Buying the Plane ticket

It takes a call to inform the credit card company that I'm using my credit card overseas, and I can start charging in Hong Kong tomorrow if I want to. To use the card online, I just found out Thursday night that I have to wait 15 days (working or calendar? I forgot) for the activation key. Considering that I'm scheduled to leave in 10 days, and I was planning to use the card to buy my ticket online, I told them to forget it.

Since the only thing I could do online was register for the Mabuhay Miles program, I ended up calling the airline ticketing office, in middle of the night, to book my brother's flight. Called the same airline where my flight was booked by BNP. Realized that the price on the internet does not include taxes that amount to about PHP2,000 more than what I thought I would be paying. I probably could have saved by using another airline, but I think it's better that we both take the same plane... less coordination needed. If I get lost once I step off the plane, we get lost together. He He He!

The ticket is reserved in my brother's name till Monday, 19-Nov., so we decided to drop by the ticketing office this morning to purchase it. The office officially closes 12:00 noon. After a flat tire (it actually exploded, which made everyone in the bus initially think it was some sort of bomb) and a longer than expected walk (the lady I talked to on the phone said their office is near Dusit Hotel ... when she actually meant it's on the same street as Dusit but much nearer to the old Anson's building ... which is 2 or 3 blocks away from the hotel) we arrived at the ticketing office around 11:40 AM. Would have taken the taxi had I known their office was that far.

Lots of people waiting for their turn ... our number's 575 and they were only serving 553. When we sat down, there's this toddler running around. By the time we stood up to walk to the counter that's serving us, the toddler was still running around ... this time he's managed to rip off some poster from the wall.

There were different "lines" for domestic flights, international flights, and the senior citizens have their own line. You don't actually stand in line, you wait for your number. The slowest line would probably be the senior citizens'. They had to flash/announce a number thrice before the person holding it approaches the counter. Probably because the senior citizens couldn't hear the bell ... according to my brother.

Anyway... the last time I had to get a plane ticket myself was around 1998 and I went to the ticketing office during work hours, which was why there was no line. After that, the plane tickets I used for MART conventions were just handed to me by the travel agencies. Which is why as I waited for our turn, I began to appreciate travel agencies. Also began to appreciate the domestic flight tickets ... international flights are usually electronic and your ticket is just one piece of thin paper that's easy to misplace because it looks like your other documents.

By the time we stepped out of that building, it was almost 2:00PM. My brother must have been famished by the wait, because when I asked him to choose between a Japanese restaurant and a Chinese restaurant, he immediately answered he wanted to eat Chinese food. On another day he would have automatically picked Japanese.

Stopped by Globe after eating lunch to have our phones activated for roaming in Hong Kong. My brother uses pre-paid, so he has to send a message to some number to activate his phone. The Globe guy checked my phone and told me he doesn't have to do anything - my phone's already set to auto-roaming. I have a post-paid plan and it seems all post-paid plans have auto-roaming. Checked what kind of phone model I could use in Hong Kong. He said a dual-band phone would do. That's good - just about every phone in the Philippines is dual-band, including the ones my brother and I use.