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Internet shopping is great. It’s there to be 1) more convenient (quicker) 2) and often, cheaper. I practically do all my shopping online- EBay, Amazon, etc. I love it.
Enter Tiger Airways.
I’m heading to Singapore for a few days in late September. Get a recommendation from Jin to check out Tiger Airways for pricing (AirAsia doesn’t do a HCM to Singapore direct flight)
I go to the site, pick out the dates I want, it’s online, the process is straight forward. Ticket price is $114 for the round trip- nice!
I then proceed to fill in my CC info.
Denied.
Try again.
Denied!
Try again.
DENIED!!!!!! WTF!
Jin then tells me he has never been able to get his cc to be accepted by the website while ordering from Vietnam, and that I would probably have to go to their official office at Le Thanh Ton, Q1.
The price online is only for online users. Which means I don’t get that price at the official office.
Not convenient. Not cheap. (aggravated annoyance)
I thought that if VN users get the shaft for some reason (you do pick your country when you go to the website, and Vietnamese is listed, so they DO expect Vietnamese to visit), well, maybe my dad can order for me from the US. That way, the IP is in the US, and my CC is addressed in the US anyway, so no fears of fraud.
Nope, denied. Multiple times.
I then try using PayPal’s Generate Secure Card feature. This lets you create a one time use credit card number (legit) linked to your PayPal account. Good for security- if someone steals the number, they can’t use it.
Denied, big fail denied.
Now, I have no more ideas, other than to accept higher prices at the cost of less convenience. I head over to the office, bringing cash to complete purchase (online, they don’t accept American Express, and I had failed with my Visa before) I figure why chance it they don’t accept any credit cards at the office at all).
I ask if there is something wrong with the website.
They say, “Oh, it doesn’t work from Vietnam.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t handle the Internet part, that’s operated in Singapore”- she was kind of annoyed with the question, which may have been 1) she gets this question all the time, and knows it sucks 2) she herself sucks.
Not exactly the answer I wanted, but what can I do? 35 mins later (a bit long considering I didn’t wait in line), transaction completed.
Pricing comes out to be $135 USD for the round trip.
About 20% more than what I would have paid online. Not cheap. Of course, I have to consider the extra 4 hours that I wasted in terms of trying to order online various ways, and then having to go to the office, and not including my dad’s time, compared to as if the order had just been process the first time, like it normally does for me.
Sigh. A true bait and switch.
