Thai Airway First Class to USA: Shitty Food and Shitty Seats

[Guest]

a copy of the good book

 

What good book's that? Spartacus?

[baobao]

If the food you are given on a flight has gone bad then you're just unlucky. In an ideal world 'luck' would have nothing to do with it, but maybe airline food is that bit more likely to cause an upset than when you're eating on terra firma.

 

I came across a useful tip on Bao Bao's Blog. On his entry for the 14/9/11 he wrote

"wash your hands before eating, as everything you've touched along the way has been previously touched by a thousand others", and in the entry linked below he gives some general advice:

 

Staying Well On Vacation: Planes

 

http://khunbaobao.blogspot.com/2010/04/staying-well-on-vacation-planes.html

 

Thank you for mentioning the link, Rogie. I'm not compulsive about it, but I don't ever get to be in Thailand as long as I'd like and it bothers me to be sick there and see time slipping by.

 

I had a good friend eat shrimp in Bangkok the night before he got on a flight back to the USA, and he had a similar flight - mainly in the toilet - but it's often difficult to know where we pick the bugs up. The meal Michael ate was definitely within the "window" for botulism - and having had that myself I agree: it's horrible.

[Guest fountainhall]

Michael is perfectly entitled to do as he wishes since he is the one that suffered. But posting such an incidence on the Board surely invites comments from other members?

 

it's often difficult to know where we pick the bugs up

My one similar occurrence was definitely traced back to food eaten before getting on the flight. It would be interesting to know if any others who ate the lobster on TG also got seriously sick. If none did, then it might be difficult to prove any case against the airline and its catering company - although that would not necessarily rule out one contaminated portion.

 

Personally, I have never taken legal action against any service provider. To me, it’s just not worth the time and considerable effort to assemble all the detail and go through all the hassle. Besides, large corporations like airlines always employ expensive lawyers!

 

I am quick to praise when I get good service; equally I will quickly take up the pen when service has been genuinely lousy. And I seem to have the developed the knack of writing reasoned but pointed correspondence, because I have been awarded quite a number of extra air miles and hotel points over the years. The 'situation' with Cathay Pacific a few years ago (mentioned above) got me 60,000 miles - enough for a return business class to Sydney. A recent smallish complaint to the British Airways Executive Club Centre in Sydney resulted in 20,000 miles being credited.

 

Even more recently, an issue with the Hyatt in Tokyo's Shinjuku district over what I termed "phantom" rooms - small Japanese business style rooms that were not even described or illustrated on the hotel's website and had no place in a Hyatt branded hotel - I took right up to head office in Chicago. It turned out their international marketing department never even knew these rooms existed! I ended up with a stack of points and an upgrade to a suite on my next Hyatt visit.

 

The funny thing about those Hyatt points is that I am managing to recycle them! I used them to stay at the Hyatt in Honolulu 2 years ago. The complaints I had on this occasion were very specific and resulted in my wasting a whole day of my time, The manager agreed, and the points for that stay were re-credited to the account!