Air France Sucks

A few friends were planning a trip to Tunisia in October so I asked to tag along. It's a 10-day tour of the entire country, from the Mediterranean coast to Sahara Desert with a private guide. Last week, I searched for airplane tickets and ended up booking round-trip flights on Air France since it offered the best itinerary.

Anyway, after looking at the various flight options, I book travel in their premium economy class seats. It's a bit pricey at ~$1800 but I've grown weary of cramped economy class seats on long-haul flights. Additionally, you get to pre-select your seat; I usually want to sit in an aisle seat. Not sure why this was offered up as a bonus... I can reserve seats on almost all other airlines as part of the reservation. I even booked them directly on Air France's website.

Long story short, after the reservation was confirmed, I went back to the website and it told me I could not pre-select seats and would have to wait until 30 hours before check in. I called their toll-free line and was told the same thing. I was pretty frustrated and the CSR did not or could not help me. At one point, the conversation got ridiculous:

CSR: Sorry, they won't let me select seats either.
Me: Who is this "they" that won't let you?
CSR: The airline.
Me: Wait, are you not the airline? Who do you work for then?
CSR: The airline. Didn't you call us?
Me: OK, "you" won't let me select seats even though website says premium economy allows me to select seats...

Sigh.

I vented on Facebook and my 2 followers on Twitter and surprise, I got a response back from @airfrance on Twitter:

I DM'ed my ticket number and got this back:

Well, 8 days later, the website is actually worse. Before I could click on each flight and instead of a seat map, it would tell me the 30 day thing. Now I just see "No seat selection" and no place to click. Great. Maybe they were working on something but it seems like the AF Twitter media guy was just blowing me off.

First and last time I fly Air France.

KCON 2014

I remember the days when almost no K-pop group performed in the US. Now, it seems like there's a concert every month. I guess I shouldn't complain since LA gets more than its fair share of concerts. They are getting more and more expensive though. :(

KCON 2014 is in August and now extended to two nights. I just checked ticket prices and GA floor seats are ~$350 each for both nights. It's hard to tell from the website which artists are performing which night since I only want to see SPICA and IU. Anyway, I think I'll pass on this and most future K-pop concerts at large venues since it invariable gets filled with screaming teenagers who block your view... or I'm just getting too old.

==========

Ooh, a poster. Looks like IU and SPICA are on different nights. I guess I would go Sunday night if I had to choose. I've seen SNSD at Hollywood Bowl many years ago but it would be great to see SPICA in person.

Uji

[Perf] Thank U Very Much - BESTie

She's a good singer too...


[Perf] One More Step - Uji (BESTie)
Immortal Song 2 [20131221]