Low-cost travel plans can come with unforeseen costs. The unseen price for the group who found themselves stuck at the Chiang Mai Airport last week with no plane ticket.
Last Friday at the Chiang Mai International Airport, some 32 travellers found themselves in a state of confusion when they discovered they were not on the passenger manifests for an airline that was supposed to be taking them to Chongqing, China.
Can you imagine the confusion you would have experienced in that situation? You packed and travelled for 8 hours (or more), arrived at the airport and checked in, only to find out you have no booking with the airline and no tickets. All you have is a long list of unanswered questions.
To make matters worse, the way the trip was arranged (via a “group tour package” with the intent of reducing the cost of travel when many people travel together), and a wait list of 2 weeks) seemed like a great deal. A group of over 30 tourists from Chiang Rai all joined in paying approximately 24,000 Baht for the trip, which resulted in a total loss of 800,000 Baht from this group’s effort.
This group travelled as families of all ages (from children, to the elderly) and many took a charter bus to the Chiang Mai Airport early in the morning to catch the flight to Chongqing.
Those who created the tour were not just some random person who walked up to someone and started talking about how they could take them on a trip and also had a lot of people they had talked with prior to coming up with their plan to offer tours. This made the offer more believable because of prior conversations.
The person creating the tour used an actual business license from another real company to create the appearance of legitimacy. This was one of the main things to convince people that everything was on the up and up.
However, there is no travel company operating for/on behalf of the person creating the tour, so they do not have a valid travel business. Customers made payments directly to a personal bank account instead of to a registered company.
Tourist authorities acted very quickly when they found out about the issue. Tourist police worked with tourism regulators to develop a plan to help the stranded travellers.
The person who created the tour was arrested at the airport and charged with operating an unlicensed tour business under the tourism laws in Thailand.
While the legal process moves forward, the focus is shifting to providing assistance, advice and options for those who had their trip ruin.
With this experience in mind, we can realize that we do not realize how exposed we are when we see an offer that looks very hard to turn down. Sometimes, there are small items that are missed, which leads to bigger issues.
As a result, the authorities are emphasizing verification of all bookings before any confirmation is made. Verifying via the appropriate government web sites or agents, as well as confirming cannot be done by wire transfers or other personal means will help you protect yourself tremendously.
Ultimately, your trip should begin with excitement and not be filled with uncertainty due to the ticket agent at the airport counter.
