Done 4 help..How do I arrange to P/U at CMB?
 

Hello:

I have done three DONE 4's in the last two years always purchasing them out of Bangkok. I note that as of this April 06 the Done J is $6400 from BKK and $5000 from CMB.

I can easily catch a flight from BKK to CMB and would like to just pick up this ticket at SMB and fly right out. It is worth it to me for the savings.

I have always used either American Airlines in the USA or Bangkok or Cathay in BKK to book these fares and struggle with the itineraries, schedule changes etc......How do I arrange this this time as I am picking up in CMB? Where do I pick up the ticket and who do I book with?

Thank you in advance.

Book with Cathay directly, in CMB. They're very responsive to email. Tickets will be hand to you at the airport when you arrive, although the CTO charges the equiv of about USD21 to courier the tix to the airport (per group, not per each, if there's more than one of you). C/C payment is okay, although if yo do that you can't ticket more than 10 days ahead of time per some Cathay rule - they want a signed c/c slip by then. Wire transfer works too, apparently. Check you PM for the email contact.

Echoing the previous poster. Set it up by e-mail with CX and pick the ticket up when you transit CMB.

You can also book with AA's GSA - but seeing that CX are so competent and it's so easy there's not really much sense in doing that.

I know you have reasons to avoid AA but apart from that, what is the situation regarding taxes/fees (CX vs AA) ex CMB? If it runs into the hundreds of $ it could make a difference.

Cathay charged me 3% for using my credit card last summer; factor that into your price.

No telling why that happened, but I specifically asked Cathay/CMB about it and they specifically told me they didn't surcharge and never had done so. That has also been my personal experience - no surcharge last August, no surcharge applied this time.

Visa/MC both impose a 1% forex charge, and many snotty banks add another 2% for no good reason except it feels good to them, but iirc that was not the 3% you were talking about. Were you in fact doing business with Cathay directly (then it would have been Dhanya)?

In any case, today it is absolutely, certainly, no c/c surcharge.

As noted above, they do have the slightly annoying requirement that they won't issue the tickets until 10 days before you plan to show up to sign the c/c slip. I tried to get them to Fedex the thing for signature, but didn't get too far, thus although I've got the bookings I need and they are being held for the requisite length of time, I'm not protected against price increases. Wire transfer is available to deal with that, but it's a real PITA for Americans without a good business banking connection.

Yes, I purchased directly from Cathay. In fact, they came to my hotel with the ticket and their credit card machine. I bought a CMB-HKG-LAX-SAN RT in biz in July 2005.

None of their correspondance had mentioned the credit card fee, but they told me that they had begun applying it in April 2005. It's good news that you did not incur it.

Does anyone have the address for the AA GSA in CMB? I will be in CMB in two weeks, and would like to meet them so that I have a contact for a future ticket.

Cathay/CMB has a lot going for them - they respond quickly to email, seem to be very knowledgeable about the OWE product, provide pricing in a day or two (likely done in CMB since they're called the Fares Group), can machine print 20-segment tickets, neatly glue an appropriately-reduced printed image of the tax calc into the box on each coupon, and hand you the tickets at the airport.

The negatives are that they won't Fedex the tickets ahead of time, want about USD20 to courier tickets to the airport from their downtown office, and won't ticket until 10 days before you're going to pop up and sign the c/c, adding exposure to price changes.

I have no idea how the Aagent compares on any of those details. Should he be willing to do a c/c payment and Fedex tickets, and does all the other stuff as well as Cathay, that might be the better choice. I actually didn't even know there was an AA GSA in CMB, able to ticket OWE's.

As far as saving money on fuel surcharges, it's been reported here that AA charges them too now, although perhaps they are a few dollars cheaper per segment. And if they've come up with a way to show on the ticket what surcharges have been paid, Cathay will add-collect when you check in anyway. (American is quite anal about that with taxes already, and obviously flog their agents to scrutinize the fare calc line very carefully at check-in. I've been grabbed at CUN and SAL so far. That's very annoying because I suspect I already paid the taxes, but don't know how to point it out in the calc line, so am at their mercy.)

AA seems to have one. A quick google resulted in this url. Looks like they may be able to help in some Indian cities too.

Thanks, Gardyloo. My google skills weren't up to snuff this morning.

kanebear just ran the ex-CMB xONEx pricing for me, and converted the AONEx fares to USD:

107N SRI LANKA

108N ----------

109N .

110N CURRENCY - LKR

111N CONTINENT - ASIA ¥

112N . ¥

113N ------------------------------------------------------

114N I FARE I SEASO I THREE I FOUR C I FIVE CO I SIX CON I

115N I BAS I N I CONTIN I ONTINE I NTINENT I TINENTS I

116N I IS I I ENTS I NTS I S I I

117N ------------------------------------------------------

118N I AONE I ALL I 769400 I 821100 I 944300 I 1085600 I

119N I * I YEAR I I I I I

120N ------------------------------------------------------

121N I DONE I ALL I 458900 I 523200 I 601600 I 685150 I

122N I * I YEAR I I I I I

123N ------------------------------------------------------

124N I LONE I ALL I 223400 I 268000 I 308400 I 354500 I

125N I * I YEAR I I I I I

126N ------------------------------------------------------



AONE3 = $7424.85

AONE4 = $7923.76

AONE5 = $9112.67

AONE6 = $10476.24

Please let us have your impressions, when you can.

FWIW, here's the url for AA's list of all overseas ticketing contacts -

http://www.aa.com/content/aboutUs/wh...ets/main.jhtml

Last year I sent email to the AA GSA. No response. Tried the phone number on the AA com web page, but it was wrong. I googled the TA and found a Sri Lankan based web site with the phone numbers. Again no response after 2 weeks so I gave up. If anyone is going to be in CMB for more than a quick turn around, they should try to go to the GSA in person for the best info.

With that background, why would anyone bother? From previous posts in this thread I had the impression this was someone like Emeco that people had used successfully.

Is it a specific aversion to Cathay, or is there still hope that AA won't impose fuel surcharges and Cathay won't notice?

If I had a buck for every TA I've dug out of airline web sites as their GSA in some cheap OW city, or dug up from web pages, that I've emailed and faxed repeatedly with nary a reply, I'd have at least enough for a ...

There is also a TA who will ticket on QF (and I assume BA) stock if that is more in line with the routing of your ticket.
At least as of May 2005. PM me if appropriate

Happy wandering

Fred

Had a few minor issues with my pickup in CMB.

Flew in from SIN in the morning, day in CMB then out on the 12pm/1am flight to HKG.

Was met at the gate in CMB by a person with a sign and my name saying I need to pickup the tickets when I checked in later that evening.
Came back around 9pm and spoke to security. After looking at me blankly for a while, they eventually managed to call the CX office inside the building and I was escorted through security into the innards of the airport to collect my ticket, all 19 printed segments, then taken back outside.
Picked up my luggage from left lugagge and checked in.
Unfortunately check-in at CMB only opens about 3h before so had to sit on my ... waiting in the check-in area which is a dump at best with limited food and very average chairs.

Finally got through check-in 3 hrs before flight.

The new terminal and affiliate OW lounge at CMB is great - some of the best hot food ive seen at a lounge. Unfortunately no showers in the lounge - need to go to the pay showers (which only accept USD btw)

SanDiego1K was charged the 3% cc fee because her ticket was a specially discounted ticket on CX and it was not a full fare published ticket as it is the case of Oneworld tickets. So the latter would not charge teh surcharge.

I have personally dealt with the AA GSA in CMB. Nice people but that office is HUGE and they have many GSAs in the same office! A bit confusing. but they have received my messages I sent via my CRS and emails. My last contact with them was in 2003. Though I did send them a Christmas card some time ago.

Rather than just do 'turnarounds' and complain that the airport is a dump.. think about what the country has gone through in the past few years. Spend a couple of hundred of dollars and stay overnight and contribute to the economy for a change. Appreciate the fact that Sri Lanka has come out emotionally intact and that the countrymen soldiers on in the face of turmoil and now, close to civil war.

See how the country's religion is infused in the everyday life, and people live on. Appreciate that life goes on ... and even though we like to fly for the miles and can afford it. Make the effort and help a country less fortunate than the ones we come from.

Well said..

Firstly the new part of the airport is definitely not a dump and the food in the lounge (Lotus Lounge?) was very good.

More than happy to spend some time in the city - and I must say that parts of Colombo are quite beautiful. The Galle Face Green, the Galle Fort Hotel, the Wolvendhal Church, Jami Ul Alfar are well worth a visit - albeit not taking more than a few hours. I recommend a tuk-tuk tour around the city...

However the number of times I was approached to donate to a school for the blind by a teacher who had recently received donations of Braille machines from my country and had a sheet full of recent donations (x4) or to follow a person to a special festival, once a year only starting in a few hours, with elephants, just around the corner (x3) over the space of only 12 hrs left a bad taste in my mouth.

For a real experience even caught the local buses (ridicuously cheap even after I paid 3x the normal price) back to the Airport (although it doesn't actually go to the Airport, just drops you outside).

I stayed a few days last time - having read that it was the "emerging Bali" in terms of tourism - and found it very disappointing. Other than "the people are poor and need your money" I can't think of any reason to be there. Now that the insurgency is heating up, I can think of one more reason not to. Send a check to a Sri Lankan charity.

Wow. There is so much to see/do. Did you go to the historic cities? The cultural center at Kandy? World's End? The tea country? Beaches? Galle? The wildlife reserve?

I find it much more interesting than Bali, which has become far too commercialized (and the touts are unbelievable).

It's much a matter of "compared to what?". There is much to see/do everywhere on the planet. I enjoyed the place on my first visit, when it was called Ceylon and was very rural and very tropical and I was a kid on my first rtw.

Hmmm. When it was called Ceylon... that was when? 1969? :p

JohnAx supplied the Email adress via a PM to my query in this forum. (Thnx John) Here is the first reply I received from Columbo:My total fare was ~USD6000, I wired the funds to save the 3%. If they have discontinued the 3% levy, that's very good.

Their service has been excellent; they have even booked me an ex CMB flight on CX at ~30% less than I could attain anywhere else.

Dulani has been handling my issues more recently.

That really is an interesting interchange, Serfty. I would have been buying a ticket from them at exactly the same time - it was issued 7 Aug - and no surcharge was mentioned or applied. The only thing I can think of is that even though it was ticketed after 1 July I'd been in contact with them for quite a time before that, and probably they'd already given me a price without surcharge they felt obliged to honor. Here's my interchange:

In May of this year I asked "Also, some travelers have commented that Cathay has instituted a credit card surcharge - is that true?" and Dhanya replied "The surcharge that most of travelers have mentioned is not a credit card surcharge but the courier charge of the ticket which is sent from the town office to the airport after issuance since there is no facility at airport for issuance of Oneworld tickets. We charge a nominal amount of LKR2100 regardless of it's 1 or more tickets."

I note that she didn't say "we never have charged 3%" nor did she exactly say she wouldn't charge me 3% this time, but I think it would be difficult to read that email exchange without inferring that there would be no such charge.

FWIW the price quoted now was exactly what's in the star file plus a list of taxes (looks okay) and an appropriate amount for fuel surcharges (about USD250 for CMB-HKG-LAX-LHR-HKG-CMB). Presumably they could tag 3% onto the slip they give me to sign, though, although they seemed willing to announce it ahead of time to you.

I haven't paid them for the unfortunate reason that their current whimper is that they're not allowed to ticket unless I assure them I'll be on hand to sign the c/c slip personally within 10 days. That leaves me at risk for the next price increase.

I was quoted the LKR2100 fee to have a ticket sent to the airport next month, but as I'm staying in town, (I did the turnaround once; not in a rush to do it again) I'm picking it up at their offices:No mention of the 3% so this has been discontinued (if it ever took off).

I went to the AA GSA in CMB today. They are now in a small office with 3 reservation people and 1 in accounting. There was another AA office several doors down; I'm unsure of their role. The person with whom Guy Betsy dealt left AA a month ago.

The person to whom I spoke said that they issue roughly 1 RTW per year. Dublin does the pricing. He does not know what kind of fuel surcharge is added. I have an email address for the office should anyone care to contact them for a quote.

SanDiego1K, you have a Private Message.

Thanks.

What a pity... she was sooo nice ! :(

I'm seriously thinking about doing a DONEx from CMB this Christmas. I also plan to stay in a resort around there for a few days too. Any suggestions?

Anyway, my main question is - I'm thinking of getting a one-way ticket to Sri Lanka. Presumably I'd have arranged a ticket for pick up when I arrive, and therefore have documentation to support this, will I still encounter any problems with the airline (on my way to CMB) and/or immigration at CMB?

You should have no problems "with the airline" nor immigration. My dealings and experiences with Sri Lanka, in booking flights or actually travelling have been great.

Agreed. I had a check-in agent at AKL on an AKL-SYD-HKG-CMB flight who wanted me to have tickets out from CMB, but I convinced him he was totally off base and he let me go.

I'd like to book a DONE4 ex-CMB now that flights have resumed, but it seems I have a problem with this "10 day" rule. I need to book before May (although starting the RTW next Feb) in order to get 20 segments before the new 16 segment rule applies, so it appears I would need to wire the money since I'd have to pick up the ticket within ten days if paying by CC?

I'd rather book with AA, but it seems the results here have been less than encouraging :confused:

There was no "10 Day Rule" in place in August 05 for my travel commencing in October that year.

I simply arrived at the airport and collected my tickets on a turnaround.

You paid with a CC?

Actually, no.

At the time the CX agent had a 3% fee for CC payments; I used international money transfer, saving ~USD200. (See my post here June 28, 06)

I did need to email them a scanned image of my PP photo page.

They would have happily accepted CC payment (with the 3%) - all that would have been required were scanned images of both sides of the CC - still with airport ticket collection.

Anyone know whether it's still poss to purch a CMB-orig OW RTW fare??

Yes. Now possibly when ticketed through a Canadian TA at the ex-CMB rate.

Apologies if its covered elsewhere but what is the email address for
Cathay's Colombo office? Thanks

you have PM