretend I don’t understand them. I might just make one up and start muttering random grunts to see what I can do, but I doubt that will really work either.
Also, I got the first batch of photos posted finally. The connection here is a bit slow (and we have to leave for dinner) so not all of them are up yet, but you can start here if you want to see a few.
Posted by Seth on August 28, 2008 under Uncategorized |
We’ve been in Turkey for about 8 hours now and thus far it has been quite impressive. We have learned a few things in these early stages of our visit that I thought were worth sharing:
- The local beer is pretty good. It is relatively light, but that’s not a bad thing when you’re looking for ways to cool off on a hot summer day.
- The Ukranians arriving ın Istanbul today are a bunch of schmucks. We spent about 45 minutes ın line at immigration and these guys were just awful. Some of their observations had some merit, particularly the comments about Bush once they saw our US passports, but they were still a bunch of schmucks.
- Typing on a Turkish keyboard is a major change from a US keyboard. This post is taking a LOT longer to type, mostly because the i is in a different place on the keyboard, among other things.
- The people here are wonderfully nice and rather photogenic. Photos will come soon, once I can get them uploaded.
- The food is pretty darn good. Maybe it is just because we’ve been eating airplane food for the past 18 hours prıor to dinner tonight, but the meal was quite nice. And they have some street food that I cannot wait to try now that I’ve fortified my stomach a bit, particularly the mussels stuffed with spicy rice and drizzled with lemon juice. Something to look forward to for tomorrow.
- Beıng on vacation is way better than working, even if I am doing a bit of work on the road.
