Garuda Indonesia cancelled flights without notifying passengers

[paolobl65]

Other thing to watch out is that they can redeschule the first leg and forget to redeschule the one that come after on the same booking.

Exactly !! last december my flight Sorong to Makassar land h 18:15 BUT flight Makassar to Jakarta take off h 17:15 ..... not possible to fix on line I was forced to call the live chat ...
BTW I discover this problem looking at my reservation in Garuda website , no mail was snet to me .

 

[RobinC.]

That's part of the magic of being in Indonesia

 

[chillyinCanada]

Happened to me in January. Was supposed to have a direct flight from Makassar to Denpassar but instead flight was cancelled and I was rerouted through Jakarta (exactly what I'd intended to avoid). I received no advance notice. IIRC, was advised upon checkin for my direct flight. The trip took hours longer but at least I arrived on the same date . . .except that it was quite late at night instead of afternoon arrival. Could have been worse, I just tried to go with the flow.

 

[billt4sf]

Dare I say: this is why we should arrive the day BEFORE the LOB departs. Of the LOBs I have been on, about half the time there is a group that didn't arrive.

"You mean they paid for this but they aren't coming?" Answer: "Yes". Response: "WOW, OK more space for us I guess!"

- Bill

 

[SpeckledGrouper]

Oh yeah, Garuda victim here too!

I had our perfect itinerary booked months before...Manado to Ambon (via Ternate), Ambon to Gorontalo (via Makkassar) and from Gorontalo to Jakarta.

3 days before our leg from Manado to Ambon, Garuda cancelled the Ternate to Ambon leg, rebooking us for 3 days later...Well, we didn't mind staying 3 more days in Lembeh but had to pay both hotels (3 more days in Lembeh and 3 days at Ambon), never got reimbursement for that.

So we got to Ambon 3 days late. Just to find out that Garuda also cancelled the Ambon to Gorontalo flight!

We had no choice other than to book on Lion Air to Gorontalo. And YES, it was a MAX, and yes it was about a month old, I lost years of my life on these flights, but all was good in the end. Never got a refund for this one either...

And the last part of this comedy of errors was that I had placed a "bid" on business class upgrades for the final leg from Gorontalo to Jakarta. Well, I went to the Garuda office in Gorontalo to raise hell about all these cancellations and to check about the upgrade, not a soul at that airport was capable to help me with either. Not at the office, not at the counter, not at the gate, I got blank stares all around....

So we finally get to Jakarta, in coach, of course. At the hotel I check my email and WOW " Congratulations, your bid for upgrade to business class has been accepted and your credit card has been charged"...Once we got home I tried to get some refunds...cancelled flights... no go. I finally did get a refund for the business class upgrade that never happened.

Oh well, it's only money, the experiences at Lembeh, Ambon and Gorontalo were priceless....

 

[chillyinCanada]

How do they justify not refunding you for cancelled flights?

 

[stepfen]

How do they justify not refunding you for cancelled flights?

They don't need to justify anything.
One very common practice people follow when they f*cked up in this part of the world is to keep asking you for things, a lot of them, with a lot of details, while they try to delay by bullsh*ting as much as possible.
They don't tell you from the begging all they need but they keep adding more on every email / correspondence. First they'd ask for say flight number, names and days. You reply promptly (hopping for the best) - they delay few days (they call it processing time) and then they ask for ticket number, flight hours, passenger DoB and maybe their shoe size, you reply promptly again and after few more dates (more processing time) they ask for receipt number, reservation number, date of booking, place of booking, how was the weather and whatever else they can thing of. Then suddenly they forget that they've got already your ticket number and ask again for it. All these in broken English and with very slow replying times. The process goes on and on until after maybe a month or more (if you haven't given up yet) they give you a ridiculous excuse claiming that according to their system everything is ok (whatever ok means to them). If you insist they say they will pass your case to their supervisor and the process starts over again until eventually you give up.
To be honest I haven't seen this from Garuda (which I don't fly often) but from other smaller companies (Nam air in particular) and internet booking sites (tiket.com) and in several other cases I've been through in small everyday matters.
The algorithm seems something like : BS, delay, repeat until customer gives up.
As most of us go there to enjoy holidays and hence have limited time for BS they know that sooner or later we'll give up.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Why can't you challenge it with your credit card company?

Try nusatrip for your bookings. I can't guarantee anythingbof course, but have seen others post that nusatrip refunded in such instances.

I've used them because wasn't able to book on certain Asian(Indonesian) airlines with my Canadian credit card. Whilst I was happy with nusatrip service/system, I was not able to figure out how to pre select a seat through them.

 

[Luko]

They don't need to justify anything.
One very common practice people follow when they f*cked up in this part of the world is to keep asking you for things, a lot of them, with a lot of details, while they try to delay by bullsh*ting as much as possible.
They don't tell you from the begging all they need but they keep adding more on every email / correspondence. First they'd ask for say flight number, names and days. You reply promptly (hopping for the best) - they delay few days (they call it processing time) and then they ask for ticket number, flight hours, passenger DoB and maybe their shoe size, you reply promptly again and after few more dates (more processing time) they ask for receipt number, reservation number, date of booking, place of booking, how was the weather and whatever else they can thing of. Then suddenly they forget that they've got already your ticket number and ask again for it. All these in broken English and with very slow replying times. The process goes on and on until after maybe a month or more (if you haven't given up yet) they give you a ridiculous excuse claiming that according to their system everything is ok (whatever ok means to them). If you insist they say they will pass your case to their supervisor and the process starts over again until eventually you give up.
To be honest I haven't seen this from Garuda (which I don't fly often) but from other smaller companies (Nam air in particular) and internet booking sites (tiket.com) and in several other cases I've been through in small everyday matters.
The algorithm seems something like : BS, delay, repeat until customer gives up.
.

Another *****d up algorithm ends like "you need to go to the central office in Jakarta to get your (replace here with your purpose) " (Usually pronounced Cha-kerhh-tahh, like it was Shangri La, Babylon or some mythical city ) if by chance you are in Jakarta, the "guy in charge" will not be there, either in a meeting or at home they'll tell you, gullible human. (Most probably last time the "guy in charge" was seen chatting with Ganesha when these days he appeared on earth in ShangriLa. It is also common practice that "guys in charge" do not work as they're only paid to be in charge, not for coming to the office, otherwise you'd not be there since the beginning waiting like a fool for a thing that won't happen) .

Lion Air is the all time specialist in that algorithm, they probably coded it. Just have a look at their loyalty program LionAir passport page : "Please visit us at a later date for more information." it is the first line of the code, it has been there at least 6 years, even though they renewed the website a couple of times.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Another *****d up algorithm ends like "you need to go to the central office in Jakarta to get your (replace here with your purpose) " (Usually pronounced Cha-kerhh-tahh, like it was Shangri La, Babylon or some mythical city ) if by chance you are in Jakarta, the "guy in charge" will not be there, either in a meeting or at home they'll you, gullible human. (Most probably last time the "guy in charge" was seen chatting with Ganesha when these days he appeared on earth in ShangriLa. It is also common practice that "guys in charge" do not work as they're only paid to be in charge, not for coming to the office, otherwise you'd not be there since the beginning waiting like a fool for a thing that won't happen) .

Lion Air is the all time specialist in that algorithm, they probably coded it. Just have a look at their loyalty program LionAir passport page : "Please visit us at a later date for more information." it is the first line of the code, it has been there at least 6 years, even though they renewed the website a couple of times.

My father lived in Jakarta for 30+ years. When one or the other of his ex-pat buddies would be complaining about something related to getting anything done, or getting from one place in the city to another, visas, whatever . . .my dad would say: "where did you wake up today?" They'd look at him confused . . .and say: "in my bed"

My dad would say: "think bigger" and so on and so on until eventually the other person said: "Indonesia?"

And my dad would then smile and nod sagely, saying "Thaaat'ss Riiiiiiiiiggght!"

This story probably tells better than it reads