Flight changed successfully but some of the process is just so silly.

I am currently playing this game in Vietnam where in order to continue getting extensions on my visas I have to make an outgoing flight over and over again. I found an airline, which is wonderful so far, that will allow me to make from what I can tell, unlimited changes to my outgoing flight date for free so this works in a fantastic manner for me because I am just changing the flight each and every month in order to get another visa.

I have no intention of being on this next flight either, but we'll see what happens. You never know what can happen between now and then.

src

I've never flown with ANA before but I am far from a luxury traveler so honestly, as long as it gets me where it says on the ticket at the end I don't really care who I am flying with. I'm in coach all the time anyway, so there's only so much service that can be got out of a 20 hour flight, no matter how you slice it.

One thing that gets me is that every month when I invariably change the flight - and this is my 3rd time so far - there is a slight variation in the price that means I have to get my credit card involved. I mean these are extremely small differences.

This was the last refund I got and since I have never spent any time in Japan outside of the airport I had no idea how much of a refund i was getting so just today I looked it up and it is 63 cents. I haven't worked for a corporation in many years but the amount of time that I had to spend dealing with the credit department and the various individuals almost certainly cost ANA more than 63 cents to process.

Today, i re-booked my flight again and this time they told me the fare difference in USD and it was $2.04 MORE than my old flight that I also had no intention of being on. Once again, I went through a very time-consuming process so that they can get their extra $2.

This is a flight that overall costs over a thousand dollars so what the hell is going on with these minor adjustments with the prices?

To make matters sillier, even though it isn't that way on my end, there is almost certainly a piece of paper somewhere in their offices to reflect this refund and subsequent windfall of additional income from the flight price changes and the whole process just reassured me that when I left the corporate world years ago, that I made the correct choice in doing so.

In my mind it would make a lot more sense that if the change amount was, I dunno, like $5 or less that they either don't bother or just charge you at the counter when you eventually end up on the flight. If I had the option to simply not receive my 63 cent refund a month ago, I would have definitely taken that option.

Another thing to note about ANA is that their call center is a bit of a mixed bag in Japan. You are either going to get someone that speaks English better than you do, or you are going to get someone who sounds like they recently graduated from the lowest level of English proficiency class and probably was near the bottom 10% of said class. That was who I got on the phone today and even though she was extremely polite, as seems to be the norm in Japan, I said "yes" to a number of things that I could not understand just to get off the phone.

In the end I got my new ticket and will of course, get my visa extension as well. I have been told by the visa agents that the Immigration officials don't even look at the ticket but it is just a tickbox on their required documents sheet.

I also worked for the government in the past so this desire to have as much paperwork as possible is also not a surprise. They love that shit at the government and have warehouse upon warehouse of it that nobody looks at, ever.

src
_{here's today's visa applications boss!}

Internal flights are still not operating in Vietnam and I am not going to leave until they are. I also remain a little hopeful that Vietnam will change their minds about getting us all out of here at some point in the future because right now this place is such a bargain that no matter where I go next will almost certainly be more expensive.