Well few days ago I,wrote about my family’s dinner with Joshua. Joshua is my dear friend who lives in the states.Now from India, he was travelling to the beautiful and mesmerizing city of Paris.While travelling to Paris, he was informed by the company, for whom he does freelance work, that he had to overstay in Paris for two days as there were some businessmen, whom he had to meet and he was also informed that he was being given two VIP passes for an opera show in Paris.The passes had already been sent to Joshua’s hotel.
Now his cousin brother who lives in Versailles is a tour guide by profession.So Joshua contacted him and asked him about the opera show.His cousin informed him that it was good. So after his trip was over, on the last day of his stay in Paris, Joshua decided to visit the opera and he took his cousin also with him as he had two passes with him and while going there, his cousin gave him a short version tour of Paris.At ten in the night they reached the opera and were provided with the best seats in the hall, for they had VIP passes with them and the show was quite good, which lasted for an hour and then Joshua was suppose to leave, as he had to catch his flight at five the next morning. After the show, one of the organizers came and told them to wait for few minutes.Then they were informed by the opera management that those VIP tickets were not paid for.They were definitely complimentary,but at 10% discount only, meaning that they would have to shell out 1500$ for the show each.Hearing all of this, Joshua started sensing trouble.He called up the company, he does his freelance work for and told them all of that.They said that they know nothing about this and they would call Joshua back as soon as possible.Now Joshua and his cousin both of them waited for about an hour,but still there was no reply from the company nor were any of the executives picking up his phone.In the meantime the organizers asked them about the payment and Joshua replied that he didn’t know anything about it. On the back of the ticket, they showed him the fine print,in which it was written- “this complimentary pass can only be availed @ 10% discount. Payment can be made before or after the show via the appropriate channels”. Now each pass after discount was of 1500$. There was no way in which Joshua could pay them that much amount of money.He didn’t even have his credit card with him.He had left it at his hotel.Even with that card he would not be able to pay them more than 2000$.Now what to do? As time kept passing by Joshua and his brother were threatened with legislation and now he knew that he was in very serious trouble.He didn’t want to be stuck at Paris forever.
So he called up his company one last time, but there was no reply.He was now about to be arrested.Suddenly he struck upon an idea.He handed them over his international driving license as security and asked the organizers for time till the morning.The organizers agreed, but they also let him know that if he doesn’t return by 9’O clock, then they would file a complaint against him and his brother with the authorities.
What happens many times is that, an airplane company overbooks an aeroplane for a particular route, as many times passengers don’t show up for the flight and the airplane company doesn’t want to lose any dough, so they capitalise on it and this is a common practice.When a passenger with a confirmed ticket is unable to get a boarding pass, due to the flight being fully booked and he or she has to travel urgently, then a passenger with a confirmed boarding pass is requested to cancel his or her in lieu for 1000$ hard cash, plus free hotel stay and the same ticket and boarding pass for the next day or the next flight.
So Joshua had seen this happen before and his plane was to leave for the states at about five in that morning.Therefore he and his brother went straight to the Paris international airport and asked the person in the ticket counter, that whether anybody wanted to exchange his boarding pass.Soon the airplane company representative came and asked him what all this is about? Joshua told him all that had occurred and believe it or not there was a passenger, who needed to travel urgently and he had valid ticket for that same flight, but couldn’t get the boarding pass as the flight was completely full. So Joshua readily gave up his boarding pass and got 1300$ for giving up his boarding pass for another passenger and as the representative was about to book another ticket for him,Joshua told him that it was better if he cancelled the ticket and refunded the whole amount .So the representative did just that and paid him $1100 after deducting $120 as cancellation charge. As all the procedure was being done, Joshua received a call from the organizers apologizing for the undue harassment towards him and the whole matter about the money payment of the tickets, had been solved by his company. So lucky Joshua had made 1300$ out of the whole fiasco and was having the last laugh. Then he got a call from his company, all apologizing for the disaster and Joshua very coldly told them,that they need to book a first class ticket for him to make up for this fiasco and would you believe it;they actually did that,Joshua from Paris to the US in first class.Of course he refunded them the $1100 he got back for ticket cancellation and the show organizers had also sent him a sorry card with his international driving license.
Till the next time.
