Kenya Airways Rebooked My Mum On Emirates Business...

Intro

Airlines make mistakes all of the time, and some are worse than others, but the way Kenya Airways handled this was first appalling, but then miraculous.

Kenya Airways Cancellation

As I sat at the airport in Kabul on a Friday afternoon, I decided to check in on my mum's flight to Nairobi as she was supposed to meet me in the Seychelles the next day. Well, it was a good thing I did, as Kenya Airways had not only canceled her flight but moved her to the next day without notifying her (my email). I get that schedule changes happen, but not notifying passengers of a 24-hour delay is pure absurdity.

Kenya Airways: I am not impressed

With no data in Afghanistan to call Kenya Airways, I left it up to the fate of my mum's negotiation skills to try and figure out how she was going to get to the Seychelles.

The Rebooking

Over the years you hear about those stories where people book into Business, a flight gets canceled, and they end up in First. However, when I touched down in Dubai, my mum had let me know that Kenya Airways had rebooked her, for free, in Emirates Business Class. Considering the cost differential was close to 4000 USD, my jaw almost dropped...

WOW. JUST WOW.

I've gotta say: props here to Kenya Airways on doing this, as few airlines would have offered Emirates Business Class. Quite the upgrade with the renovated Business Class seats on the A380 compared to the Kenya Airways 2-2-2 configuration.

Now here is another note to readers: if you are re-booked onto Emirates, you cannot upgrade in the lounge to a higher cabin. The way the ticket is processed, even if there is space, it doesn't allow it. My mum attempted to upgrade to First Class, and the agent said it was possible. She transferred her point and the agent said it wasn't possible anymore due to the booking.

Emirates refunded the points to AMEX within 4 working days: which is not bad as well.

Final Thoughts

Kenya Airways, I hope you weren't trying to pull a quick one on my mum by not letting us know about the schedule change, but I have to say, you made up for it by rebooking her on Emirates Business Class. This is top-notch service, but I would have loved this to have happened before the day of the original flight...