I’m live-blogging my SAS EuroBonus SkyTeam Million Mile challenge this week. Click here for background and route information.
After arriving in Tunis from Paris, we proceeded to the airport transit counter to check in for our Saudia flights to Kuala Lumpur via Jeddah. But we were met with confusion and delay.
After stepping off of our Air France flight, we followed the signs for transit. Our flight to Saudi Arabia was now less than two hours away. We followed signs to turn left and walked up a ramp instead of downstairs to passport control.
Showing up at the transit counter, we found four people sitting behind a counter. Off to the left, there were some Pakistani guys waiting in what appeared to be a holding area.
I presented our passports and stated that we would be traveling on Saudia.
You should have seen the look on their face…utter confusion.
I suppose that they are quite used to having passengers connecting on Tunisair, the flag carrier, but not Saudia.
A woman took our passports and asked us where we were going.
To Kuala Lumpur via Jeddah.
She asked us to wait and a series of phone calls resulted, with two of her colleagues also getting involved.
Five minutes later, she put down the phone and asked me for proof of onward travel beyond Malaysia. I pulled out my KLM ticket and I think the fact that I only had a 90-minute transit in Kuala Lumpur confused her even more.
Then she asked for my onward ticket from Jakarta, which I also presented.
Ooh, are we going to play that game? I had six more tickets before getting back to Los Angeles…
She spoke some more to her colleagues, picked up the phone again, then handed the phone to her male colleague who proceeded to spend eight minutes on the phone, doing who knows what.
But finally, our boarding passes were presented. I asked if she could add our SAS EuroBonus numbers (I was unable to do so in advance on the Saudia website), but she could not (she did seem to try, though I am not sure she fully understood our request). She even took a photo of our SAS numbers and promised to send them to the Saudia counter to be manually inputted. I thanked her and she then directed us to the lounge.
Even though we had to walk through a metal detector, I set it off and was just waved through. No one bothered to look at the X-ray screen of our bags going through either.
It all worked out and we even had time to visit the lounge. I do not mean to overdramatize this, but I really wish I could speak Arabic because it took a 15-minute exchange and many, many phone calls before we had our boarding pass…I’m genuinely curious what the problem was beyond proof of onward travel.
I’m sure these are do-nothing jobs as few people probably connect here. They probably sit there all day without doing anything.
Pull out a wad of baksheesh and it would be seamless , no ?
It’s easy to assume this and it could, perhaps, have worked. But it’s also entirely possible that doing so would have triggered a law enforcement response. Sometimes the swing between accepting corruption and fighting corruption can be head spinning in countries outside of North America and Europe. Thusly, assuming bribery is the answer is almost never the right move unless you’re a local or extremely well doctrinated in the local culture, customs, and news cycle.
In Mexico ( North America ) , little groups stop U.S. drivers going past the border cities into Mexico , and demand various “taxes” . If One values safety , one happily pays .
Tunisia has a lot of people who are proud of Tunisia being less corrupt and more advanced than its neighbors. Try to bribe such a group of people and you could get delayed more or even end up be crying for Uncle Sam who will let you enjoy a complimentary stay in state detention in Tunisia.
Even if you could get away with it, bribery is used by the desperate, weak and spineless who lack the honor and self-respect to care about the damage done by playing the “bribe ‘em” game.
@GU … In the Middle East the “desperate” include Westerners attempting to flee , viz. Tehran or Damascus . If the Tehranians or Damascusians demand baksheesh from me , they will have it tout suite , and I will be happily on my way out of there .
That will be a miracle if your SAS number got added. If so, wow. If not, I wouldn’t be surprised.
That would be the very least important .
Three most important are health , health , and health .
You miss the point of this entire trip. If he doesn’t get his SAS ff# on the boarding pass, this is all for nothing.
Missing mileage credit should work to still make this flight eligible for the promo.
@Sam … the larger point of my entire life has been “Health” . I have been cured of incurable optimism after having seen at first hand some terrible situations . The young people from UK and Australia who went to Laos , and drank the bad alcohol unfortunately died .
Will you also connect in Saudi ? Remember another blogger ended up taking a loooong taxi ride to connect ?
“I do not mean to overdramatize this, but I really wish I could speak Arabic because it took a 15-minute exchange and many, many phone calls before we had our boarding pass…I’m genuinely curious what the problem was beyond proof of onward travel.”
Occam’s Razor applies, I suspect – they probably just weren’t used to dealing with passengers transiting on Saudia, and with such an odd routing to boot.
I’m surprised you asked for your SAS # to added at a generic Transfer Desk…. I’d just assume you would ask at the Gate counter which is probably staffed by the check-in counter staff or at least staff more familiar with the Saudia “system”, since they have to log into the saudis system to board the plane….
I asked at gate too and it was more contract staff who had no idea and flat out refused, quite rudely.
When they don’t know how to do it or don’t care because they want to do as little as possible while still getting out the flight, rudeness is unfortunately what can be expected.
I am repeatedly disappointed by how lousy gate agents are in North Africa.
If you think Arab bashing is in and you will be referred by NY Times. Think again!
Slick duffel bag – who makes it?
FWIW, I found that French, even my barely passable French, worked quite well in Tunis, particularly in visitor-facing conditions.
Maybe you should have flown through Cairo.
“I really wish I could speak Arabic because it took a 15-minute exchange”
To be honest, in that part of the Arab world, French as a language would be more useful.
This is a great reason to always go old school and print out PNRs for your entire trip before leaving on the first leg.
I’m impressed that you can spot a Pakistani at that distance. I can’t even do so close up with certainty and I worked alongside many of them for years.
The reason it took so long is that the authorities
at Tunis airport do no accept digital boarding passes – it has to be a paper pass and must be stamped by the Border Force. You should be grateful to these agents as they did you a great favour – their default position would have been to ask you to go through immigration and get a paper boarding pass from the check in counter. Surely you would have missed your flights if they did not wave the rule for you as check in must have been closed and they wouldn’t be able to issue paper passes without re-opening it, and this requires approval at the highest levels. I suspect they asked about your onward flights to convince their manager to make an exception for you and let you in given how badly it would have impacted you.
Thank god I finally found someone who has been through what I’m about to go through( and he made it). Can I consult if you have checked luggage? Do you the checked luggage all the way through Kuala lumper or even Indonesia? My itinerary is CDG-TUN(AF) and then same day TUN-JED-BKK(SV)
I had hand baggage only – but you should easily be able to check it through in CDG. And if not, you can enter the country…that probably actually would have saved me time to get stamped in, go to the check-in desk, and avoid the transit desk headache for a non-Tunsiar connection.
Thanks for the sharing! Yeah I always considered going through immigration as a safe plan. But I did read lots of reports online that visa free/visa on arrival is for tourist only( not for transfer flights), and hotel vouchers need to be presented. Not sure same rule goes for different passports, but at least for China passport, sigh.