Flamenguista

I booked a few Air Asia flights for an upcoming trip to SE Asia. For one of the flights REP-DMK-KBV, I booked a flight with the shortest layover at DMK, which was the most expensive. I checked my itineraries today and they changed the DMK-KBV leg, flight number and all. No problem, except that instead of putting me on the flight with the next shortest layover, they put me on a flight with 5.5 layover.

So I booked the most expensive option for that day (at time of booking), but they downgrade me without any notification to a cheaper flight with double the layover time. I check their website, and there is a flight with a much better connection time available.

Do I have any right to complain here? How does Air Asia typically respond to these kind of things? Or should I not even waste my time and just pay the extra cash to upgrade the flight. TIA.

BSBtraveller

You get what you pay for and Air Asia are impossible to communicate as a result. They don't listen to complaints and they don't have to because they don't care. They're cheap and cheerful and they have a billion or two potential clients who have yet to fly them, so good luck.

You're only option is to go into change booking - it's likely not to cost too much money, but that depends on what your budget is. 5+ hours in DMK will be no fun.

Flamenguista

I decided I wasn't going to bother with the minimal price difference about $20-$30. But I start to edit my itinerary online and they want a $120 change fee and $20 processing fee. No way. I will call and complain tonight.

So they change my flight without warning to a cheaper flight than what I originally paid with double the layover, then want $140 on top of the fare difference to change to a flight with a sensible layover time. You get what you pay for is right.

Flamenguista

Update: Because they have no number to call from the US, I went to their online help chat. They told me someone would call me back. Late last night someone called and it was a painless 1 minute conversation. They changed the flight no questions asked.

Laowai

Good to hear you managed to change your flight to one with a shorter layover.

On a side note I also got a call from Air Asia this week. My flight from PVG to KUL was rescheduled by 15 minutes and thus my connecting time for my next flight to SIN shortened from 90 to 75minutes and they insisted that their minimum time in KUL is 90 minutes and I must rebooked for the next flight. So instead of the original 90min transit I will end up spending 3˝h in KUL. Not a huge deal, but I personally consider 75 minutes more than sufficient in most airports for international-to-international connection and within the same terminal.

moondog

PVG-KUL often uses the same overflies SZX and HKG, which is the most delay prone flight path I know of. It seems that AIr Asia might have done you an inadvertent favor by giving you the longer connection.

lokijuh

Not to mention that air traffic control related delays in taking off from PVG are not uncommon either ;-)