I wouldn't say that airlines ever were terribly helpful and I have plenty of experience because the only jobs I had before moving overseas were traveling jobs and I spent a lot of time in airports in USA. The level of service that you would receive was normally very bad and unless you are flying business or first class (which I didn't get to do very often) they weren't even nice to you.
In the past year and a half we have seen the number of flights and therefore the number of people working in the industry drop dramatically... especially to countries like the one that I live in now (Vietnam) where no international flights are allowed in at all outside of diplomats and other such special exceptions.
Therefore, getting a flight out of here as things seem to be going more and more down the toilet is proving to be a tab bit difficult.
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International call centers that used to be 24/7 and indicate online that they still are.... aren't. They have limited hours and even limited days that they are open. The other day I called a variety of airlines and just sat the phone on the desk while I was on hold. Some of them would give you an approximate wait time and those times were so ludicrous that I just hung up (6 or 7 hours plus of wait time,) others you were on hold for so long that I just gave up because after 40 minutes or so I stop believing that there is actually anyone even working at the call center, and others wont even take your call at all and redirect you to the website even though the website is where I got the phone number from and called it because the website didn't address my questions.
One kind of sad thing was that Air France did something that is pretty terrible: They made me think that my problems were solved.
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I got to speak in a chat with a representative and they said they had found a flight that would get me all the way to my destination that would be entirely on their planes which means that my doggo could fly in the cabin with me the entire trip. This was a dream come true out of a very bad situation because I don't want to put her in the cargo hold for as long as my flight is going to be (more than 20 hours.) I'm sure she will be find but I would feel better if I could at least see her and I am sure she feels the same way.
Well it looked like everything was a go and we just had one more step then I was going to book and pay and then prepare for my departure in just a few weeks. Then about an hour later I got this message.
So that was a bit of a soul crush because it's not like this flight is departing every day. In fact, there isn't another one until the middle of September and at the moment if I were to book that one I would be in violation of my visa and I don't know what the consequences are of that. It's probably just a question of money but if living in South East Asia has taught me anything it is that officials will take advantage of you if they know that you have no other choice. I've heard stories of people being forced to pay overstay fines of $100 a day and you can try to fight it if you want, but you are going to miss your flight. Obviously, I would prefer to avoid a situation like this.
The situation in Vietnam is getting worse as well. While I don't mind staying at home so much and my dog absolutely loves that I am spending so much time here there are friends of mine that are losing their damn minds and getting cabin fever. Also, we have been told that as of today all of the taxis and Grab (like Uber, but in Asia) is getting shut down today as well.
So let me get this straight: You want us to leave the country but you are making it damn near impossible for us to get to the airport? For people that don't live in metropolitan areas this problem is made even worse because at the moment you are not allowed to travel from province to province. So how exactly are we supposed to get outta here? Walk? Swim?
I don' think the rule-makers have really thought this thing through and for now I can only hope that someone out there realizes that you can't simultaneously cut off all transportation and tell people that they need to get transportation.
I keep saying that "we'll figure this out" but I'm not so sure that this is true. Some days I get actively involved in the process and determine that i am going to get something booked but when I try to do that, I spend hours and hours on something and end up with nothing in the end.
Oh well, I'm gonna try to not stress out about it and just hope that my visa agent can sort me out. In the meantime here's a picture of Nadi relaxing. I envy her total ignorance about what is going on right now.
