Flight from hell

Our vacation to India next month is quickly turning into a nightmare thanks to a shoddy airline and an even more unhelpful travel agent.

A word of advice. If you can avoid Thai airways flying out of San Francisco, please do. It is just not worth the trouble.

We were booked on SFO-LAX-BKK-BLR flight. I checked Thai airways website and was informed that there was no need to reconfirm tickets. But I went ahead and reconfirmed anyways. Imagine my shock when the agent told me that our flight timings had changed. Even better that the flight number listed on our ticket no longer existed. We were passengers on a phantom flight. The airline did not inform us when the timings were changed or at least it did not get to us. They blame the travel agent and the travel agent blames them. Meanwhile I the consumer am left feeling the pinch.

We have a stopover in BKK and fortunately we still have enough time to catch a domestic Thai flight despite the change in flight timings. The return journey promises to be a nightmare. We leave BLR at 10:30p on 31st Dec. Originally scheduled to connect to BKK-LAX leaving at 8a on 1st Jan. Now that flight has been rescheduled to 8p in the night arriving into LAX at 8p on 1st Jan. Unfortunately well past 4p when our connecting flight from LAX to SFO leaves in the afternoon.

I found out that there is no flight to SFO after 8p in the evening on the 1st. We'll have to wait at the airport overnight and catch a flight on 2nd Jan at 10a. Return journey including flight time and layover is now almost 42 hours. The airline agreed to pay for hotel in BKK but won't put us up in LAX and we'll have to fend for ourselves.

Has anyone tried to call the Thai airline office in LA? Don't even try. Takes me at least 45 min to get through to an agent. Then agent tosses me to ticketing and they toss me back to reservation without even listening to me. They also seem to be understaffed. I have spoken to the same agent on both the days I have called. Somehow I don't think it is just coincidence. Frustrating!

If you are flying out of SFO, don't fly Thai. We only chose Thai because we have stopover in BKK on the outbound journey. Bad mistake! Should have gone with Singapore or Cathay that are more reliable and fly out of SFO.