El Andalous - Welcome to 2017

Arriving into Hurghada

I’ve been trying to pave the way for an easier 2017 (not that 2016 was a bad year for me; I’m actually in a pretty good place in my life just now), so the week after Christmas ended up being quite busy.

One thing I did was to write a complaint email to Edelweiss. I’d upgraded last minute to business on my way back from Zurich, but it had all been a bit of a fiasco (which isn’t what you want when you’ve paid extra). Just booking it was a hassle. 

The flight originally had to be booked via Swiss airlines and not via Edelweiss (their subsidiary), since Edelweiss allow bookings only if you’re booking a return flight that starts in Switzerland. I needed my return flight to start out from Hurghada. Of course, booking via Swiss with a start airport of Hurghada meant that the price of my flight immediately skyrocketed. I ended up getting my ticket via Expedia, thinking this was cheaper, but when it got to printing out my boarding pass for my return flight, I realized that I’d booked business only for the outgoing flight, so it probably wasn't cheaper after all. It was all a bit of a mess, but the booking was my mistake.

I went to the airport to see how much it would cost to upgrade. Now, however, Swiss wouldn’t serve me and told me I needed to go to the Edelweiss counter. They also said I should leave it until the following day (my date of departure) because it would be cheaper. I wasn’t convinced about this.

I went home and tried to upgrade via internet on the Edelweiss website; I really wanted to upgrade sooner rather than later so that I would know if I had the extra baggage allowance. Anyway, Edelweiss wrote back to say that I needed to do the upgrade via Swiss.

I returned to the Swiss counter the next morning and again they told me to go to Edelweiss. I had to drag my luggage over to the next terminal and they told me I needed to check in before upgrading (I was sure it said the opposite on their website). They did this for me, so it wasn’t a problem, but just another frustrating bit of information.

Afterwards, I duly went to the Swiss business lounge only to have them query whether Edelweiss customers were allowed in the Swiss lounge. Honestly! They didn’t make a problem out of it, but it was still disconcerting, which wasn’t what I’d paid for.

And then the flight was also disappointing. They didn’t provide me with nibbles on take-off, the food portion was tiny, leaving me feeling hungry for most of the flight (I had to ask for the nibbles), they didn’t serve me with chocolates like they usually do; instead I had the ginger cake that they usually serve in economy (which I don’t like that much). The orange juice was concentrated orange juice rather than fresh, which is what I’m sure I usually get on business. On my flight over, I had felt completely stuffed; on my fight back, I was dying for something to eat when I landed.

So, I finally complained. Some poor person is going to go to work on 3rd January and wonder what sad person spends new year’s eve writing a letter of complaint. That sad person is me!