harryhv

Don't re-check your bag, take everything to T8 and they should put you on the next flight from LGA or EWR

mlqsko

I'll try, thanks for the head up.

harryhv

Ah sorry bad news, just landed in CMB again and cant find any good wines, they all seem to have gone, there's just the same low-grade stuff in arrivals as departures now.

n8onUA

So I'm desperately trying to get my tickets refunded.

I've been trying to go through Priceline but getting the usual "call ET" then ET says "Call Priceline". I finally got this email from Priceline:

Did anyone else get this? Does this mean I will get a refund? I was hoping to get an official email from Priceline saying the ticket will be refunded/cancelled.

Any help is appreciated!

SFO777

As has been suggested many times above... Call your credit card company and dispute the original charge. That will get EY's attention.

n8onUA

Ok...the last few posts I read about refunds made it sound like this process has been working:

1) Calling PL
2) Asking them to call ET to unlock ticket
3) Once unlock window opens then PL has ability to refund ticket
4) Refund/cancellation email from PL appears

But if calling the CC works, then I'm more than happy to let them deal with the situation.

Thankfully, in anticipation of this situation, I put the tickets on my Chase Sapphire card which has amazing customer service and has always taken my side in everything (baggage delay, rental car insurance claim, etc.).

Thanks for the feedback!

ben63

where to credit miles to get them without DOT/trouble?

My first choice would be AirBerlin Topbonus. Any related experience?

stephem

So duty free wine selection isnt great, but passable and pretty well priced. Given the heat here, we wanted a bunch of light whites and roses, so we had a good selection of french/spanish and australian wines for that, all between $10-20US per bottle. So, if there were good Bordeaux here before, we didnt see them at what we think is the only duty free shop (right after immigration check and before luggage pick up).

In other news, EY finally "officially" responded to my DOT complaint, with an email that outlined all of what they told me already on the phone a month ago (including that they rebooked us on JFK-LAX-DFW to fix our misconnect on our JFK-DFW flight).

Now that we're all acclimated to local time, it's going to be a bear to get up for that 4:35AM departure from CMB on Sunday morning! We're planning to head up to Colombo for the day Saturday and stay in Negombo for the night to cut down the morning transit time.

BTW, some recommendations for Galle to follow, but short of long is there are some very good food outlets emerging. In Galle Fort, old Dutch hospital building has 5-7 new places, including excellent sushi at The Tuna and The Crab. Also, I think the food at the Fortress is pretty good and well priced for western standards. We have a villa with staff but they cant really cook much more than local curries (which gets old after 2 nights). Toured local fish markets and can see impressive seafood selection, good to see some local restaurants now capitalizing on that... I honestly think most of the places written up in TripAdvisor were around when I was last here about 6 years ago, they are quite frankly all pretty tired and in need of an infusion of some new creativity if they are to keep up with the (largely Colombo based) new foodies who are opening up places down here now. More later... off to Galle for the day.

stephem

Just arrived w my family back home after flying CMB-AUH-JFK-LAX (and dropping the last LAX-DFW segment), wow that was a lot of flying. Some initial impressions...

First, the station manager for Etihad in Colombo is now fully acquainted with these tickets and he seems to step in, sends a text to someone in Abu Dhabi and then sent us on our way to the lounge. By the time we got to the gate, our reservation was unlocked and ready for travel. The station manager also was helpful in (1) getting our baby stroller tagged to be pulled in NY and (2) tagging our bags to be pulled in LAX.

The flight from CMB-AUH is ok, nearly a 5 hour flight in this product was a let down, but for the fare I guess I can't argue.

AUH is really a weak point for EY's operations. Compared to LH F and getting access to either the LH FCT or FCL, our experience was very weak even for a business class experience. No dedicated F lounge and no priority lanes for US preclearance mean you aren't really getting an exclusive experience. Maybe the new terminal they are building will help. Also, one tip for EY101 is that it seems like the last US preclearance flight and so you can just go at the end and the line is almost entirely gone. We got through in 5 minutes.

Onboard EY101, you can see where EY shines. The staff were super attentive and the cook was happy to make whatever we wanted with the ingredients he had. The staff were great with my 4 and 5 year olds, which allowed my wife to focus on my 18 month old. One of the staff was Spanish and realized that my daughter is in a Spanish language school and doted on her the entire flight. Our little guy ultimately slept for about 8 hours, so we got some good time to relax and enjoy the amenities. As for the cabin layout, my wife and I both felt that we slightly preferred the "open" layout on LH as opposed to the suites. But the seat is incredibly comfortable and there isn't anything negative to say.

The bonus was getting booked onto AA's JFK-LAX A320 in F. EY went the extra mile in rebooking us JFK-LAX-DFW once a schedule change meant we would misconnect to our original JFK-DFW flight. After leaving CMB at 4:35AM on Sunday and arriving into JFK around 24 hours later, it was nice to have a lie flat seat for the 6+ hours to LAX.

Aside from the sub-par experience in transit in AUH, I really enjoyed EY F and would put it up there with other top tier F products.

A big thanks to OP for this one, my kids in particular appreciated this one!

Edited to add:
One other thing about the EY flights. My wife knew that we had the option of returning CX J, SIN-HKG-YVR (and a drive to SEA) and after completing this EY run the "longer way" home, she said she'd pass on the extra connections in exchange for F, and just take a single connection thru HKG in business class. She was also much more of a fan of the LH F cabin. But no doubt the labor involved with us caring for our 18 month old played a big role for her choice and getting home (probably much) faster would have been her preference. For anyone positioning to CMB to pick this up and then positioning in the US, keep this in mind. Even I was calling uncle as we flew over Las Vegas on our way to LAX, and I'd probably have felt that way even without the kids! This screen shot shows the details from only AUH (So there was another 4.5 hours from CMB!): https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=photo%2cJPG

roastpuff

Hi Stephem, any recommendations for Galle would be appreciated! I'm about to head off to Sri Lanka from Singapore tomorrow to start my EY ticket after a 3 day stay at The Fortress Resort which is near Galle fort.

Thanks for the flight report! I think that the fact the new lounge is not open yet is negatively impacting F passengers transiting through AUH.

stephem

Sure thing. First, the Fortress is quite nice, we stayed about 4 km to the east in a villa in "south point" We ate at the main restaurant in the Fortress two nights, ordered ala carte off two different menus (ask for Heat menu too), didnt want to do buffet they had one night and they let us order off the menus again. We didnt try the surf and turf place (was inside w AC), but the menu looked decent. If you want to get out in Galle, I would recommend the places in the Galle Dutch Hospital complex. We ate at the Tuk Tuk restaurant (good creative apps, great drinks!), the Tuna & the Crab (good sushi and a couple of japanese dishes) and sugar (went for the burgers). Also a Thai place and a bar, as well as a good coffee place in the complex. Our last night we ate at Fort Printers Hotel, it was excellent, morrocan inspired food and nice space (also, the most incredible pictures from 1890- 1910 which I looked at for an hour). Overall, the things I see written up as "fabulous" in TripAdvisor didnt seem interesting. We had coffee and apps at Rampart Hotel restaurant, over priced for totally mediocre food and ambiance. Wanted to try Deco on 44, but it was too hot that day and so we went to Tuna and Crab for AC.

One additional thing about meals, fish is quite good and very fresh, we ate lots of it raw with no ill effects ;-) But when it comes to cooking it, you really have to be on them about keeping it rare, if that is how you like it. There is something in the country about stewing the heck out of fish and short of getting it raw, it seems like the only other natural option for them is pretty well done.

legalalien

I also would like to thank the OP for giving us an opportunity to see a beautiful country and an ability to get there and back in comfort.

As many posted above, check-in experience in CMB involves a short, ~20 min in our case, delay while tickets are being unlocked by Abu Dhabi. There are a few chairs in the check-in area; finding 4 seats wasn't a problem. There are also a few shops where last-minute souvenirs can be bought at reasonable prices. We chose to use Lotus lounge via PP instead of Araliya that EY contracts. Lotus has better seating - comfortable couches instead of chairs arranged in long rows - but in other respects the lounges are similarly unimpressive.

I agree with the above posts that AUH transfer experience is sub-par and doesn't feel exclusive. We took the EY265/EY103 combo, and so arrived to AUH around 1am. Priority line at transfer security was closed and everyone had to line up for a single checkpoint. We were close to the front of the bus, so didn't have to wait long, but still. AUH lounge by gate 35 was pretty good, but was crowded and had no separate section for F pax. Boarding process was also not particularly exclusive, as everyone was invited to board at the same time and many Y passengers initially tried to go through priority boarding line. To EY's credit they recognized the problem quickly and dispatched a staff member to direct passengers to proper boarding lines. Everyone boarded though 2L.

9W service on EY 103 was very good: personal, but respectful, efficient, and timely. The chef was very accommodating. This flight was on par or better than LH F on A380, as the crew was more approachable, menu had more food variety (though no caviar service), and the seat was more comfortable. 9W cabin did show signs of wear and tear though: my power plug didn't work, suite doors frequently got stuck and were in general noisy. The flight was an hour late departing AUH, which gave us extra time to enjoy the amenities. I personally depleted Camus XO stock quite a bit. F cabin was full on our flight today. I wonder how many were paying passengers. Nobody looked the part: two young couples, plus four of us.

The first thing my 8 yr old said when we boarded our domestic F flight home was, "Is this Economy?" I've created a monster.

stephem

Love it! And they will also start pressing the cabin attendant button too much. My daughter did that on our last flight home this morning. There is no such thing as overuse of that button on EY, but it's almost a crime to hit it just once on a flight operated by a US carrier.

legalalien

We also spent a few nights in Galle, by the Unawatuna beach. Between that and the Fort, there is a city, and not much else. Unawatuna is touristy: lots of shops selling jewelry, crafts, tea, etc. and quite a few restaurants with all sorts of menus - from traditional rice and curry to Western and (to my surprise) Russian. The beach itself is fine, though hardly remarkable. A few reasonably priced scuba operators; we were quoted $60 for a two-tank dive. Whale watching season is on; $40 a head is also reasonable IMHO. We didn't go, so can't comment on how good those trips are.

Fish market near main bus station can be interesting. Also, flagrock bastion (inside the fort) is a great place to watch the ocean and sunset.

legalalien

TITCR