Stranded in Kuala Lumpur
Now, as you might guess, this is where it really gets exciting. At around 8:15pm, refueling of our plane was done and the seatbelt signs pinged back on. A few minutes later, we were on our way taxiing out to the runway, and were airborne after a quick rolling takeoff. We had just reached our cruising altitude of FL160 when our first officer announced that we were now abeam Malakka and scheduled to land at KUL at around 8:45. We touched down without any further problems at around 8:48, and got the first stand at the international part of the regional terminal. Getting off took a few minutes as it took relatively long to attach the jet bridge, but I managed to arrive at the people mover stop to the satellite terminal at around 9pm. The ride also only took a few minutes, and at around 9:05, I underwent the security screening process at MI’s departure gate. I don’t really understand why you have to to through security before actually be able to speak to anyone in charge, but well.
I walked up to the counter, explained that I had been rebooked onto their flight and still needed a boarding pass. The agent took my passport, checked her computer and then said that they couldn’t find me on that flight. I explained the situation, and she told me that I still had to pay a USD200 change fee (I thought that was probably what the hotline agend had been talking about earlier). I told her that was no problem and presented my credit card. She typed away at her computer, talked to someone on the phone and finally printed something on a pre-80s needle printer. She presented me with the printout (which was obviously a copy of my ticket’s dataset), circled the „220“ on the booking number (indicating that the ticket had been issued by Lufthansa) and told me that she was unfortunately unable to rebook me, as they only had access to SQ or MI tickets, but not to LH tickets. I told her that the agent on the phone had confirmed they would rebook me, but she said, obviously they didn’t.
I called Frankfurt again, and got the same agent on the phone as before. I tried to explain the situation, but she already seemed to know. She claimed that there „had been a misunderstanding“ (for whatever reason), and that she had thought I had already been in Singapore (of course, someone who asks to be rebooked onto a later flight *to* SIN because they cannot make their flight at KUL *must* already be at SIN, right?). I asked her whether she could do the rebooking right on the spot, but both she and the gate agent confirmed that it was too late for that, as the ticketing deadline for this flight had already been exceeded and they had started boarding. I asked for other options, and was put on hold. After several minutes on hold, I hung up and dialed the hotline again. I got the same agent on the phone again (obviously, the hotline is only staffed by a single agent) and she told me that she could rebook me for the next day. However, that would incur quite an expensive fare difference plus the 430 EUR change fee that was published in the ticket. As I didn’t have any other viable option, I agreed, and she promised me to send me an email confirmation soon after.
As I would obviously not be leaving KUL until the next day, I had to get somewhere to spend the night. When preparing for the trip, I had read that the Sama-Sama hotel that is located just outside the airport is also offering rooms in the international concourse, without the need to clear immigration and so forth. I found out that those rooms were located right behind the (recently reopened) MH lounge in the part of the terminal where the people mover stop is located, and went there to inquire about a room. The receptionist presented me with a list of different prices according to the length of the stay, and as I wanted to keep my body clock on european time, I selected a rate for 14 hours which would allow me to stay until noon the next day, which would translate to 5am european time. The rate for that was an astonishingly pricey 680 MYR (ca. 160 USD), but at least I had a place to stay for the night.
After arriving at the room (sorry, I didn’t take pictures here, as I was still way too pissed about how the LH hotline had messed up everything), I needed to take care about my flight to Düsseldorf from Zürich, as I also wouldn’t be able to catch that. As I had booked that on a non-flexible rate (I can very well live with the risk of something relatively unlikely like a diversion happening and therefore don’t care about booking refundable or revokable tickets, unless someone else makes me miss the flights as it happened in this case), I needed to purchase a new ticket that would take me from ZRH to DUS and also back to ZRH in April. „Fortunately“, that also only ran at 530 CHF, the same price that I had paid for the original ticket. All in, the entire situation would cost me quite a lot of money. Lufthansa is definitely going to hear from me about that, terima kasih.
In order to calm down a bit, I walked around the international concourse, and realized for the first time that you can actually access the round plant feature in the center of the concourse (which was already closed when I spotted the entrance, so I saved that for the next day).
I also realized that I had been rebooked onto the same MI flight that I had actually wanted to get on the day before, but in economy (business was obviously sold out), and while I don’t understand why they wouldn’t put me on an earlier flight in order to minimize the risk of me losing the connection again at SIN (and I cannot really imagine that every of the almost hourly SQ and MI flights from KUL to SIN were fully booked), I also realized that this would not entitle me to lounge access in KUL, when I still had to spend about 8 hours at the airport. I saw that there was a Plaza Premium lounge next to the SQ lounge on the balcony level of the satellite terminal, and went there to inquire about walk-up access. They said, no problem, we’re offering packages ranging from 2 to 10 hours, and you just pay when you arrive.
After getting everything set up for the next day, I returned to the transit hotel and took a closer look at the room. Considering that the price ran north of a 4-star-superior hotel in Germany even for a 14-hour stay, the room was quite underwhelming. While it had a really nice view of the apron (probably only surpassed by the dayrooms at the SWISS FCL E), it was rather small and only featured basic amenities, like toothbrushes, towels and a water kettle for instant coffee. However, I understand that a company that is focusing on people who are stranded on short notice like me or the odd long layover cannot calculate their prices like someone who gets regular attendance by tourists or business people, so I don’t think the price is too high. It’s just a different business model. Furthermore, every stay includes a meal, which I didn’t take. Other than that, the A/C was relatively loud and in the morning, some airport announcements could be heard, but there's actually not much to complain about.
After checking out of the hotel at 12 noon local time, I proceeded to the center of the concourse again to take a look at the „Jungle Boardwalk“, and to collect my boarding passes from the transfer desks.
However, when I walked up to the transfer desk, which is obviously shared by most airlines, I found four relatively young ladies sitting there and staring intensely at their mobile phones. After standing there for about a minute and coughing while nobody was taking notice of me, I decided to try my luck in the SilverKris lounge. When I went there and explained the situation, the attendant opened my booking, talked to someone on the phone, and then said something to me like „well, everything is alright, you are already checked in, do you have your BP on your phone?“ and I told her „I know, that’s why I’m here. I’m checked in, but I need to get a printed boarding pass“. She then told me something like „you need to wait another hour in order to get the BP“ (not sure whether I understood that correctly), and then she asked, obviously concerned that I would have to wait another 9 hours at the airport, „do you want to go somewhere?“. I didn’t really understand what she meant, but I just told her to never mind, and left the lounge reception. Somehow, nobody seemed to be really helpful on that day.
The Plaza Premium Lounge Kuala Lumpur
After having sorted everything out (or well, maybe not), I decided to head to the lounge. At the entrance, I stated that I wanted to purchase access, and they asked for my flight number. Once again, they seemed quite concerned that I actually wanted to stay there that long (which meant I would have to purchase the 10-hour package) and offered me to have a look at the buffet etc. first. That’s actually quite nice, they obviously don’t want to sell you a cat in a bag, as we say in German. I declined (I mean, I needed a place to stay anyway, and they were still a lot cheaper than the hotel), and they explained that my rate of 258 MYR (approx. 60 USD, which is not really cheap) included showers (you can also buy access to showers only at 32 MYR), a 15 minute massage (without any hint as to where to claim that, as there was not spa inside the lounge), all food and soft drinks as well as beer. Wine and spirits were on sale, however, with my stamp on the receipt I was entitled to receive one free glass of wine (which later turned out to be almost an all you can drink rate, as they only signed the stamp after the third glass of wine and happily invited me to come back for more). Furthermore, should I wish to leave the lounge during my stay, I should just present a sticker they put onto the receipt (which I don’t understand, as you have the receipt which also states the length of the stay, but that’s probably routine as they need an indication as to whether they have already registered someone’s boarding pass).
After settling down and checking out the buffet, I was actually quite positively surprised. While the furniture and the rest of the decor obviously wouldn’t mind a refurbishment, the lounge was spacious enough, featured great outside views and had a relatively good food spread, at least for a contract lounge.
They were offering two kinds of soup, congee, salad, made-to-order noodle soup and an array of hot dishes that changed throughout the day (although they didn’t really deserve the denomination „hot food“, as they weren’t properly kept warm). There was front-cooking going on, and that worked much better than, for example, in the SWISS Business and Senator lounges in ZRH.
The attended bar had a proper coffee machine, beer on tap and a selection of spirits, but I have to say that alcoholic drinks ran quite expensive, at 25 MYR (6 USD) for spirits and an astonishing 32 MYR (8 USD) for relatively bad wine.
During my long stay, the lounge filled and emptied quite frequently, and when it was full, there were hardly any seats left. I also found it quite astonishing that every time I went near reception (I left the lounge a few times in order to walk a few steps), there was a queue at the entrance. Either they really have a lot of airline contractors, or they are just extremely popular with walk-up guests or holders of lounge memberships. Actually, I have to say that this Hongkong based company was doing the job extremely well, particularly when compared to the average european contract lounge. While not great, the food was solid, there was at least a choice, and the space itself was nice enough to spend a long layover in (fortunately, I was able to work using the free wifi that was provided).
Verdict
Even though Lufthansa hasn't exactly covered themselves in glory in this situation, I enjoyed this (costly) break, and had I known about the disruption before, I would probably have arranged to spend the night and the following day in downtown KL (even though the express train is also not really cheap), as I really like Kuala Lumpur as a place itself. The primary downside to the change in plans was that I'm still waiting for my first flight on an A350, but I guess that is going to happen at some point in time anyway.
The hotel was ok (meaning it got the job of getting a night's sleep done), the lounge better than expected (though still not on par with, for example, the CX lounge at BKK) and I had the opportunity to catch some fresh air in the "jungle boardwalk". This had actually been the first major problem after exactly 400 lifetime flights, and I guess that this is what everybody who is pursuing this "hobby" needs to experience sooner or later.