Wow, talk about about a close call! It came down to the wire, but a generous act of goodwill by a reader of this blog saved me a trip to Asia and saved my trip in Garuda Indonesia First Class for 90% off!
As the time limit on my held reservation drew to a close, I began making preparations to travel. Indeed, I spoke of priorities in my Christmas Day post and an internal battle raged for three days about what I should do. But thanks to Heidi’s insistence that this would be, if nothing else, a great story to write about it, I made plans to fly to Singapore last night.
I had a dinner party in LA and did not want to miss it, so the plan was to fly from Los Angeles to Singapore on United via San Francisco. It would mean I could leave my party at 7pm to catch an 8pm flight out of Burbank and then connect to Singapore. Ultimately I would arrive in Singapore early on 12/29, giving me the day to ticket before my hold expired.
One problem: only coach was available and the flight from SFO to SIN is 17.5 hours this time of year! In all honesty, I still would have done it if I had to, but it would have been painful.
I read on FlyerTalk that one person had success ticketing over the phone with the Amsterdam office, but I did not have similar success. In fact, I could not even get through to them. I later found out the problem was Skype…
Last night I determined I did not want to leave my party early, so I thought I could take a shorter trip to Amsterdam today if necessary, still arriving on the morning of the 29th, ticketing at the Garuda AMS ticketing office, then hopping right on a plane back to the USA (after a night at the Hyatt Place at the airport).
Thankfully, even that was unnecessary!
How a Loyal Reader Ticketed My Garuda First Class Reservation
A reader in Singapore, who wishes to remain anonymous, sent me a note offering to help ticket the reservation. I was a bit skeptical, but willing to give it a try because this isn’t an ideal week to travel.
I called the Singapore office and asked if would be possible for someone to 1.) buy miles on my behalf and 2.) ticket a reservation from my account without my physical passport or Garuda membership card.
Yes, I was told — I had to fill out a form available on garudamiles.com. What form? An authorization form.
The Garuda sitemap was useless, but via Google I found this page which has a number of forms on it. I still was not sure which form to fill out, but sent the following to my reader:
- Power-of-attorney form (ostensibly authorizing reader to act as my agent)
- Mileage purchase form
- Award redemption form
- Copy of my passport and (electronic) Garuda membership card
- Credit card information
Just a few hours ago I received the good news: the ticket had been issued. The only hitch was that my credit card was not accepted since it was not present. Instead, the reader graciously pre-paid the taxes and miles and I have paid back the reader via PayPal.
One thing the Singapore office mentioned: reservations can be ticketed over the phone via the head office in Jakarta. I still have not heard any success stories, but if your CITI miles have posted it will not hurt to try calling +62 (0) 21 23519999. Also try calling the Amsterdam office at +31 (0) 20 5502600 (perhaps even before calling the head office).
CONCLUSION
I am so excited to fly in Garuda First Class next year and look forward to writing about it! While it would have been mildly entertaining for me to live blog from a 17.5hr flight in economy class, I am so thankful to be sitting in my office this morning without the specter of an exhausting trip to end 2016. Jeff (Canadian Kilometers) offers another success story here.
I was able to get to the automated payment system with the Jakarta call center. Problem was that for some reason they automatically reject all credit cards issued from US and Canada. I confirmed this 3 times and tried 3 credit cards, none showed as pending, I even called chase to see if they see an attempt for a charge in the system and they said no. Luckily I have a friend in Jakarta that is working the ticketing for me.
Congratulations!!! This is awesome… though I think it would have been a cool story to read had you flown to SIN or AMS just to ticket this award. You’re a lucky guy to have a reader do that for you and for Garuda allowing all this to happen. I look forward reading your GA F review!
That’s great! I am definitely looking forward to reading the review and thanks to your reader from your other readers for making this possible (while saving you the end-of-the-year pain!).
Mathew,
would you be able to do the booking with your connection in Singapore for a fee, I would be happy to pay yours and friend fees if you can ticket my reserved reservation number. there is no way I can make it to any destinations to ticket this. if possible, let me know and I will send all information to your email. Thanks
choi lu. let me know if u still need help?
I forwarded your info to him. Thanks for offering to help.
Can’t wait to read about your flight, I have flown with Garuda, it is the custom to stand up and retreve your overhead while taxing to the gate. I wonder if it still is tolerated.
Happy for you, Matthew. There’s a will, there’s a way.
Kudos to your Singapore friend as well.