Before booking Air Asia Beware!

This is a low budget airline with a low budget customer service to match. We turned up for a scheduled 0905 departure from Phuket to Bangkok recently only to find the flight was cancelled. They say due to operational reasons, I say because they hadn%26#39;t enough passengers to justify the flight. All they could offer was a flight 5 hours later ( meaning 7 hours at Phuket airport) with a later connection onward to Chiang Mai. So we decided to pay for another flight with Thai Airways at a more suitable time.

Now I shall have to see just how long it takes Air Asia to refund the fare we paid for the flight they cancelled. Reading other posts, it seems I may have to wait a long time.

Before booking Air Asia Beware!

That is too bad.

I pray it won鈥檛 happen to us. We booked Guangzhou 鈥?Bangkok for Feb 2009.

Before booking Air Asia Beware!

When you say %26#39;recently%26#39; was it during the whole %26#39;Suvarnabhumi Airport%26#39; debacle? Basically %26#39;you get what you pay for%26#39; with Air Asia. I use them often and know to expect flight delays between Bangkok and Chiang Mai / return.

And, yes, your refund will take forever to come through but I must add in their defence that I usually receive an SMS to notify of delays etc.

Air Asia = Ryan Air.

If you look at their schedules they usually have flights all the time but like you said. If the load is below a certain margin, they will cancel or delay the flights.

In my many experiences flying Air Asia, I am at 50% on time and delayed/cancelled.

I always , get reception at the hotel i am staying at, to confirm my flight numbers and times the day before im due to fly .....in doing this i have never had any trouble .

I will admit though , i have several bookings for next year with airasia , when i went to find out a landing time to arrange airport pick up , i could not find my flight number ...... the flight time had changed as had the flight number , without so much as an email to let me know .

I think this is pretty pathetic , no matter how low cost the airline is , an email costs nothing so they should send one to people with bookings ,if our own budget airline in AUS can send us an email , even when the time has only changed by 5 minutes , i%26#39;m sure air asia could.

I think Air asia needs to pick up their act a little , but it does pay to be diligent and a little responsible yourself to confirm flights and times in advance ( most airlines tell you to do this ) ....which i do with any airline anyhow , its only a phone call and a couple of minutes of your time .......... saves wasting money on other flights i guess .

cheers

batt

As the saying goes,

';YOU PAY PEANUTS, YOU GET MONKEYS';

Personally, I reckon the extra 20-30% you pay to a regular airline ( not a budget one), is worth every cent just to know when you will leave/arrive, and the little extra service they offer.

I use to fly jetstar because of price( I%26#39;m a poor traveller), but NEVER again.

Crikey, an extra 1-$200 to fly with a better, more organized airline is easily saved in other ways, such as hotels, tours etc...........

Just as a ';for instance'; in January, random dates, Bangkok - Phuket return:

Thai Airways 6060 THB inc taxes, AirAsia 3038 THB'; = 50% cheaper per person. You pays your money .....

Exactly my point!

A saving of around AU$130 which may leave you sitting in the airport for any amount of hours, loose you hotel booking, arrive after dark, forced to take a cab instead of your free hotel pick-up etc, etc etc.......

With the amount of complaints s on this forum by disgruntled travers regarding cancelled hotel bookings, loosing deposits etc, why would you bother with these cheap and nasty tickets?

I may be a poor traveller, but when I%26#39;m on holidays, the last thing I want to be doing with my limited holiday time is sitting in an airport killing time, or being in a dispute with a hotel reception because my booking has been on-sold.

';PAY PEANUTS, YOU GET MONKEYS';

I really wasn%26#39;t trying to make your point as, unlike others, I haven%26#39;t had the problems with AirAsia or the extra costs you have mentioned. So lucky me (and the majority who don%26#39;t post to praise rather than complain) the not inconsiderable saving was better in my pocket than in Thai or Bangkok Airways. I pays my money .....

I have to agree.

Far more people get inconvenienced, or mucked about, than ever do complain.

Especially when you consider the amount of customers that fly with the cheap airlines like Air Asia, yet very few are members of TA.

Could you imagine what the complaints would be like if everyone was a TA member?

I guess flights inside Thailand have this problem and not international flights.

I know you get what you pay for, but previously when I check online price with Thai Airways, I never see anything lower than 10,000 Baht for BKK 鈥?Vietnam. It sometimes charges over 20,000 Baht.

With Air Asia, this time I got 1,115 Baht one way including everything. Just too cheap to ignore. Air France costs about 6,xxx Baht.

Thanks Batty for the tip. I鈥檒l call them before I move all luggage to Suvarnabhumi LOL.