Originally Posted by ramalair

I’ve just flown TUN-JED-PKX // MNL-JED-TUN, I’ll give a quick feedback, may be useful to others.

I arrived in Tunis in the middle of the night by the Air France flight. There is good free wifi in the airport and an ATM (worked with my Revolut card even if it applied fees without mentioning it). The only issue is that the SIM card vendors were closed. I booked a Bolt using Airport wifi. Bolt is very convenient, but at this time of the night, the driver tried to “sell” some Airport Parking and Luggage fees (even though I just had a backpack). I speak Arabic so I told him that he should not try to invent fees. Anyway, long story short he asked 17 TND instead of the 9,5 requested on the Bolt App – I gave him 20 which is only around 6€ and everyone was happy.

I stayed in Hotel TIBA, a 3 stars hotel in the city center near Bourguiba avenue, 12 minutes drive from the airport. I stayed a full day to visit Tunis. I would recommend this hotel for those like me who want something basic but clean and comfy. The hotel is well located to visit old and new town. By booking online, the price per single room is 127 TND (~37€) with breakfast included. Breakfast is quite decent for a tunisian 3 stars hotel (at least way better than the one in TUN lounge – Privilege – which is a shame).

Next day, I proceeded to the Airport (using Bolt again). There is a specific check-in desk for BC passengers which is opposite of the Saudia economy Check-in desks (?!) and encountered a problem at check-in. They couldn’t issue my BP as the system was requesting a Chinese Visa number (which I didn’t need as I was staying only 4 days, way under the 15 days free-Visa policy) but as my return was from Manila, the system bugged. They finally issued only the TUN-JED Boarding Pass and they told me “For the next Boarding pass you have to check with them in Jeddah but there is a great chance you will not get it”… Thanks, I guess…

The TUN-JED had the old cabins on the A330 (HZ-AQF), but I found the seat to be quite comfy in relax mode, at least enough for a 4/5h daytime flight.

In Jeddah, went to transfer desk, very helpful guy that managed after almost 45 min of fight with IT department to print my Boarding Pass. I went to the lounge for the long 8 hours transit. Lounge is nice as always and has a resting area which I used. The flight JED-PKX was nice but was not my first time on the SV 787 (Amsterdam-Dubai BC promo fare last year anyone ?). I especially love the food on Saudia as it doesn't look like airline food at all but rather something you could have in a nice bistro.

On the way back, in Manila, at check-in, the agent called the supervisor, only to inform me that my requested seat (4A) was INOP and that they only had aisle seat for me… No big deal. The Lounge they use in MNL (Marhaba lounge) is very average. The return flights from Manila went smooth and i managed to score a new personal record of 9 hours of sleep in a row. I had a very short connection in JED but made it. Rest of the trip very uneventful.

Happy flights to everyone !