On the present challenge of being abroad or An Open Letter to Tiger Airways

No experience can ever be smooth sailing; the personal bumps in the road are inevitable, although typically unreported. The frustration within, however, negates the need to conceal and so blogosphere, here is where I proceed to spill.

On Tiger Airways deciding to go on indefinite strike

I once paid $50 at a cheap hair salon to have my hair dyed; I had brought a picture of the beautiful red- auburn highlights my stylist at home had previously given me (before the color unfortunately faded as red dye naturally does) as a guide for the new stylist to copy. $50 later, I left Cleveland Park’s Bubbles hair salon with a G-d awful cut (although fabulous bangs) and dark, red- black hair. The wannabe rocker look by no means complemented my washed out, pasty pale complexion. Anyway, the experience taught me that you get what you pay for; if I want good hair, then the $200 bill I had to pay at the supped up salon to get my hair fixed was what I was going to have to do to achieve my desired results.

Well, I really, really, REALLY should have applied the same concept when it came to booking my flight from Alice Springs to Melbourne. 

I had been tirelessly researching ways to extend my trip to travel across Australia on a college budget, only to reach a dead end with each click of my keyboard mouse. Which is why two weeks into my trip, I woefully slumped down in the travel agency’s gray, speckled chair, laid the cards and my $800 budget on the table and donning the appearance of a dejected hush puppy, peered into the eyes of my travel agent in hope that he would solve my mega life problem. 

He did, and $600something dollars later I had a trip planned to Ayers Rock, Alice Springs and Melbourne. The only catch was that I would have to book my own flight from Alice Springs to Melbourne, seeing as Tiger Airways was the least expensive option and his company (smartly) has no connection with the airline. 

Tiger Airways is the cheapest airlines in Australia, although has a reputation for randomly canceling their flights without compensation for their passengers. My trip from Alice Springs to Melbourne was $122 (which for Australia is DIRT cheap; in comparison, Quantas, the only other airline I can find that flies out of Alice Springs, offers $400 flight tickets.); a flight that saves me about $300? Oh, no way I was going to miss out on that. Well, so I thought. 

If I didn’t want red- black hair, I shouldn’t have trusted a $50 dye job. If I didn’t want an airline that is on strike/ temporarily shut down for serious safety concerns, I shouldn’t have gone for the $122 Tiger Airways plane ticket. The airline has canceled all of their July flights; my flight is booked for August 3^rd. Tiger Airways, conveniently, won’t alert the public about their decision as to whether or not to resume flights until August 1^st. Well, really Tiger Airways... how wonderful. I mean, seeing that I’ll be in Ayers Rock with NO internet until August 3^rd, which you know, is when I would be taking the flight anyway. Sure, I can get my parents to monitor the flight for me, but should I need to purchase a new flight, not only with the ticket cost a hell of a lot extra, but the ticket will also be that much more expensive as I’d be leaving it to the last minute. Oh, and other people will have canceled flights too, which means that perhaps the flight I need to get to Melbourne might be booked. Geez, thanks for being so thoughtful Tiger. 

I haven’t changed flights as of yet. Rather, I emailed a rant to father dearest who suggested I contact my travel agent. Which I just did. So part 2 of the saga, yet to come.

(The morning did come with a hint of a surprise, however. It’s been my summer goal to get published on Thought Catalog, and five submissions later (in addition to my Harry Potter post that almost got published, however I responded to the email too late thanks to the challenge of the 15 hour time difference) my goal has finally been achieved! You can take a look at it here. I probably should have added more history to it but womp- I’m happy it made it to the site!)