Another crappy airline

Malaysian Airlines. The website was crapped. Looked great until you start using it. I had problem putting in my name "as appeared in my passport". So how can I buy a ticket? Then the buy today fly tomorrow. If you are less than 24 hours, you are Sh!t out of luck. You have to pay more than full fare to fly the next day! After I struggled getting iron-wife a ticket, it was less than 24 hours. From the website, it would not let me book on the "economy" for the same route. The cryptic message on the website said "Choose next day or another class". Huh? If I were to book online in less than this 24-hour period, one way is equivalent to iron-wife's total cost for the same flight. I complained but of course, true to Malay fashion - forget about it.

I booked via my Shanghai travel agent. End of story on this one.

Check-in. Yeah, what f^&*Rnking alliance partnership. It does not provide its alliance partner any privileges. That was just crap!

Service to KL was ok. Food was good; but the seat was very uncomfortable. Seemed the cushion was cheaply made too. Felt the piece of plastic on my butt. We shook for 4 hours going there out of 5 hours. Turbulent. Nothing the airline could do about it.

The way back... Yeah. Let's talk about that. We got there an hour and half. Lined up. The Malay check-in speed. Slow and easily distracted. Out of the entire experience I believe there are more idiots than smart people. Either they don't care or they are not properly trained. The smarter people, they are smart and very efficient. Anyway... I digressed. Check-in. After snaking thru the line, we had about an hour before our flight departing and we were only half way thru the check-in lineup. Announcement came on. "Flight 388 check-in please come to counter E18". OK. We got there which required us to do some acrobatic move and ironwife tripped but not fallen. Got to the counter, not that many people ok. Then tick, tick, tick, tick... The check-in counter, the staff was busy distracted by one task or another and by idiots that didn't know how to travel. Finally at 830am (now we had lined up for over an hour with no progress), a senior staff came over and said "sorry we have overbooked the flight. We are making other arrangement for you". Then walked away. Umm... do you want our reference numbers? 10 minutes passed by, the same senior staff came back asking for reference numbers. Ha. Then at 845am, tickets in hands this lady gave us the voucher to check in for a flight to HK then from HK to Shanghai. Great, passing thru the Swine flu territory with no masks. BTW, the 915am flight we were to catch, they are holding it for us. Those poor passengers that have already on board.

Then the kickerS with a capital S. 1) we were suppose to line up on the same queue to do the check-in but there was no staff. Haha.... WE kinda complained and was moved to another counter; but that lady initially refused to check us in. Go figure! Then, I had to follow this guy with our bags to a X-ray machine. Not sure why they could not send our bags thru with the conveyor belt. I had to tip the luggage guy after the bags were thru other side. 2) They kept taking our tickets back because they forgot this stamp or another stamp. Gee.... 3) Big line up at the security check in. Malay speed. If you want fast efficient service, expect NONE. And expect half ass. You might find faster speed at the race track or the super wide highways around KL.

Dumb airline. There were 10 of us that are holding a plane of over 200 passengers. And on top of that, we were on our own to go thru immigration and all just like other people. There was no special usher to limit the amount of time of holding things up. No concept.

On the way to HK, we were so ready to get off the plane just like when we flew China Eastern from Shanghai to KL. Service on the way to HK was so so.... Serving lunch and then forgot drinks. Gave us back the water bottle without a lip. Hilarious. Makes flying Air Asia, a low budget airline, looked professional.

Hong Kong to Shanghai flight was a different story to tell.