Singapore Airlines

Lordy lordy ... you know your life is a story when the guy at Singapore Airlines excuses himself to 'read the novel of your booking history'.

This particular booking history began 14 June back in Istanbul. I worked for a private school who were contractually obligated to pay my flight back to New Zealand at the end of the teaching year. Meanwhile I met Gert and before committing to the process of immigrating to Belgie, we decided we needed to be sure so I changed my original flight home to NZ from 2 August to 15 September 2005.

Time passed, Gert and I realised we were serious but that a free one-way flight via Istanbul to New Zealand wasn't as much use to me as I had imagined. A return flight from New Zealand, via the Belgian Consulate for New Zealaders which is based in Australia (for my Residency Permit), would incur some crippling costs, not to mention paying for an indeterminate stay in New Zealand without income. At the 11th hour we discovered the long-term visa application could made from within Belgium ... so we checked, 6-8 weeks blah blah, boring now ... to be processed, they told me.

So we gave Districthuis here my application and I altered my flight home, choosing the suitably far-off date of 17 March 2006, a date that I imagined (having read up on the 'in process' processes) would allow me time to become legal, apply for a Professional card and to have begun earning my own money here.

I love flying with Singapore Airlines. Their inflight service is superb but not only that, I'm discovering that their ground staff are incredibly helpful ... they helped me change my one-way ticket into a roundtrip and open it up for a year ... just in case.

March 17, 2006 is suddenly looming and instead of 6-8 weeks it's has been 6 months 'in process' and still counting. So I phoned the airline today, mortified about needing to change my flight home yet again.

Obviously there are now various new details to look into ... 6 months has passed since I rebooked and they possibly assumed I was a normal customer ... a lovely Economist magazine as opposed to this tatty old novel type. They need to ascertain how long my ticket is valid for ... one year after the day of booking or the day of flight which in turn changes the date that I lose the ticket forever; whether there has an alteration in ticket pricing due to me flying at a different time of year, etc ... but really, I'm grateful it could be held open so long.

But that Singapore Airlines man was so charming and helpful, as was the woman in Amsterdam last time. They'll get back to me in a couple of days ... novels aren't simple and pieces of my particular story are back in Istanbul.

Singapore Airlines, you are superb!