No Change and other Service Faux Pas
May 30, 2011 | 
Author No Change
Imagine this: you take a cab, which brings you to your destination and the meter shows – let’s say… 35 pesos, and let that be the equivalent of around $7. You give the cabdriver a bill of 50 pesos. “No senor! I don’t have change for a fifty!” Then he empties every possible pocket, looks into the dashboard compartment, and maybe even under the seat. After a little while he just to shrugs his shoulders, telling you he really does not have the equivalent of $3 in change. You wait. He looks at you in the mirror, but no reaction. “Then we have go to make change,” he puts the car into gear and takes off until he stops at the next kiosk, “here you can make change.” Here I can make change – not him.
...she didn't have change either!
This type of situation I have been in many times in Latin America. You might suspect this is a little squeeze, a way to make an extra buck on a “tip”, but not at all. It’s not a trick. This is a universal issue in Latin America and it’s especially prevalent in all small-scale cash businesses. I guess, that’s because they’re all not thinking for a second about cash management and therefore, create numerous of these situations. They just think it’s tough luck and assume you understand.
But not always do these ‘lack of change’ situations become annoying, sometimes they’re just hilarious. When a friend of mine visited me a few weeks ago in Argentina, we took a domestic flight early in the morning. She went to buy two packs cigarettes at an airport kiosk and came back amazed – the kiosk owner just gave her two packs for free, because he didn’t have change! Ok, ok… I know what you’re thinking. Because she’s really pretty blond from Germany, who does not speak Spanish, he was more inclined to give her something for free. I agree to a point. Though, I’d rather not make the sale, or even better; I’d get some change!
Sometimes you find cute situations of that kind. The other day, faced with the lack of change, I had a kiosk woman try something on me nobody had tried since grammar school – she offered me candy as change! “Here pick one…” For a moment there, I was looking for a white van before I accepted my “change”.
Of course, there are other service stupidities that a traveler will be confronted daily. Most of them, by the way, not the fault of the employees, but that fault of rigid management rules, enforced vigorously.
15 Units or Less
One of these happened to me a few months ago in Argentina. In a supermarket, I mistakenly went to the “15 units or less line” with 17 units. Naturally, the cashier made me leave 2 items behind! I was dumbfounded, but she was dead serious. With a bit of relieve, I left the expensive and weighty wine bottles. I was actually really happy to shed some weight, since I had to carry my groceries home, but the store lost about $30 in revenues…
Fake your own Signature
There are many hoops to jump through, if you want to open a bank account anywhere in the world, so I was concerned when I tried banks in Guatemala. I expected the banks would insist on proof of local residence or any form of local ID in order open an account, which of course I didn’t have. One bank didn’t have such requirements, but they almost rejected me anyway. They had an issue with my signature. I couldn’t sign exactly the way like the signature shows in my passport. Turns out, my passport’s scanned signature was not showing part of the twirl in my second ‘h’ of my last name. But they insisted that I signed exactly like it! You might think no big deal, but it’s really is difficult to fabricate your own signature. I did a good 50 signatures, all of them rejected by the bank manager. I was flabbergasted and started to look for the hidden camera. Surely some candid-camera talk show host would jump out and everyone would have a laugh at my expense. But it didn’t happen – I was really supposed to forge my own signature (I guess until forever) to imitate what is clearly just a bad scan! After finally finding a few signatures different enough from my real one, it took them almost two weeks to deem one a “well enough resemblance” to be used and allowed me to open the account… Thank you very much, you’re so kind to have me give you money to make money with!
Posted in Argentina, Central America, High tales of a curious traveler, Service Faux Pas | 
Tags: Banks, Service, Supermarkets | 
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Driving Hints and Tips Part 4: Signaling and Safety Lighting
Signaling is an important way to communicate with your fellow members in your typical Latin American traffic chaos. It is being done in a variety of ways with a variety of dangerous outcomes – so now, pay attention and learn the one and only rule of signaling in Latin America:
Whatever you have learned about signaling in your perspective home countries, it either does not apply, will be interpreted wrongly, or will be used conversely in Latin America.
I know. It’s an over-simplification, but at least it will get you in the right mindset, before you are so foolish to get into your car and drive down to Tijuana. I will use P.J. O’Rourke’s “Holidays in Hell” as an example of what I mean:
The natives do, however, have an elaborate set of signals used to convey information to the traffic around them. For example, if you’re trying to pass someone and he blinks his left turn signal, it means go ahead. Either that or it means a large truck is coming around the bend, and you’ll get killed if you try. You’ll find out in a moment. – P.J. O’Rourke
Or (much less likely, but still possible) that someone is actually signaling correctly. He’s driving an 18-wheeler and he’s about to pass another 18-wheeler, shoving you off the road, if you try to pass him. In Central America, truck drivers do this kind courtesy signaling often, but I could never quite bring myself to trust someone else with my safety. I verify myself, if the road is “clear”.
In general, when a Latinos try to make a turn, pass a car, or just cut in front of you, they might use a variety of signals, but hardly ever the actual signaling lights. Beware of the guy in an old car on the right-most lane, who frantically waves his left arm out of the window: he is about to make a left turn cutting across all lanes, expecting everyone to come to a full stop in the meantime.
One thing is for sure; Latinos refuse to spend any money on their cars that would improve the safety for them or for you. Usually, if something brakes, they fix it themselves, or get the aid of other men who stopped to help. For example, it is well known, that Venezuela’s population is about 25 million and that it has 12.5 million mechanics. Wherever you go, there’s always a car on the side of the road with three guys under the hood and two more discussing the merits of duck tape for fixing the radiator. What does that have to do with signaling or safety lights? No matter how talented these grease monkeys are, they cannot fix the lights on a car after a crash. And since no one ever spends money on car safety, they will drive around for years with only one headlight and no taillights. So, never assume that the single headlight coming at you is a motorbike!
But if it was so simple… Often too many lights can be an equally dangerous problem:
Signaling is further complicated by festive decoration found on many vehicles. It can be hard to tell a hazard flasher from a string of Christmas-tree lights wrapped around the bumper, and brake lights can easily be confused with a dozen red Jesus statuettes and the ten stuffed animals with blinking eyes on the package shelf. – P.J. O’Rourke
I know what you’re thinking and no, Venezuelans are not so ingenuous as to convert those plastic Jesuses into taillights.
Of course, the most important signal in Latin America is the horn. Although, P.J. makes references to Egypt, his comments (as usual) hold true for most Latin American countries as well.
It’s important to understand that in the Third World most driving is done with the horn, or “Egyptian Brake Pedal”, as it is known. There is a precise and complicated etiquette of horn use. Honk your horn only under the following circumstances:
1. When anything blocks the road.
2. When anything doesn’t.
3. When anything might.
4. At red lights.
5. At green lights.
6. At all other times.
- P.J. O’Rourke
In Venezuela they have an interesting definition of what an “instant” is: it’s the time that elapses between the traffic light turning green and the guy behind you frantically using his “Egyptian Brake Pedal” – a time-span so short, that it’s impossible to measure with the human senses. In Argentina I found, the horn has a dual purpose. Argentines generally obey all of P.J.’s rules, but the horn is also used to prove one’s existence. Not unlike a flock of geese nervously quacking while flying to convey that they are in formation, the Argentines will tap their horns to signal the traffic all around that they’re only about an inch away from your right back fender.
To surmise, whenever I land in a Latin country, which I have not previously visited, I try as quickly as possible to study the driving behavior and the methods of signaling. Furthermore, I also try to assess the general condition of the cars on the road: If the cars look new and or expensive, I can be reasonably sure, that they will cut me off, because they think they’re busy or just too important to signal; if the cars look old or busted, I am damn sure, that the drivers will cut me off, because they don’t give a shit.
Posted in Argentina, Central America, Countries & Regions, Driving Hints & Tips, Venezuela | Tags: Argentina, Buenos Aires, Driving in Latin America, Venezuela | No Comments »
A good summary of Guatemalan destinations
This is a decent summary for all people who have asked me over the years about Guatemala and all the Guatemalan destinations with nice photos – once one can sort through all the ads.
http://issuu.com/shiftt/docs/destination2011f2
The main places (if you have only about 10 -14 days) are: Antigua, Lago Atitlan, Tikal. Do not stay in Guatemala City but look for a hotel directly in Antigua which you can use as base camp for all other destinations. There are many travel agents and organizers in Antigua, if you want to change you activities.
Renting Apartments in Buenos Aires – a cautionary tale
In Latin America, you sometimes will find yourself in a situation, where someone tries to take advantage of the fact that you are not familiar with local customs and cultural norms. When it comes to apartment rental websites for example, I wasn’t aware that in Buenos Aires, it’s apparently acceptable to take photos in angles so you can’t see decisive short-comings or to simply photoshop them away. They hope that the tourists – straight off the airplane with their luggage in hand – are so desperate that they will sign any lease, because they see themselves sleeping under a bridge for a couple of nights. Don’t. Get a hotel room and go apartment hunting the next day.
Once in Buenos Aires, when I had too much of my 6-legged pre-historical roommates sub-leasing the kitchen, I decided not to renew my lease and go on another apartment hunt on the Internet. ByTArgentina.com had the most listings in the price range I was looking for (btw: short-term furnished apartments are massively expensive in relation to other living expenses in Buenos Aires and all landlords require cash upfront, which means for longer-term rentals, like a couple of months, you have to bring wads of cash to be invited to the show). I figured that I should be fine, if I accepted an apartment 20% more expensive than the one I was in.
After three days of roaming the streets and sticking up every cash machine that I could find, to piece together the advance for 2 months of rent and security deposit, I was finally ready to move to the new place. Once I got there, I found myself in an apartment with a nice IKEA-styled living room. Most photos of the apartment were taken of that room, which I immediately realized as soon as I entered the kitchen, because most of the pictures were not taken of the kitchen. There was old rusted refrigerator that closed only after pressing hard against it, and when the landlord checked off ‘pots’ and ‘silverware’ to the list of furnishings, she actually meant one crusted old aluminum pot and three forks, one knife, and no spoons. A perfect sub-lease for my 6-legged pre-historical roommates.
But the most disgusting was the bathroom. I had already been suspicious, because there was only one picture of the bathroom published and it had the shower curtains closed. The metal bathtub had large spots where the paint was chipped off; revealing rusted metal, rust stains, and mildew everywhere. But most concerning was the doorframe. At the bottom, it was so rotten from the humidity that you could actually see through it into the hallway!
When I was checking the shutters, they weren’t going down all the way. It’s very important to have good shutters in your sleeping room due to the crazy, draculan life style in Buenos Aires. So I tugged a little bit at the belt, only to have a ripped end fly through my hand and the shutter crashing down in a big bang! This excited the landlord, who came rushing into the room with dollar signs in her eyes like Scrooge McDuck/Dagobert Duck. When she claimed that I had to pay hundreds of Pesos for the “recently installed” shutters, I lost my temper.
Pointing out that I had to stay at least 4 days in a hotel due to the long weekend before I could rent a new place, I commenced to take photos of all the defects in her “luxury apartment”. This caused the landlord to become physical (!) with me, trying to prevent me from taking those incriminating photos, before pushing me out of the door like a seasoned wife of an adulterer. After imagining my clothing raining down on pedestrians on Santa Fe Ave., so I made sure I had all my bags and made a beeline to the elevator.
But just when I thought it could not get more embarrassing, the scene took one last twist. Down on the street, her husband, who apparently had waited in the car, got into my face as well. He was yelling profanities at the top of his lungs. But once he realized that I had about 2 inches and 30 pounds on him, he stormed away, claiming he would call the police to arrest me. They – surprisingly – never showed.
I ended up renting a beautiful apartment via a brokerage that actually checked the listing details of apartments and screened landlords. I am sure this was a strange untypical incident, but nevertheless, here are the learning points and take-aways:
- Don’t use ByTArgentina.com, because as it turns out, they are the only platform/site that does not verify any of the information that landlords include in their listings.
- In the summer (Dec. – Feb.) you need air-conditioning in the sleeping room. Since you are going to sleep mostly during the day, it can get every hot and the living room units usually can’t handle the large area all the way to the sleeping room.
- You need shutters. It’s something the sites don’t list so look at the sleeping room pictures and try to make out, if they exist. Otherwise, ask the real estate brokers – if they don’t know, don’t even consider the apartment.
- “High-speed Internet” means a slow cable modem. If you to like to move your laptop around and not just sit in one chair in the corner of the living room, it has to say “Wi-Fi”.
- Mistrust apartments without photos of all areas of the kitchen and the bathroom. Only one corner of the kitchen means there’s another corner that’s filthy. Bathrooms with the shower curtains closed are a no-no!
- In general, if the apartment looks clean but 70’s, it hasn’t been renovated since the 70’s, it’s probably filthy, and only the pictures have been “renovated” with Photoshop. Kitchens or bathrooms with a “clean glare” like a bathroom cleaner add, are probably photoshopped as well.
- Outside pictures of buildings might not be pictures of your building, but of your view onto other much more modern buildings across the street.
- Figure out which neighborhood you will frequent. It most likely will be Palermo or Recoleta. Although, cab rides are cheap, they’ll be an add-on to your rent.
Posted in Argentina, Countries & Regions, Planning and booking trips, Travel Tips | Tags: Apartment rental, Argentina, Buenos Aires, Online booking, Trip Planning | No Comments »
Costa Rica Information website
About the same time last year, I worked with my buddy Johannes Mayr in Costa Rica, helping him write a business plan and review his business model. In this model, he created a very interesting and quality website with information about Costa Rica, which I can only recommend whole-heartedly. I believe there’s no better source of information for travelers on Costa Rica’s beaches, towns, national parks, biology, culture, economy, tourism activities, etc. If you want to visit Costa Rica (the next two months are a good time to go, while it’s still dry season) have a look at www.costarica-information.com before you decide where to stay and what to do.
Playa Flamingo http://costarica-information.com/destinations/guanacaste/playa-flamingo-santa-cruz-top-destinations
Ancient city of volcanoes: Antigua de Guatemala
For those who haven’t been, Antigua is an old colonial town located 70 kilometers west of Guatemala City perched between jungle-covered mountains and scenic volcanoes. It has been the capital of Guatemala (and for a time all of Central America) from the middle of the 16th century until the end of the 18th. “On September 29, 1717, an estimated 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit Antigua
Antigua and the Volcan de Agua
Guatemala, and destroyed over 3,000 buildings. Much of the city’s architecture was ruined. The damage the earthquake did to the city made authorities consider moving the capital to another city.” They didn’t. Only after another earthquake laid the city to rubble in the 1770’s was the capital moved to the valley of current day Guatemala City. “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” apparent was not in their vocab. Does that sound familiar?
Host to dozens of Spanish language schools catering to backpackers and underage college students, Antigua seems like the World’s capital of language tourism. But I doubt there’s much Spanish being learned over there. It’s more the “but Dad, all my friends are going and… and I’ll learn Spanish!” kind of language tourism. That being said, the kids will learn something – a sense of direction. Build colonial style on a grid of Calles (streets) and Avenidas (avenues) with every corner looking like the next, Antigua can be confusing to navigate for freshmen language students – especially at night after a several rounds of Tequila shots with their buddies. During the day, they can orientate themselves by the ever-present Volcan de Agua, but at night it becomes almost impossible the find the way back to the hostel. Just remember: no matter how you remember it, there’s only one Parque Central in Antigua, if you passed it for the second time, you’re running in circles.
But all that aside, Antigua is one of the most beautiful towns I have seen and well worth a visit. Go for couple of days (three, if you want to climb a volcano) walk the cobble-stoned streets (and some severe ones too, it’s the only place I have been to in Latin America where the locals don’t ride bikes), visit the market, and relax in one of the many small hotels’ inside patios. In the evening, go to one of the many roof-top bars, watch the play of the clouds reddened by the sunset, and wait for the Volcan de Fuego do his thing: erupt and blow a large could of dust every half and hour or so. In the evening eat at any surprisingly good restaurants before going out. A nice location (although they changed management and lost a bit of their coolness) is El Chaman, a reggae bar inside the ruins of a four hundred year old cathedral, which is illuminated at night. With is play of shadows on rumbled rocks of walls and pillars, it might just be one of the most unique locations anywhere for a bar. If you want action at night, there are a number of good bars for any kind of taste: college crowds or grown-ups; Latino or American style; salsa-dancing or sports bars. Beware: ladies night is on Tuesdays.
Antigua is also a good base camp for many trips in Guatemala: it’s about an hour away from the airport, 2 hours away is beautiful Lago Atitlan, an hour more to famous Chichicastenango, with its colorful market. There are a number of tour operators in Antigua, who offer a variety of different adventures, day trips, or just transfers (to Tikal, of example). Don’t ask why, but I even found a surfshop and a PADI- (diving) school in Antigua, although it’s several hours away from any larger body of water and still further away from any place, which has clear enough waters, so you can actually see your hand in front of your face when diving! Weird, but I guess, it’s the proof that Antigua is a good central base for traveling in Guatemala.
The Volcan de Fuego doing his thing. View from Guatemala City towards the volcanoes around Antigua. From left: Volcan de Agua, Fuego, Acatenango.
Driving Hints and Tips Part 3: Mobile Road Hazards
The greatest hazards on Latin American streets are, of course, the Latinos themselves. Especially when they drive a car. But that is not the topic of this post. This post is about the dangers of moving obstacles that appear in your way: animals, sales people, and drunks.
As a rule of thumb, you should slow down for donkeys, speed up for goats and stop for cows… Drive like hell through the goats. It’s almost impossible to hit a goat. On the other hand, it’s almost impossible not to hit a cow. Cows are immune to horn-honking, shouting, swats with sticks, and taps on the hind quarters with the bumper. The only thing you can do to make a cow move is swerve to avoid it, which will make the cow move in front of you with lightning speed. – P.J. O’Rourke
Fenced-in pastures not only keep a landowner’s cattle from escaping, but also keep other animals from trespassing. Why does that matter to drivers? Think of it this way: along any rural road there’s plenty of grass to feed cows, donkeys, or horses, and if these animals cannot cross into the pastures lining the streets, they also cannot run away. For a land-less herdsman this means free food supply for his herd, without them scattering off in all directions. He lets them roam free and all he has to do is walk along the street to herd his animals – which he might not do for days. So there are plenty of large “dumb-mesticated” animals along country roads and highways, which can “move in front of you with lightning speed.”
[If you drive slowly] donkeys will get out of your way eventually, and so will pedestrians. But never actually stop for either of them or they’ll take advantage, especially the pedestrians. If you stop in the middle of a crowd of Third World pedestrians you’ll be buying Chiclets and bogus antiquities for days. – P.J. O’Rourke
Lining the highways in Latin America, there’re armies of professional sales people, armed with any imaginable cheap and useless stuff. How do they sell stuff on a highway? They are always ambushing you when you’re stuck in a traffic jam. In midst the stop and go traffic, they walk on the dashed lines and sell you used AA batteries and McDonalds Kids Meal action figures. Actually they are so predictably in harms way, that they are a very reliable warning system to prevent massive pile ups: when you come around a corner and you see sales people standing in the middle of the highway, hit the breaks, you are about to rear-end the five o’clock rush-hour traffic jam.
And then there are the drunks. Omnipresent in any town at any day of the week and at any time of the day, there’s always some Pepe swinging a plastic bottle of the worst self-made Aguardiente, while he’s swerving back and forth as if playing chicken with on-coming traffic. Beware of him, but also of the oncoming traffic that tries to avert him by driving into your side of the road.
But there are plenty of other people crossing highways. Often highways cut through towns, creating a formidable barrier for townspeople, who need to cross the road to go to work or school. This is of course a well-known problem and usually local leadership’s solution is to build expensive pedestrian overpasses – to no avail. It seems almost impossible to make Latinos walk another hundred meters and climb up a few stairs for a save passage across a four lane highway – they much rather play real-life Frogger, crossing between speeding cars while balancing a basket on their head and holding the hands of their four- and six-year son and daughter. Men are extremely prone to taking chances this way. They dart through the smallest gaps between traffic and if the gaps are comfortably large, they stop running and walk so slow to tease drivers to slow down anyway. I guess it’s the ultimate show of machismo – sort of a modern-day running with the bulls. A friend of mine calls it “natural evolutionary selection”: the fine line between daring and careful; stupid and smart.
Predictably, there’s a high number of tragedies on the streets in Latin America, as crosses at the side of the road can attest (in Costa Rica, its not crosses, they paint yellow hearts onto the pavement to indicate that someone was killed in an accident at that spot. On the way to the beach there are some places where there’s so much yellow graffiti one the road it’s sickening.) It’s sad and only avoidable through defensive driving on your part. I’ll leave you with P.J. O’Rourke’s interpretation of the crosses on the side of the road:
Dangerous curves are marked, at least in Christian lands, by white wooden crosses positioned to make the curves even more dangerous. The crosses are memorials to people who’ve died in traffic accidents, and they give a rough statistical indication of how much trouble you’re likely to have at that spot in the road. Thus, when you come through a curve in a full-power slide and are suddenly confronted with a veritable forest of crucifixes, you know you’re dead. – P.J. O’Rourke
Travel Pitfalls due to National Holidays: Beware of Carnival and Semana Santa in Latin America
Late afternoon on the Tues. before Easter at a beach near Mochima. This beach is usually almost deserted.
In the springtime Latinos enjoy two holiday’s extensively: Carnival and Semana Santa. Although both are religious holidays, most Latinos cherish the off days to go to the countryside or the beach. Overall, these periods of 4 to 10 days often correlate with immense traffic, congested airports, jam-packed bus stations, overbooked hotels, and crowded beaches. Many large cities become ghost towns, while their citizens are off to the beaches.
In Costa Rica, during Semana Santa, the roads to the beach are lined with parked cars for miles, hundreds of tents are pitched at the beach, and the air is filled with the scent of sun lotion, beer and barbeques. In Venezuela, where there are less beaches per capita, one cannot help but be reminded of Discovery Channel shows with thousands of sea elephants sunning themselves at a beach – you cannot see the sand of all these human bodies. Even the most social person will need to get used to the spectacle.
Start of a logistical masterpiece that would make the Army Corps of Engineers proud
In 2001, I made the mistake to invite a friend to visit me in Venezuela right during Semana Santa. Joined by another friend, we spend the 2 weeks roaming the coast searching for beds we could share and a few square feet of sand to put a towel down. A week before Semana Santa, in an effort to escape the ever increasing crowds, we made it to the isolated (only accessible by boat) Playa Sepe. Once we realized how locals prepared themselves for the onslaught of visitors with Normandy-invasion-sized logistical efforts, on other words, landing with small boats and hauling hundreds of beer cases to the beach, we hightailed out of there and tried our luck somewhere else.
A few days later, at the beach town of Mochima, we were faced with another dilemma: all bars and watering holes were hopelessly crowed, so that we had to wait 45 min. for a beer. Not ones to take no for answer and always open to new ideas, we bought a half-gallon sized bottle of Cacique Rum, 2 liters of Coke, some plastic cups, and a bag of ice. Not knowing where to go, we made our way to the town square, sat at the feet of the (omnipresent) Simon Bolivar statue, slit open the ice bag, and served ourselves some stiff ones. In no time some girls joined us, who invited some more girls, who knew some other people, who knew some guys with a truck. I didn’t know why that was important, but before I could say “only if they bring another bottle” they backed up the truck – equipped with subwoofers the size of truck wheels – and blared mind-numbing Salsa music at us all night long.
Predictably, this drew in more and more strangers making it one of the craziest parties I have ever been part of. My memory of the rest of the night is hazy, but this was the type of party where salsa dancing was learned, perfected, and forgotten; romantic relationships were started and ended; friends got abducted and released; hotel keys were lost and found; and – but we can never be sure – guys may have gotten lucky and children might have been fathered.
Anyway, during these holidays wild parties can happen, but the hassle finding accommodation, being stuck for hours in traffic, and finding sufficient nourishment is not for the faint-hearted. Carnival and Easter are generally to be avoided, if a traveler hopes to enjoy vacations in peace and quiet, alone with no one who tries to sell overpriced food and beer or tries to rent out his backyard shack for a month’s salary.
Carnival is not quite as intense as the Semana Santa is, but similar rules apply. Easter this year is late on the 24th of April, which makes Carnival be around the 16th of March, so beware when booking your vacation to Latin America.
Posted in Central America, Countries & Regions, Drinks, Planning and booking trips, Travel Tips, Venezuela | Tags: Carnival, Costa Rica, Holidays, Parties, Semana Santa, Venezuela | 2 Comments »
Online Booking Troubles: a tale of the nerve-wreaking and time-wasting chore of booking flights online
The Internet was supposed to make everything faster and cheaper. When it comes to buying airline tickets online, it is maybe a bit cheaper, but most of the time not faster. Ok, if I book something simple, like Hamburg to New York, it’s an improvement in speed; but if you book complicated multi-city trips, let’s say, Hamburg to Brazil, Argentina, and back through some place in Central America, I end up wanting to kill the programmers responsible for designing these booking systems. Actually, I have fantasized to force-feed airline CEOs their own medicine and forcing them to make three complicated bookings a day, until they loose the last of their remaining hair. Let’s imagine how they react to the problems I encountered below.
Buenos Aires, 18:15 – I go to www.kayak.com and find the direct, round-trip flight from Costa Rica to Guatemala. Kayak sends me to the airline’s website and I fill out all necessary information. The system rejects my booking on the claim that security code on the back of my credit card is wrong.
18:21 – I add the information again, double-checking all numbers, but the system still doesn’t budge – the “security code is incorrect”. The problem is, neither the credit card number nor the security code is wrong. After all, I am holding the card in my hand!
18:31 – I relend and use another card. At sometime, while my filling out the information, the Internet connection drops – nothing out of the ordinary and par for the course in Latin America. Once the connection is set again, I fill in all the information a second time. But now, the web server rejects my booking, because apparently I have made “too many payment attempts”! I don’t know how many the system thought I made, but I made only two! Ok, screw them; I am not going to get upset, I tell myself; I go to another place to book the flight.
18:48 – Went back to Kayak.com, did the search again, and to my surprise got a cheaper flight with the same airline but nicer departing times. The difference is, that I have to book through a new reseller of tickets. In order to book the flight, the reseller’s system forces me to “sign in” and open a new account.
18:57 – To open the account, I plow through three pages of online forms, before I get stopped this error message: “User name OR password are already taken”. WTF? Since when do passwords have to be unique? Anyway, I click ‘back’, and of course, all information on the form gets erased.
19:03 – I have to fill in everything again. ‘Mandatory’ fields are: name, home address, telephone numbers (they should never all me on, please), and the credit card info. I hold my breath…
19:09 – It system rejects me again, because I forgot to select the right (not-mandatory) “Mr.” from the “Title” drop down menu. This, of course, erases all previous filled out information again. I curse all programmers in the whole world and imagine banging some CEO’s head on his keyboard!
19:20 – After carefully filling out everything on the form (and thereby opening the door awide for them to bombard me with last minute deals to Egypt, Myanmar, or some other god forsaken place I have no interest in going), I submit the information successfully, only to be told that by now the offer timed out and I would need to do new search!
19:22 – I didn’t. I called up the airline’s reservations desk, in order to speak with a real human being, but that’s a whole other story!
I understand that my reaction to these issues might be, at times, a bit extreme: with human beings I can explain myself, improvise, and compromise; with machines I just feel frustrated, because I am completely out of control of the situation. If you take into account what needs to go into planning a trip – miles to be used, miles to be earned, departure and arrival times, wake-up times and sleeping hours, and all of that on top of price and other scheduling obligations – booking a flight online can be quite sisyphean exercise, even without airline screwing up and booking systems not working correctly.
I long stopped trying to book a flight “on the fly” and these days I schedule several hours to book my flights. Apart from that, one big lesson I learned is that I double and triple check the offers. First, I open up another browser tap and run the exact same search again. I am always surprised (especially with Kayak, but also with other search engines) how often there’s a better deal to be had, with exactly the same search parameters, the second time around. Second, I always check with the airline’s own system. I have gotten lucky there as well, but not as often as with a simple re-check. Third and last, I call up the airline to see what the reservations personnel “sees”. Most of the times they “see” only flights that are three or four times more expensive, but I have gotten lucky here and there. Now, calling the reservations team is a different matter all together and requires additional patience, which I will discuss in another post.
Posted in Planning and booking trips | Tags: Airlines, Online booking, Trip Planning | No Comments »
Weekend in Buenos Aires: culinary and cultural recommendations in an article in the New York Times
The one thing striking about Buenos Aires is, that the city seems more like a southern European city, than a Latin American one. The city’s architecture, cultural sites, and culinary hidden gems, reminded me more of Barcelona, than of Caracas or Bogota. There is a short article about Paola Singer’s two-day weekend in Buenos Aires – use it as tentative guide when visiting Buenos Aires:
