Philippine Airlines - A Small Rant!

[Old55]

25 minutes ago, Tukaram (Tim) said:

Nah ha ha This was way before I got on YT   

I enjoy your Youtube videos Tim. 

 

 

[Gary D]

I used the fly PAL regularly in the pre collapse days. We had a 4 hour layover in Frankfurt as they had lost a panel off of the wing somewhere over Turkey. I guess they had to go back for it.

[Dave Hounddriver]

It may encourage people to realize that just about every airline will give you grief if you fly with them long enough.  I don't think it is related to any one airline.  I could make a list of a dozen that have screwed up my personal flight plans beyond reasonable expectation and that list would include major carriers like Air Canada and Cathay Pacific as well as small carriers like Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific but as long as I don't disappear like those folks on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 then I am not grumbling too loudly.

On the opposite side, most of those same airlines have outstanding moments that I make me happy to be flying with them.

[bastonjock]

Well we had booked a flight for sat last week to go from Davao to Clark ,I received an email well in advance telling me that the time of departure had been changed from midday to 8 am ,no real problems with that ,flight back to the UK took 14.5 hours no problems

[Capa]

Philippine Air and Cebu Pacific are what is known as a duopoly, the most basic form of oligopoly, a market dominated by a small number of companies. A duopoly can have the same impact on the market as a monopoly if the two players collude on prices or output. This is what they do: offer poor service at prices they both decide upon. And those Cebu Pacific uniforms! Gag!

[OnMyWay]

On 3/30/2018 at 8:51 PM, OnMyWay said:

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.

A revival of my rant!.......

I booked 6 tickets Manila to Auckland for next December, and PAL sure made it difficult!  I hope the flight is better than the booking!  Can't beat the price; $694 all-in for adults and $500+ for the kids.  A Kiwi I know said he had never seen a price that low.  Non-stop, A330-300, 10 hours, 2-4-2 seating in economy.  I'm a bit worried about the comfort level for me, a big guy, but I will live with it.

Their 78th anniversary sale ends today the 10th so I assume I would not be able to get such a low price after today.  I had been messing around with the booking all week and was finally ready to book this weekend.  My BIL is going with us (separate booking), school schedules at Christmas break, finding a good fare and other factors make booking a family of 5 quite tedious!

So, last night I'm ready to book and pay for the 5 in my family.  Type in all the names and information.  Choose the seats.  Go to pay by my U.S. Mastercard.  Processing....goes to Mastercard site....back to PAL site....Sorry, Your transaction has been automatically cancelled.  Blah blah.  Start again.

So first thing, I checked my credit card.  CapitalOne is very good at sending me a message if there is a problem or potential problem.  Nothing there.  So I typed in all the information for 5 passengers and tried again.  Same result and no activity at CapitalOne.  The problem, or credit card blocking, is occurring on the PAL side.  So I sent an e-mail to their online booking describing the problem.  They got back to me at 2-3 am and said I could send them all the information, and they would help with the booking.  However, by that time, I had solved the problem.

After muttering to myself for a while, I realized they take Paypal and I have a U.S. Paypal account.  I can choose to pay Paypal with my credit card or debit my checking account.  I really wanted to use my credit card to get the points.  I redo the transaction and choose Paypay.  Boom, works without issue and immediately gets charged to my CapitalOne credit card as Philippine Airlines.  CapOne immediately sent me a verification message that I had to respond to, and all was well.

Five down, one to go.  I told my BIL I would book his ticket as he does not have a CC and I could seat him with us.  I go through the process up payment, after putting in his name.  Press the payment button and it tells me "Date of birth should be empty or completely filled".  Huh?  There is no Date of birth field for an adult.  In my previous booking, there was date of birth for the kids, but not adults.

Clear my cache, etc., reboot, try again.  Same result.  Another e-mail to onlinebooking support.  Also answered at 2-3 am.  She said "just leave it blank".   I replied rather curtly that did you not look at the screenshot?  There is no date of birth field.  She never answered that e-mail.

As I lie in bed awake reading her early AM e-mail, trying to figure out how to solve the problem, she did also mention, in a copy/paste blurb, that their system works best on Windows Explorer 10.  I used Chrome, so in the morning, I tried Microsoft Edge.  No problems and the booking for BIL was made.

Almost done.  Last part of my rant!

These friggin airlines just can't stop making booking and flying miserable, chasing the almighty buck.  PAL now has at least half their economy seats on this flight marked as a premium seat.  Aisle seat, +$10.  First 5 rows of economy for those idiots who stand while the plane is still taxiing, +$30.  Any seat with more legroom, +$60.  I had all 6 of us in row 53, so I had to pay for 3 aisle seat both ways = $60.

Where does it end?  Charge for water? Charge for TP? Charge for the air to breath?  On this seatmap, all of these economy seats that are dark blue are "premium"!

Deep breath.  I'm done.  

[Old55]

I refuse to fly a Filipino airline unless I have no choice for domestic flights. If you purchase a seat for half price but then have it changed or canceled at the last minute it's no bargain.

Don I do wish you luck.

[OnMyWay]

10 minutes ago, Old55 said:

I refuse to fly a Filipino airline unless I have no choice for domestic flights. If you purchase a seat for half price but then have it changed or canceled at the last minute it's no bargain.

Don I do wish you luck.

I'm buying travel insurance like I did for our other Int'l trips.  It covers trip cancellation (for a valid reason), medical, etc., etc.  I am using Southern Cross for it and they did a good job last time.  My wife had to go to clinic when she was sick and they reimbursed us without issue.  The policy this time is only $258 NZ for the whole family and whole trip.  When you have a family of 5, you need to cover all your bases!

The time is a big factor for us choosing PAL too.  10 hours direct with 2 small kids is desirable, compared to the 20 hours connecting over SIN last time, and then overnighting in SIN one way.

[stevewool]

Still a great deal you have gotten plus it kept you busy for a good few hours.

[stevewool]

Just trying to book ours for Venice it’s taken me a couple of weeks to get the flights ,accomadation plus car hire as we are driving to Austria, and yes I am nearly there well sort of.