Garuda Indonesia suspends its London Heathrow service

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• Crafty says:

  25 Aug25 August 08:12

  Yes, the service from offshore is terrible. This has been compounded in my view by the closure of secure messaging and the introduction of the absolutely hopeless online chat.

  • Pangolin says:

    26 Aug26 August 15:56

    Agreed, the big dropoff in service standards is one reason I decided not to keep Amex Plat.

    Even when I rang the Platinum line I found I would go through to the general line and then wait 20 minutes or so (the agent actually told me this was how the system now worked unless you specifically asked for the Insurance, Travel or Concierge).

• Pug206 says:

  25 Aug25 August 08:28

  Looking to go to Bali next September. Am currently gathering flight info so am ready to book outbound as soon as it becomes available in next few weeks. Shortest journey time is 17hrs 50 which is a mix of BA and Qatar.

  Worryingly, seems like you only have 1hr 5mins to change aircraft as BA123 lands in DOH at 0705 and QR960 leaves DOH at 0810. Am I reading this right pls?

  • JamesR says:

    25 Aug25 August 09:31

    That is very very tight. You dont have an hour and 5 minutes as the gates will close 20 minutes before departure. Plus being 15-30 minutes late departing seems to happen on most flights im ever on. So that gives you 10 minutes to traverse the airport go through security, possibly have to catch the shuttle to the gate. I very much doubt this is going to go in your favour. Best off looking for a longer connection.

    • Nick says:

      25 Aug25 August 15:56

      I wouldn’t. I would be booking the shortest possible connection (that meets the official MCT) safe in the knowledge that the vast majority of connections work out but if it didn’t I’d be getting a later flight, extra meals and enough compensation to cover a decent chunk of the original flight cost. YMMV of course.

  • Axel Heyst says:

    25 Aug25 August 09:49

    Using SIA to DPS is about an hour shorter and an overnight flight. Might also be option of stopover in SIN to give more flexibility to holiday especially on the return

    Will really miss the Garuda flight from LHR as excellent lontong sayur and overnight. I only counted 3 passengers in J on my last flight to CGK and they could have been aircrew!

  • BJ says:

    25 Aug25 August 16:30

    Given the tax and fees involved you would very likely be better off with a cash flight, exEU if necessary, and taking 0.5ppa on hotel.

• James says:

  25 Aug25 August 09:36

  Will Garuda passengers be compensated in any way for the extra travel time and transfer time waiting between flights at AMS ?

  I have a flight coming up, with my elderly parents, in biz on Garuda LHR-CGK-BKK and depending on the reroute and subsequent arrival times I could we’ll end up out of pocket.

  • Sam G says:

    25 Aug25 August 10:06

    You’ll have a straight through connection at Jakarta though, so the routing will actually take less time and not require any overnight stays (you should end up on the same CGK-BKK flight anyway with same arrival time)

    Or you could request to fly out of Heathrow the evening before if getting there so early will be a challenge, thus keeping a similar timing but with the overnight in Amsterdam (far easier than Jakarta!) – so unless you have non-refundable hotel in Jakarta then you shouldn’t be out of pocket / arriving at different times

    I’m holding out a little hope that they reroute Bangkok passengers more directly but considering the fares paid it would seem unlikely. No EU compensation is due as they are giving more than two weeks notice and a reroute

  • Rob says:

    25 Aug25 August 12:40

    No, unless it changes within 14 days of departure.

• James says:

  25 Aug25 August 09:41

  I presume “Passengers will be re-routed via Amsterdam, which is their other European route, on fellow SkyTeam member KLM.”
  means the LHR-AMS-LHR flights will be in KLM but the main longhaul would still be on Garuda AMS-CGK ?

  • Rob says:

    25 Aug25 August 12:39

    Yes

• Johnjohn says:

  25 Aug25 August 09:42

  Honestly, the new platinum is the same as the old gold. You’re saying platinum and premier are similar. It’s exactly the same with the old gold and platinum. That’s why platinum challenge should have been uplifted to premier which Marriott realized that and make the move to upgrade all challenged platinum to premier. I remember you mentioned before platinum challenge wouldn’t be upgraded. But I’m glad it happened.

• Tracy says:

  25 Aug25 August 11:31

  O/T just received my ambassador 10% rebate for renewing at $200. Couldn’t decide at renewal time which option so opted for $200 just in case. In actual fact only redeemed 150k points so rebate was 15k. Also received 15k instead of 5k on renewal. Therefore paid $50 for 25k points, still an ok outcome.
  However, struggling to fit in an ambassador stay this year so perhaps will not renew. Having to stay at Intercontinental Madrid just to use the voucher, would probably have chosen Hotel Indigo instead and used mastercard rate. Intercontinental is €320 club room for friday night, sat night free plus paid $200 for ambassador, don’t know how much of this to allocate to the bogo voucher though. Hotel indigo is €280 basic room, non refundable.
  Stayed at Palazzo this year, no ambassador benefits worth having. Stayed at IC Monterey, same. Also couldn’t use voucher here as needed family size room so paid $.
  Ambassador has been a bit meh for me past two years as a leisure traveller……..

• N says:

  25 Aug25 August 11:35

  Is there a chain-hotel-only search engine for hotels? Looking for somewhere in Croatia but would like to be sure I’ve covered all the major chains (IHG, Hilton, Starriott, etc) before I go independent…

  • Steve says:

    25 Aug25 August 11:51

    +1 gap in the traveller market I think, a tripadvisor for points hobbyists

    • Tom1 says:

      25 Aug25 August 12:37

      There’s awardmapper.com for rewards/points redemptions (not cash rates). Has the major chains and it also shows you the points, with a handy filter.

      However I don’t think it has been update for some time.. so the points weren’t completely accurate before. Haven’t checked since Marriott merger but can’t imagine that has been reflected.

      Useful to find out what hotels there are in an area, then a bit more digging to find cash/points rates for your dates.

  • Cat says:

    25 Aug25 August 12:49

    The Hilton in Dubrovnik is brilliant – if you’re a Diamond, the room upgrades are pretty decent and the Exec lounge has fantastic views over the city walls and the sea.

    • BJ says:

      25 Aug25 August 16:39

      Also just had another great Hilton upgrade last night too. No lounge at my hotel but pleasant surprise with a nicely stocked complimentary minibar. Love Hilton Diamond, no waay I’d walk past a Hilton to stay in a Marriott these days.

  • bsuije says:

    26 Aug26 August 18:11

    There’s a Sheraton Dubrovnik Riviera, which looks nice and I think might have been reviewed by Rob previously(??)…

    • Rob says:

      26 Aug26 August 20:47

      Not by me. This used to be exceptionally cheap as an SPG redemption, not sure where it is now.

• Adrian says:

  25 Aug25 August 13:12

  Hi Rob, great result on the Plat Prem from Marriott, the big possible advantage may well be the soft landing, if it doesn’t happen that’s fine, but at least as we are Plat Prem now there’s a chance and more importantly they have delivered what they said they would.

  Any news on the new Marriott credit card, I was hoping to pick one up as the 10 qualifying nights may make it just about possible to re-qualify for Plat on an on-going basis.

  • Rob says:

    25 Aug25 August 13:54

    No, it’s gone very quiet from Creation. I have asked them recently.

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