Self Check-in flights and cheap Flights Over the Years
I’ve been buying cheap flights for decades now, but a lot has changed over the years when it comes to flights and how you buy them. When I started travelling many years ago, you could buy a discounted return fare, which was often about one and a half times the cost of the one-way fare. In recent years, this has changed and more often than not, you’re buying two one-way fares. Now more and more of the cheapest flights include self check-in connections.
Check Cheap flights for Connection Times
I’ve noticed this in post-pandemic flight fares, the proliferation of the self-check -in fares. These are flights that give you a price using a two or more different airlines, all ticketed separately. Often, because of the separate ticketing, you are required to collect your luggage and check in yourself, as if you’re making an initial trip to the airport. Although the travel agent could give you what appears to be a safe transfer time (usually at least 2-3 hours), they don’t always provide much information about how far you need to travel to get to your next flight. It might say ‘Arriving Terminal 1, and departing T2), but just make sure that Terminal 1 is actually in the same location as Terminal 2.
I made this mistake in a recent flight from Milan to Melbourne, via Kuala Lumpur. My flight from Milan to Kuala Lumpur was with Turkmenistan Airlines (with a change of planes in Ashgabat). Then a connection in Kuala Lumpur to Air Asia for the final leg of the trip. Terminal 1 to Terminal 2. Easy! Or so I thought, given that I had 2hours and 45 minutes to change flights. Even with a 30 minute delay in the flight arrival, this should have been no problem at all.
How wrong I was! The flight from Milan to Ashgabat was fine. It left and arrived on time. The flight to Kuala Lumpur was about 50 minutes late, which still should have given me enough time to change flights.
The thing is, I had never been to Kuala Lumpur airport, and had no idea what a huge place it was, with bus rides from Gate to Immigration, and then a several-kilometre bus ride from the Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 – which in Kuala Lumpur peak hour takes forever!
Visa Free Passports and Online Registation
I have 2 passports, UK and Australian and when I’m traveling to Australia, I travel on an Australian Passport, which allows a visa-free entry to Malaysia. However, as I wasn’t intending to spend time in Malaysia and was only connecting to another flight, I didn’t bother to investigate whether anything else was required. Apparently, you need to register online to enter Malaysia, even if you are on a visa-free passport. This is something that appears to be happening worldwide now, and I was aware of the upcoming requirement for non-EU passport -holders to register (for a small fee). It appears to have already started in Malaysia. As I hadn’t done this, I was blocked from entering through the free passports gate (which had huge queues and which had taken at least 20 minutes to get to the front).
I asked the immigration officer why I couldn’t get through, and she asked me if I had registered. I didn’t know what she was talking about and when she told me to register online (when the clock was ticking faster and faster at this stage) and go back to the end of the queue I did rather start to lose my cool, but was able to keep it in check, which is always wise in these situations. When I told her I had a connecting flight with Air Asia and was not entering Malaysia as such she told me I would have to get a bus to T2 and asked the Malaysian citizen immigration officer to register me on the sport and let me out, and that I still had time to make my connection.
Check Time Between Terminals
I then got on a bus, as the clock was ticking faster and faster! The bus appeared to be waiting to fill up before it left, and I started to panic. Then, when it did leave, it hit a traffic jam before it could turn into Terminal 2! About half way along that bus ride, I had already resigned myself to the fact that I would miss my flight, which indeed I had. The gate had closed, and I could not board.
In these situations, one tends to wander around wondering what to do next. I approached some of the check-in staff about getting on a later flight, but being a separate ticket, I wasn’t able to do that.
Insurance When Buying Cheap Flights
However, my very cheap self-check in fare included connection-guarantee insurance, which gave me some confidence that I would be offered another flight. I contacted the travel agent by chat (eDeams). They told me, after a very long wait, that yes, the insurance did cover my situation, but I would have to book and pay for another flight myself and then claim to be reimbursed. Make sure you have you have a travel insurance policy, if you travel agent doesn’t offer one.
Airport Facilities
OK, this was not ideal, but I had enough money available to do this, although the flight I booked (the cheapest I could get without risking another missed connection) cost more from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne, than the original Milan Melbourne flight and involved a change in Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei) and a 20 hour wait in the airport. But that all worked out. I was looking at almost four days in transit! But Kuala Lumpur is a very well-equipped airport, and had two capsule hotels, one on the 3rd level and one on the 5th level, so I stayed in the 5th level one. Both were in Terminal 1, where I would catch my new flight the following day. I was able to book it online.
There is everything you could ever need to survive in KL airport in terms of places to eat, and the capsule hotel gave me a key to a secret shower that their guests could use. Bandar Seri Begawan also had an in-terminal hotel, but there I just used the ‘snooze room’. Bandar, compared to KL, is tiny and myself and about four others staying overnight in the airport had the whole place to ourselves. We barely even saw an airport worker until 6pm the next morning. There were plenty of places to ‘snooze’.
But it all worked out in the end. I wasn’t out of pocket (I could claim for the capsule hotel in KL along with the fare) and I got home safe and sound.
Checklist When buying Self Check-in Flights
But the things to remember when buying a cheap self-check in flight are:
- Check that terminals are int eh same building.
- Check if you need online registration, even if you have visa-free entry to the country
- Does the travel agent offer connection insurance
- Most of all, I would not be doing another self-check in at all, just to save a couple of hundred dollars. If you decide to, I would allow a minimum of 6 hours to change flights.
