During our month-long trip around South Asia we visited five countries. The last stop on our trip was to India where we visited a bunch of different areas.

We booked a flight with AirAsia (through CheapOair) to get us from Delhi to Goa.

For those who don’t know, traffic in Delhi is beyond awful. Our flight was at 7:55 pm and we hoped to arrive at the airport two hours early. However, the ride to the airport took a lot longer than expected due to that fun Delhi traffic.

Once we got inside the airport, we didn’t wait long to check-in for our flight. Soon after handing our passports to the rep, we were told that he couldn’t find our names in the system. We were then walked over to a  nearby customer service desk. The rep there searched for our tickets to no avail.

I pulled up my CheapOair booking on my phone and showed him that it  said ‘confirmed’. He explained that while the tickets were confirmed by Cheapoair, there was no PNR.

Our credit card was billed for the flight so this didn’t really make much sense to me. I figured if there was some sort of issue, we would have receive a message from CheapOair. I had booked the flight a month in advance, ample time for them to notify me.

I decided to call CheapOair to find out what was going on.

The rep took my info and then placed me on hold to look into the situation. In the meantime, Kim went over to the AirAsia sales desk to see if seats were even still available for the flight.

After around 10 minutes on hold with CheapOair, I was told that there was an issue with ticketing! I immediately asked how this was possible and how we weren’t notified. The rep didn’t have answers and I wanted to know how CheapOair would make this right.

I was placed on another hold for around 7-8 minutes. In the meantime, I went over to the sales area to meet up with Kim and the kids. We were told that seats were available. The only issue was that the price was around $100 more than we had paid through CheapOair.

I debated what to do and couldn’t see paying more money for the flight. I could always book a flight with another carrier for a price much closer to our original booking (although this flight would get us into Goa much later then we had anticipated).

As we debated what to do, our AirAsia flight was already boarding. We needed to make a decision.

A CheapOair supervisor now got on the phone call with me. I explained the situation and told him the cost of the tickets to buy them on the spot. I was told to make the purchase and e-mail him; they’d cover the difference!

We were now around 25 minutes from takeoff time so I wasn’t sure if we could even make it in time.To our surprise, the AirAsia rep said not to worry. As we made the ticket purchase, another employee was standing by to rush us to the plane.

He helped expedite getting us checked in and through security, and post security he even led as through a shortcut, an employee only hallway that bypassed the Duty Free shop. As we approached the gate it definitely looked like they were about to close the doors but waited for us. We ended up being the second to last group to board the plane.

In the end, CheapOair made good on their promise. We were refunded for the pricier flight. I also asked who covered the cost of my call! They paid for that, too.

Overall, this was a very frustrating experience. Luckily it worked out in the end and we had a good story to laugh about once we were seated on the plane.