This year is a celebration of my grandson Seb and his lovely wife Lucia’s first wedding anniversary. Our family celebrated their wedding in Fiji last year. At the time only Lucia’s parents were able to attend, so this celebration is to be held in Germany so that Lucia’s family and friends can attend. So it’s off we go to Germany.
The planning of this trip hasn’t been without its issues, all of which will make amusing anecdotes one day, but when they happen, it can all be a tad frustrating. My granddaughter, Demelza, booked the tickets on a Singapore Airlines budget flight, through Scoop. Everything was booked and paid for, and the family arranged flights and accomodation to make the flight from the Gold Coast to Berlin.
About a week later, Scoot advised Demelza that our flights had been transferred to three days earlier. Unfortunately this wasn’t an option. Do these companies not realise that people have to make arrangements to get time off work and also we had already made all the arrangements to fit in with the original take off day. So the flights were cancelled and we had to make other arrangements.
After much discussion with Scoot by both Demelza and Ayla, Scoot finally agreed to refund the cost of the flights but it was going to take up to 6 weeks or more for the refunds to be finalised. Not very satisfactory but we had to accept it. The refunds came back in dribs and drabs, and the final payment was received last week, just under a week before we leave.
In the meantime Ayla arranged for three of the party to fly out from Sydney on British Airways and for Demelza and I to fly out from Brisbane with Singapore Airlines & Lufthansa. So everything has worked out in the end except that we won’t all be flying together.
I have never been a fan of using budget airlines and am even less inclined to use them after this experience. Not only are you subject to the whims of the provider, you have to pay extra for meals, pillows, blankets etc, all of the things that are provided by the major airlines. So by the time you add on all the extras you really aren’t saving much at all.
So now it is D-day and I am off on the first leg of my journey. I fly interstate today and leave for Germany tomorrow.
I am really excited to be going to Europe again, it’s been quite a while since I was there. and I haven’t spent very much time in Germany so this will be a treat. Plus it will be lovely to catch up with Lucia’s parents and meet the rest of her family.
Leave a Reply