Last Saturday I flew from Singapore to Shanghai and I had a few hours to kill at Singapore Changi airport. Even though the airport is not the best in the world anymore (this year it was voted number 3, after Seoul and Hong Kong), it is still one of the few airports where I actually enjoy the waiting time for a flight. The restaurants and shops are excellent, the terminals are clean and make you feel relaxed. No constant announcements for flights that are boarding or departing and most important to me: free and fast wireless internet all over the airport.

The airport has several gardens where you can walk around, a free cinema, a free guided bus tour of Singapore (if you have a stop-over of 5 hours or more), and even an outdoor swimming pool on the roof. You can basically have a mini vacation while waiting for your next plane! And the airport has one other thing that I have not seen before: the male toilets have windows so you can watch the planes take off and land. Of course I had to take a picture of this 🙂

I am writing this on Saturday morning from Jakarta airport, where I am waiting to board a Garuda flight to Singapore, followed by a several hour stop-over at Changi airport before flying on to Shanghai. I will be arriving home around midnight tonight, not the nicest way to spend a Saturday. The reason I mention this is because many people seem to think that business trips are more like vacations than work. Sometimes they are, but more often a trip is very intensive and leads to double the amount of work: many new ideas and things to follow-up on plus a huge amount of work that is waiting to be handled because you’re out of the office. Combined with losing half a weekend on an airplane (and often also jet lags) it is not necessarily my favorite pastime. But it beats not traveling at all, during the 6 weeks before Elaine was born I only stayed in Shanghai and I was getting a bit restless. And it’s also a good way to catch up on sleep if you have a young baby 🙂

Anyway, this week I spent 2 days in Singapore at the AdTech conference and 2 days in Jakarta, to get a feel for the Indonesian Internet and mobile market and talk to some agencies and related companies. As some of my readers may know I worked for a couple of months in Jakarta in 1996, as part of an SAP implementation for Mercedes-Benz. Since then I have only been back to Indonesia 4 or 5 times, and the last time I spent a few days in Jakarta was in 2002 – on one of my last business trips before I left Daimler.

I used to love Jakarta when I lived there, and I still like the city a lot. Of course it’s hot & humid and quite unorganized/chaotic, but that’s also its charm. I guess that’s one of the reasons why I liked the place so much, after living in ueber-organized Germany for a while it felt like a breath of relief to do without rules for everything for a while. Indonesians were (and are) very relaxed, they enjoy life without focusing too much on hard work – a big difference with the Chinese. Not always easy when you want to accomplish something during work of course. Even though the people are still friendly and relaxed, I felt the city is not as livable as it was in the 1990’s. The main reason is the traffic, that has become unbearable. I am used to heavy traffic in China, but Jakarta is a lot worse. The toll roads that were built when I lived here are one big traffic jam during a big part of the day and it impossible to have more than 2-3 appointments in one day. Yesterday I spent at least 3 hours in traffic jams, which is a not the best way to enjoy a city.

I had hoped that the city would have improved its infrastructure, but that was not the case. Already in 1996 there were plans to build a subway from Blok M to Jalan Thamrin, but these were never implemented. I heard the plan is still there though. The only thing I saw where “Khusus Bus” (Only bus) lanes, where express buses could drive past the traffic jams. If they drive: yesterday I read in the Jakarta Post that buses stopped driving for a few hours because the bus company did not pay its fuel bills for 2 months and the gas stations refused to supply them with fuel! If I look at how Shanghai has been transformed over the past 10 years it makes you wonder why this cannot be done in Indonesia. A non-democratic country certainly has its advantages in this respect.

There were more visible changes to the city. I was surprised to see the number of new skyscrapers that had gone up for example. Also the bomb checks at every hotel and shopping center were a big change from before. The bombing of the Marriott hotel changed the relaxed vibe that was all over Jakarta in the 90’s.

Other things did not change, like a taxi driver that ‘forgot’ to turn on his meter. When I noticed it I decided to wait a bit before telling him (reducing my fare), and when I informed him the meter was not running he at first pretended not to understand me. I remember having this same conversation many times in the past. Also the sound of the mosques calling people to prayer were still there. I remember waking up by them while working in Jakarta, and if I could not sleep anymore after that (at 4:30 AM!) I sometimes went for a run around Kemang. This time I also woke up, but because my hotel was more sound proof than the villa I lived in, it did not bother me as much. The only time it really annoyed me was when I relaxed for 30 minutes after a working day at the hotel pool and suddenly from all sides the sky was filled with loud calls for prayer. I twittered about the fact that it bothered me, immediately leading to a sharp “I strongly disagree with you” from a Muslim follower of mine. Oh well, maybe it makes it easier for him to accept that not everybody enjoys the ‘singing’ if I tell him that I also hate church bells on an early Sunday morning in Europe. But these things are a fact of life in countries where religious beliefs are an important part of society, and they also add to the couleur locale.

I had an interesting trip, it was good to be back again and to see the changes. I still like the city and its friendly people, but after being used to the fast pace of change in China it takes a bit of getting used to the slower pace of change in Indonesia. But less changes means also more potential business opportunities, and in that respect the trip was certainly worthwhile for me.

I had a beer in the bar of the Shangri-La hotel in Jakarta with a colleague and we wanted to order something small before dinner. So I asked for the snack menu, which they promptly gave me. I ordered some nachos but a minute later they told me that they did not have nachos. Can happen, so I wanted to order something else from the snack menu. I looked at it again but then the waiter informed me that nothing on the snack menu was available, because you could only order snacks later at night. Great, I thought (but did not say), why did you give me the menu then in the first place? Probably because I asked for the snack menu, which they indeed gave me – without any further thoughts about the reason why I asked for it.

But that was not all, because then I asked if they had another menu from which I could order. Yes they did, I could order from the normal dinner menu. And guess what was listed among the starters? The exact same nachos! So I ordered the nachos again, just from a different menu and the waiter said “no problem, misterrr, we have”. Interesting logic!

Everybody who arrives at Shanghai airport has to do a fever screening. During SARS they already had this procedure in place, most of the time with one scanner just before immigration. I traveled a lot during and right after SARS, and many times nobody was even looking at the screens when passengers passed below the thermometers.

But with H1N1 the government takes things a bit more serious, and it certainly all looks a bit more scary, with staff coming into the airplane in green and white medical suits and wearing mouth caps. They measure each passenger’s temperature, and only if you pass that you are allowed to leave the plane and enter China. I took these pictures on Friday on a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Shanghai Pudong.

However, you have to wonder how effective the procedure is. First of all, not everybody who has a fever has H1N1, meaning that lots of people may be quarantined for no reason. Second, when your fever develops after you arrive in China you may have infected many fellow passengers already. It therefore gives a false sense of security.

And to make matters worse, a friend told me that her flight arrived before 8 AM from Europe, and that the “medical staff” was not on duty yet. It seems that very early and very late flights are not checked at all. So if you feel like you may have a fever and still need to travel to China, make sure you arrive on the first flight in the morning. Or just take an fever-reducing aspirin an hour before touch down, that should solve the problem as well.

On the Chinese Internet there are always a few people who are negative about M1NT. I guess that’s normal for a successful private club, people tend to get jealous if they cannot be part of it and the Internet is a good way to show that. Some go a bit too far though, such as a Shanghai expat named Simon Tung. This 31-year old tried to spread false rumors on Twitter (@simontung) this week about M1NT being a scam and about some of the founders being arrested. He claimed to have ‘multiple sources’ telling him this and in a later tweet also mentioned ‘industry insiders’. At exactly the same time someone also tried to put a similar comment on a blog post of mine (anonymous of course, but because of the timing I would not be surprised if Simon was behind this). Why does he do this? Does he want to have his 5 minutes of ‘fame’? Or was he just rejected for a M1NT party? I don’t know, but if anybody can get me in touch with him I’d like to ask him myself.

But even though some people may not like M1NT Shanghai, a lot more do love it: The club was just voted Club of the Year in this year’s City Weekend’s Readers Choice Awards! I actually voted for M1NT as well, and even won a Spa session with that (Thanks City Weekend, I didn’t even know there were prices when I filled out the questionnaire). M1NT not only won Club of the Year, but in total they managed to get 5 of this year’s Awards. Next to Club of the Year, M1NT was also voted Best New Club, and it has the Best Bartender, Best Nightlife Bathroom and Best Cocktails. Congrats to the team at M1NT!

Update (May 9, 2009): Simon Tung contacted me after reading this blog post and sent me links that did not prove his allegations about M1NT being a scam. Regrettabley he was also not willing to name his sources as they are his friends. I also talked to the management of M1NT, and it appears that one of M1NT’s founding shareholders in the club in London and HK was arrested. However, this has nothing to do with M1NT and the person has no operational involvement in M1NT. M1NT has hundreds of shareholders and then there is always the risk that one of them could get into trouble. I will not allow any further comments bashing M1NT or its management on this blog. M1NT is doing very well and with success comes envy. C’est la vie.

Note: Normally I allow (almost) all comments as long as they are not spam, but comment moderation will be in place for this post. I am not looking to start a pro & contra war about M1NT here, I have had that discussion already too often both here and on other blogs.

After two not particularly positive blog posts in a row about KLM, now a more favorable one.

First of all, KLM started following me on Twitter after I wrote about some of my negative experiences with their website. The fact that they have a Twitter account (www.twitter.com/klm) shows they are using Social Media, which is a good thing for any company. And that they follow me, means that they also check what people write about them on Twitter. I did not follow them yet, so it’s not just a follow back.

Second, when I just checked in for my flight back to China I noticed that I had an upgrade to a business class seat. It sometimes happens that when you check in online that you can change your seat to a business class seat (when you are an Elite member of their frequent flyer program), but to my surprise my reserved seat had already been changed by someone to a business class. Coincidence? Probably. But if not: Thanks a lot @klm!

This is already my third upgrade this year on intercontinental flights that are operated by the KLM or one of their partners (2 from Europe to Asia and 1 from China to the USA), so maybe their frequent flyer program that I was negative about in my last post still has some value. It does not mean, however, that I agree to the fact that you only get 25% of miles on non-full fare tickets. Reconsider this change KLM, it gives loyal customers a bad taste when they spend a lot of money on flight tickets but do not get the miles for it. Even when it’s very difficult to spend those miles under your current frequent flyer rules!

While writing this I am somewhere above Russia on a flight from Shanghai to Amsterdam. After writing my last post about the problems I had to book a ticket on the KLM site my assistant finally managed to get me a seat on today’s flight. The economy class is still reasonably full (probably 60-70%), but the business class is almost deserted. There you really see the impact of the financial crisis, these planes used to be packed – both economy and business class.

My original plan had been to only fly to Europe once this month, for a short 4-day trip at the end of the month for a visit to Spil Games and to do three speaking engagements (at a “China Tafel” dinner at the Industrieele Groote Club in Amsterdam, at the Mediapark Jaarcongres (a media conference) and at the Nationale Marketingdag (National Marketing Day)). But because my grandmother died a few days ago I decided to go back this week as well for two days to attend her funeral.

When I tried to book the tickets for my late-June trip to Holland a couple of weeks ago the price was over RMB 16,000, which I found way too expensive. I decide to wait and see if the price would come down and worst case I would use another (cheaper) airline, although I did not really want to waste time by transferring to a different plane (KLM is the only airline with direct flights from Shanghai to Amsterdam) on such a short trip. When I checked the price for the 2-day trip this week I also got a price quote of more than RMB 16,000, which I found way too expensive. Sure, I would pay it if I had to, but there had to be a cheaper solution.

And indeed I found one: I combined the two trips and booked a ticket Shanghai-Amsterdam-Shanghai, with the date for the first leg today and the return flight at the end of June after my speaking gigs. The other ticket I booked was Amsterdam-Shanghai-Amsterdam, with departure date in two day and a return flight in late June for my second trip. Amazingly the total of the 2 flights was less than the price of just 1 of the original flights! Sure, there are more restrictions, but I don’t care. The original ticket was only available without restrictions, even though I would have preferred a cheaper restricted ticket.

Also I only get 25% of my miles instead of 100%, but even that’s not a big deal. At several occasions I tried to change my miles for flights, but I never succeeded. I think I have over 500,000 miles in my account that are basically worthless. I have the feeling KLM is trying to phase out its Flying Blue rewards program, only for expensive full-fare tickets you still get full miles and you lose them if you do not fly enough. In case you speak Dutch, read this article in De Telegraaf as well, which states that KLM is chasing away its loyal customers (especially the comments show what KLM frequent flyers think about the airline!).

I learned one thing: if I should do another short trip to Holland this year and the price is again so high, I am going to book two tickets like I did now. Even if I would not use the second leg on both tickets, it would still be cheaper. The KLM likely won’t give me any miles if I don’t take the return flights, but if you only get 25% anyway you might as well go down to 0 miles. Does any of my readers know if this strategy could somehow backfire? I mean, KLM will not be happy with an extra no-show, but is there anything else they could do?

I urgently need to fly to Holland this week, so last night I went to the klm.com site to book a return ticket from Shanghai. I also needed to book another return ticket from Amsterdam, so I decided to book that as well. At first everything went relatively well. The site was a bit slow, but that’s something I am used to when browsing the KLM site in China. Because the last time I used klm.com was in Holland it was still set to departure country Holland, so I first had to manually delete the cookies in order to get a departure city outside of the Netherlands.

I started by booking the flight Shanghai-Amsterdam-Shanghai. I selected the dates and the site told me there were tickets available for RMB 3800, amazingly low. I read about their special promotion for flights to Europe before, but did not imagine that they would still have tickets available a few days before departure. In the past I was always wary about these promotional prices, because lots of taxes and surcharges would be applied. But last year the Dutch government issued a law saying that airlines are not allowed to show prices without taxes and surcharges anymore. KLM was one of the first to publicly announce that they would follow this strictly. But not too strictly it turns out, because when I looked at the end price they added an additional RMB 2400 to the price! They have to make money, so I am not going to bash them for that, but I find it a bit misleading when they announce in Holland that all their prices are including taxes and surcharges, but when they don’t follow that if you log on from China. Anyway, so far so good.

When I selected the exact flights that I wanted to take (KLM has day and night flights from Shanghai and they also do code shares with Air France) I wanted to confirm my selection. And what happened? There was no confirmation button on the site! I refreshed it (which took another 2 minutes) and again the same problem. I decided to start all over again, but 10 minutes later I had the same problem, the site did not load any further. I could not proceed to do the actual booking. Why? Probably because KLM has no servers within China’s Great Firewall. That also explains why the site is so slow all the time, and why it sometimes does not load at all. KLM has probably no clue about this, because their staff never makes any online bookings themselves.

I decided to make the round trip booking from Amsterdam first. Because now I had a Dutch departure city the site and booking procedure were completely different. I wonder why? Would it not be much easier to have one booking engine? Anyway, I am not their CTO so I don’t know their internal reasons, but it does not seem like the most efficient way to build your website. The booking went easier than the flight booking from Shanghai, until I wanted to confirm the exact flying time. This time there was a confirmation button, but on the next page I got an Error 500 message (without any further error description, very user friendly…). I retried to do the whole booking and again had the same problems.

At the same time I started Twittering about it, and several of my followers replied with similar negative KLM experiences. I had a bit of fun about that, but was getting very angry at KLM’s amateurism at the same time. This whole thing had cost me almost an hour, and it’s not the thing I prefer to do at 10pm on a Saturday night. I finally tried to do the booking one more time, and this time it went through! Maybe less traffic on the site? I don’t know, but this time there was no Error 500 message. I paid with my KLM credit card and everything seemed to be confirmed, until I received a message that the credit card details were incorrect. Huh? I checked them all, but they were right. I use this card all the time and never have trouble, but when using the KLM card on the KLM site I get an error message? I tried it one more time, and again got the same message. On Twitter someone told me that KLM was having trouble with their payment partner, which may have caused the problem with my card. Could be, but why not let the customer know instead of only telling me my details are wrong.

I decided to give the Shanghai booking one more try, but here I failed again at the same point as before. On Twitter someone suggested to use the Air France site (KLM and Air France merged a few years ago), and that worked much better than the KLM site. But the AF site did not show any direct flights between Shanghai and Amsterdam! Amazing, if you want to fly from Shanghai to Amsterdam you are forced to fly over Paris, instead of taking the direct flight. At least the KLM site still shows the indirect Air France flights, but AF did not reciprocrate with the direct KLM flights.

I gave up and decided to give my parents a call. They are in Holland, and presumably the KLM site works better there. And that was the case. They could book the Shanghai-Amsterdam-Shanghai flight without any problem. Well, with one problem: my credit card details were once again refused. So they used their own card and the booking was confirmed. Then they booked the other flight for me, which went fine as well. Here they also had the option to pay by iDeal (a Dutch online banking tool) and the money was paid from my Dutch bank account. Don’t ask my why you cannot pay flights originating from outside Holland by online banking, and typical KLM: not customer oriented. Their own staff probably does not even know, because they never use the site themselves.

In total it took me 90 minutes, but then I had my reservations. KLM sent me a confirmation by email, but when I read it I got a surprise. Part of the message read:

If the card holder is not one of the passengers, card holder must fax the 2 sides of credit card used for ticket purchase, along with a valid picture ID & a signed attestation to KLM’s Sales and Service Center, 24 hours before departure (Fax no: 020 38785225). Please contact us to receive the attestation form. In Guangzhou and Shanghai, cardholder can also come personally to the airport the day of departure with his ID and credit card.

So my parents would have to fax all kinds of info to KLM together with an attestation form (for which no contact number was provided, by the way). Not only is that very customer unfriendly, but it was a problem as well, because my parents don’t have a fax machine at home. And because of a public holiday they could not go to a post office to fax either before I would fly. This made me even more angry with KLM. Why do they not warn you while booking? They just assume their customers accept anything? I fly KLM at least 10 times a year and I’m a Gold Elite member, but they treat me like a first-time customer who may be using a fake credit card. Come on guys, this is ridiculous.

After fuming about it for some time last night I decided to call the KLM hotline this morning. After being on hold for 10 minutes I finally got through and explained my story. I told them I would not able to provide the required information in time, and they told me I could not board the flight in that case. So what happened? I finally had no other possibility than to cancel my booking. So now I am back to where I started off, and I hope I can still get a seat on the flight to Amsterdam. Great job KLM, this is exactly how you should treat your most loyal customers in difficult economic times.

Update (June 3): Just received a letter from American Express, they blocked my KLM credit card because it had been used for an unusual transaction. I used it to pay for a big part of my wife’s c-section (tot
al over EUR 10,000), which was more than I normally spend. This was the reason the card did not work on the KLM site. Of course it just not change all the other complaints that I had 🙂