Hello, I blog!

One of my good friends – Regina (R) – was due for an operation on her knee early this morning.

It was slated to begin at eight. Yours’ truly and another good friend S made plans to be there at 7.30 a.m. so that we could at least spend some time with her before the operation. As such, we decided to leave our homes at 6.30 a.m. fer the long bus ride down.

Strangely, there wasn’t a peep from S despite 6.30 a.m. having come and gone. I rang her mobile phone, only to be greeted by a barely coherent voice and lots and lots of shuffling and mumbling.

Grarrr. That girl was still asleep!

After a round of “Whaaaaaat? You’re still sleeping?” and “Get outta’ bed now! We’re going to be late! Hut! Hut! Hut!” screeching from yours’ truly which (I think) managed to successfully drag S from the comfort of her bed, we finally managed to meet at 7.15 a.m.

We only managed to reach the hospital at 15 past eight, and the operation had already begun by then. The very last text message we received from R before her operation was “Am naked, going in (to the operating theatre) now.”

Yes, darling. Too much information. But I’m glad you still have your sense of humour despite us being late. Oops.

S and I ended up lurking around Singapore General Hospital with yours’ truly clutching a giant chipmunk plush (which we later named ‘Chippy’) for the next three hours or so, occasionally popping up to her ward hoping to see her there but only to face an empty bed.

S (right) and I fooling around in R’s (still empty) ward.

R was eventually wheeled outta’ the theatre at around 11ish.

The first thing she said to us when she saw us was “I’ve very very happy to see you all.” (In the midst of tearing.)

I am very happy to see you too, R dear. But the next time we meet, please let it not be in a hospital? (I can safely say that it brings back bad memories for both of us considering the health problems we’ve been plagued with for quite a while.)

S and I presented Chippy to her, who kept her company in bed fer the rest of the day.

Say hello to Chippy!

I ended up spending the entire duration of her hospital stay (1 day) with her, occasionally conking out at the side table next to her bed (and also on a spare bed at the physiotherapy department while she was having her physio) since I barely slept last night.

It was unfortunately, much to the chagrin of my mum who was insistent that I remain at home considering how the hospital was not the place for me to be due to my weak general health.

But you know what? Heck that. R is my friend. I love her, so I’d stay with her (and keep her happy) and no one can stop me. ;)

You – if you are reading this – get well soon. And remember to do your physiotherapy exercises three times a day mmkay?

Never did realize that making bookings for budget airline travel can be like … dabbling in the stock market.

The prices fluctuate like woah.

Recently, I witnessed first hand how a friend was practically on the edge of his seat as he constantly made calls to the airline’s hotline – and reporting how the airfare for the same particular flight was leaping by tens every twenty minutes or so.

He made a booking for a flight to Kuala Lumpur in the afternoon at the cost of only … about $40-50 SGD.

This evening, he proceeded to check the price again (supposedly to add me into the original booking) and discovered that the price was now a whooping $137 SGD.

He called later again and the price was in the $140s.

Grace and I were pretty worried that the same thing could happen to us because we were intending to book flights for our trip to Hong Kong next month, from the same airline.

I recall checking the prices for our flight sometime last weekend – and it was standing at $359 SGD.

This evening, we looked up the price again, and were delighted to find that the total price had fallen to $299 SGD all inclusive. (With our return flight only costing $43 SGD (excluding surcharges and taxes).

But we held back the booking for a while – because we still had some final arrangements to make.

Four hours ago, I logged into the airline’s website to double-check the prices … and did a double take because the price for our original return flight had more than doubled … from $43 SGD to $200+ SGD – excluding surcharges and taxes. That’s practically costing an arm and a leg in comparison to the prices we saw earlier.

That was when I texted Grace in panic – and we decided to book right then on the spot, lest the prices surged further.

The later return flight (an alternative to our original intended flight) was comparatively cheaper ($119 SGD excluding surcharges and taxes), leading to a total cost of $375 SGD all inclusive per person.

That was the price we were supposed to get while I made my booking.

Or so I thought.

After filling in all our personal details and credit card information, I clicked on ‘confirm’. That was when I looked at receipt, and did a double take.

W.T.F?!

Why was I charged $762 for two people?!

Did a re-check on the price. Apparently, the price per person had been bumped up by a further $6 SGD while I was busily filling in the reservation form.

Sidenote: The additional $12 ($6 per person x 2) is not due to the facilitation fee as seen in the screenshot above. Everything was inclusive in the quotation I received earlier.

Blame my slow typing skills or whatsoever. (Although I generally type pretty fast, albeit not fast enough to beat this c*cked up system.)

Ah well, too bad.

Air tickets have already been paid for. No point harping on it, aye? Just sit back and bask in the happiness that our trip to Hong Kong has now already been booked.

Four hours later (20 minutes ago) …

I decided to re-access the airline booking system to check out the prices again. (My main motive was to hope that the prices would have risen further so that I can laugh at how I had managed to secure our air tickets before the further price escalations.)

I was in for a shock.

Apparently, the prices for our original intended return flight had dropped all over again … from the earlier $200 odd SGD back to $43 SGD!

Can someone just say, ARGHHHHHH?!

I don’t know why this is happening – but my guess is that the airline presumed no nutcase out there will be making flight bookings at 4 A.M. and thus reduced the price to match the lower demand. (For the record, I made my booking at midnight.)

Counting all the possible surcharges and taxes, the total flight cost per person would have been …

-BIGFATSIGH-

Heartache. We practically overpaid by $80 SGD.

And Grace dear – I don’t know whether you’d be laughing or fuming at this point in time. But … I think we’ve just been successfully manipulated (and screwed over) by Jetstar’s online booking system.