OnMyWay Posted March 29, 2018 Posted March 29, 2018 Rant warning! So I booked a flight for my family and SIL, Clark to Tagbilaran, Bohol. March 1 depart, March 9th return. I booked it a long time ago at a really nice sale price. In early March I received an e-mail from Philippine Air saying that my flight had changed, and the TAG-CRK return departure time as now 0655 instead of 0640. Fine. Today I started to plan our detailed itinerary and looked at that e-mail again. Crap! I read it wrong. Not only did they change the time, they changed the date from the 9th to the 10th! WTF! So the first thing I did was try to book on 9th, to see if the flight was cancelled, etc. All seemed well, and my seats and the SIL seat were all available! WTF! So I call Philippine Air and explain what happened. After reviewing my details, she says "Sir, so you want to change your flight from the 10th to the 9th?". YES! I want my original flight on the 9th, the one YOU changed to the 10th! "OK, please wait on hold". She come back 5-10 minutes later and repeats the details to me, and says "Is this what you want?". YES. Then she says "As a one time courtesy there will be no penalty for this change, but no more changes are allowed". ARRGH! For the most part, I bit my tongue! I then had to go through the same process with her to change SIL back to the 9th, as she was on a different booking reference. So I get the e-mail confirmations, and my family is fine, with the same seat numbers. However, SIL does not have a seat assigned and it says "must check in" there. More work to get this fixed. When I go to the seat viewer, it shows her original seat available and the plane is more than half empty. My worry now is that the bean counters in revenue management are planning to cancel the 9th, and started moving people to the 10th well in advance. Rant over! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KC813 Posted March 29, 2018 Posted March 29, 2018 The same happened to us last fall. We all expect minor schedule changes when booking in advance, but PAL also did the day switch for no reason we could see. Like you, switched back to the correct day, with same seats, and took the flight (CBU-MNL) a month later with no problems. Yes, dealing with PAL, especially on the phone, can sometimes be an adventure! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJReyes Posted March 30, 2018 Posted March 30, 2018 Philippine Airlines is treating the entire episode as a special favor and you should be eternally grateful to the air carrier. When there is no or very little competition, unfortunately, they can be inefficient. You have my sympathy. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huggybearman Posted March 30, 2018 Posted March 30, 2018 (edited) I gave up using PAL a couple of years ago following a series of shambolic instances including cancelled flights, missed connections to other international PAL flights with consequent inconvenience. Oh, and two lost bags. Even trying to book a Mabuhay miles free flight turned into bit of a burocratic pain in the ass. I had to go in person to their local office and they would not accept my ACR card as identication. I had to go back home to get my passport (a two hour round trip) and start the process over again! I wont even use them for free flights now. The stress and hassle is just not worth it! They are the most useless and ineffiecient airline I have ever experienced. Their arrogance on the other hand knows no bounds! If you haven't had a bad experience with PAL, well just wait a minute. Similar odds as Russian roulette I would think. Apparently there are two types of PAL (Prolongs Agony Longer) passengers. Those that have had a bad experience and those that are going to. I have yet to have a bad experience with CebPac after a couple of dozen flights so I will stick with them. Very cathartic rant over! Ken Edited March 30, 2018 by Huggybearman 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jollygoodfellow Posted March 30, 2018 Posted March 30, 2018 56 minutes ago, Huggybearman said: I gave up using PAL a couple of years ago following a series of shambolic instances including cancelled flights, missed connections to other international PAL flights with consequent inconvenience. Oh, and two lost bags. Even trying to book a Mabuhay miles free flight turned into bit of a burocratic pain in the ass. I had to go in person to their local office and they would not accept my ACR card as identication. I had to go back home to get my passport (a two hour round trip) and start the process over again! I wont even use them for free flights now. The stress and hassle is just not worth it! They are the most useless and ineffiecient airline I have ever experienced. Their arrogance on the other hand knows no bounds! If you haven't had a bad experience with PAL, well just wait a minute. Similar odds as Russian roulette I would think. Apparently there are two types of PAL (Prolongs Agony Longer) passengers. Those that have had a bad experience and those that are going to. I have yet to have a bad experience with CebPac after a couple of dozen flights so I will stick with them. Very cathartic rant over! Ken Don't hold back. Feel free to tell us what you think of PAL 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnMyWay Posted March 30, 2018 Author Posted March 30, 2018 (edited) 5 hours ago, Huggybearman said: I gave up using PAL a couple of years ago following a series of shambolic instances including cancelled flights, missed connections to other international PAL flights with consequent inconvenience. Oh, and two lost bags. Even trying to book a Mabuhay miles free flight turned into bit of a burocratic pain in the ass. I had to go in person to their local office and they would not accept my ACR card as identication. I had to go back home to get my passport (a two hour round trip) and start the process over again! I wont even use them for free flights now. The stress and hassle is just not worth it! They are the most useless and ineffiecient airline I have ever experienced. Their arrogance on the other hand knows no bounds! If you haven't had a bad experience with PAL, well just wait a minute. Similar odds as Russian roulette I would think. Apparently there are two types of PAL (Prolongs Agony Longer) passengers. Those that have had a bad experience and those that are going to. I have yet to have a bad experience with CebPac after a couple of dozen flights so I will stick with them. Very cathartic rant over! Ken I have my fingers crossed that this is isolated to domestic flights and for International flights they can do better! Why? They currently have the best flights to Los Angeles and Auckland, two places we will probably be going in the next year or two. Edited March 30, 2018 by OnMyWay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tukaram (Tim) Posted March 30, 2018 Posted March 30, 2018 I have heard tons of problems with PAL. I only ever had one problem with them and they bent over backwards to make it right. My Cebu-Manila flight was running late. So they sat me next to the door to make sure I would be first off, to get my connection to Seoul (this meant upgrading to business class). When I got off the plane I saw a guy holding a sign with my name, so I decided to investigate. He said he was there to get me to my flight on time. As we went for the bags a manager showed up and said they contacted Korean Air and my seat was already given away (45 minutes before the flight). About then a ticket agent showed up with a PAL flight to Seoul. She said they did not know if I wanted a window or aisle so they gave me the whole row (nap time ha ha). Odd thing was when we went from the domestic terminal to international we skipped the security line. That got some odd looks. Here I was with someone carrying my bags, a ticket agent, and a suit walking with me. Almost like being a star... don't tell the US TSA nazis that I skipped security! They got me to Korea on time, and back on schedule for my Korean Air flight to Dallas. This may not be normal but I was shocked at the amount of service I got. I never got that much help from any American carrier! 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jollygoodfellow Posted March 30, 2018 Posted March 30, 2018 2 hours ago, Tukaram (Tim) said: Odd thing was when we went from the domestic terminal to international we skipped the security line. That got some odd looks. Here I was with someone carrying my bags, a ticket agent, and a suit walking with me. Almost like being a star... Well they might have watched some of your youtube videos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalibojerry Posted March 30, 2018 Posted March 30, 2018 The only dealings I had with PAL was a flight from Manila to Kalibo the time to depart was set back 4 times on the hour so I was 4 hours late to arrive in Kalibo that was the first and last time I flew on Pal I use Cebu Pacific they have been great so far I have had delays but that is normal here in the Philippines 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tukaram (Tim) Posted March 30, 2018 Posted March 30, 2018 5 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said: Well they might have watched some of your youtube videos. Nah ha ha This was way before I got on YT 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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