A MONTH ago, I wrote about the experience that my friend, Jay Ruiz, and his family in Hong Kong went through with the Philippine Airlines (PAL). Ruiz and 16 members of his entourage spent their holy week vacation in Hong Kong. They bought tickets via PAL’s on-line ticketing using his credit card.
Everything was okay when they took the direct flight from Cebu to Hong Kong. But when they left Hong Kong going back to Cebu, he and seven of his companions were not allowed to go on board by PAL personnel in Hong Kong as their tickets were deemed invalid. Ruiz argued that he purchased the tickets on-line. But PAL officials did not listen to his argument and instead advised him to buy another set of tickets.
Good that he had cash at that time. But how much did Jay pay? An equivalent of P17,000 per passenger. I don't know if Jay pursued his plan to file a civil case against PAL and demand a refund.
Recently, I received another complaint via e-mail from Paul Omo against the airlines.
Here’s his letter:
“I think your being in the media can help clear our minds regarding our latest visit to our homeland, the Philippines. We are now residing in Australia, but because of homesickness, we decided to have a holiday for few weeks there (my wife, my son and I). We availed of cheaper airline tickets from Melbourne via Manila from one of the local airlines here.
“Subsequently, we also bought PAL airline tickets from Manila to Cebu and Cebu-Manila for our return, thinking that everything was in order. But for onereason or another, we received message from the local airline that the scheduled flight was moved to a later time, putting our flight schedule from Manila to Cebu via PAL in trouble.
“We called PAL to adjust our schedule to catch-up with the next flight. To our dismay, we were advised to come up with an additional payment at almost equivalent the original price. Instead of taking their bait, we informed them to cancel our earlier payment and asked them for a refund. We were told that they would not refund a single penny. What we did, we charged it for naught and forgot everything.
“On our way back, only my wife and I were able to catch the PAL flight since my son had left earlier because of emergency related to his work. When we checked in, the counter staff asked us about my son. We told them that he had left ahead of us. When we checked in our luggage, it was over the allowed limits and they charged us for it.
We tried to negotiate with them to charge it to my son's ticket but to no avail.
“What racket did this national carrier heap on us?”
This is not the first time I received complaints against PAL. If these acts continue, these will drive away its customers. Samot ka bankrupt.
***
My 23-year-old son, Eldridge Roy, who is taking up physical therapy course at the Cebu Doctor's University, found some peso bills inside the school's elevator last Saturday.
He only recovered P2,000 because some of the bills fell from the elevator edge and went down the shaft when the door opened. He was alone in the elevator.
He turned over the money to the school's head security. I am sure that money was meant to be used for tuition, as the school is holding its midterm exams this week. The problem is, how will the owner prove ownership of the money? Not to pull my own chair because Elroy is my son, but he is honest because we taught him the virtue of honesty. Bisan may pagka-chickboy ni siya.
(bobby.nalzaro@yahoo.com)