Jakarta, here we come

Remember this entry on Aliff probably moving to Jakarta?

Well, when I broke the news to my Ibu, she was not happylah until I told her that the silver lining is that we can go visit him there and do the wedding shopping. After that she spread the news to everyone and everyone was suddenly excited to go to Jakarta.

My very excited mother had riled everybody up with the plan of going shopping at Jakarta that Kakmyra's MIL called her up one day and said there's a cheap flight to Jakarta via KLM (a dutch airline) for February, during Chinese New Year.

What?

Aliff's secondment has not been finalised yet. Going to Jakarta without him being in Jakarta defeats the initial plan of going to Jakarta kan - which was for me to visit him, and alang-alang dah dekat sana, get some stuff for the wedding.

Aliff said he can't join us because he wanted to do his studying for the CFA during Chinese New Year holidays.

Kakmyra wouldn't be joining us as well, because she's already in her third trimester...Maybe if she gets her OBGYN to sign a letter allowing her to fly and she feels fit she'll join us. But for now, she won't be joining us.

Anyway, because everyone else was so excited for the trip, and the tickets were quite cheap, Ibu managed to convince Bapak to fund the trip. So, on Saturday morning Ibu woke me up, told me to get Bapak's credit card and book the flight to Jakarta for the family. Since Mama-Ina and family will also be joining us, she asked me to call Nell to come over and bring her laptop so we can do the booking together.

I was quite sceptical with KLM...because I've actually never heard of it...but Kakmira's MIL had flewn with KLM many times before and they liked it. I did my research on KLM airline, and found a couple forums comparing MAS and KLM. Most preferred MAS, but those who preferred KLM, did not like MAS. hmmm?

We started  the online booking at about 4pm because everyone had stuff to do earlier in the day.

I don't know why, but there were so many problems with the online booking.

First, the internet was having problems.

Then, Ibu called and asked me to book for my grandmother and her maid. Her maid had an Indonesian passport, and didn't state her last name. So I didn't know how to fill in the "last name" column for her. Tried calling KLM hotline, but the Malaysia office has closed by then and we were supposed to call Amsterdam...what? Told Ibu the problem and she told me to book for our family first.

So I had to start all over again.

Nell didn't want to proceed with their payment just yet, she wanted to wait for me.

Then internet was slow again.

Then when it was finally time to make the payments, the page said they didn't recognise the credit card...whattt? I called the credit card company and they told me my dad has not registered for online banking. Luckily my dad was still at home (they were getting ready for a wedding). He gave me his other credit card.

Nell had to start over because her page has exceeded the time to finalise the booking. Ahahah.

We joked that probably it's a sign not to go with KLM.

Kakmyra and Nell browsed MAS website, just to check out the price....and they found that it was about the same, just a few RM more than KLM.

I ran back up and and told my parents, and they said proceed with MAS. (we always preferred MAS, don't know why...we feel more comfortable and more at home I guess ahahah).

So, then me and Nell abandoned the KLM website and started booking with MAS. By then, Kakmira's MIL came by, and they asked Kakmyra to do the booking for them. So Kakmyra took out her Ipad and started the booking for her PIL. Syida took over from me because I was tired from the whole KLM-booking problems.

Our booking was finalised. Tapi, Nell's and Kakmyra's had problems with the credit cards.  Then, we realised, Syida entered her name as "Mr Syaida Binti Abd Majid". Ahahahahahh. Ya Allah. So stressfulllll.

I called MAS, and they said its ok, that it wouldn't be a problem.

Nell called MAS and did their booking through the phone because they erred so many times, the credit card rejected the transaction.

Kakmyra's PIL ended up booking with KLM.

WOW. Such a stressful online booking experience! Those were some of the problems we encountered. There were many others (Mama Pogy, Sumirah related problems ahahah. FYI, according to MAS, for my grandmother's Indonesian maid whose passport didn't state her last name, suffice to put her first name again in the "last name" column - eg: First Name: Sumirah, Last Name: Sumirah. So her ticket will read "SUMIRAH/SUMIRAH").

My house was so noisy with everyone shouting at each other and on the phone, and running up and down. It was like at a stock exchange when the market opens.

At the end of the day, at about 10pm, everyone has booked a seat to Jakarta on the 1st-4th February.

Now, I'll just have to find out where to go, what to buy and how much I can spend.

Can't wait for the trip!

xoxo