Sri Lankan (UL) stopover hotel. (STPC process). You get what you pay for…

[Scarlett]

…as with most things.

Background:
Family Scarlett headed to/from Asia to Europe for a couple of weeks during school holidays. UL flights booked CGK-CMB-CDG then return FRA-CMB-CGK in J. During the outbound there was a 10 hour transit in CMB so I contacted UL to see if there was still an STPC process. Return flight was only a two hour transit.

How to organise the STPC:
I emailed the main UL reservations email address ([email protected]) and cc’d the local country reservations team (which you can find on the UL website in the contact us section), listing my booking ref and requesting accommodation during the transit. About two days later got an email back with confirmation of hotel booking near CMB and a ‘Sri Lankan Holidays’ voucher attachment. This is also referred to as a CPS voucher by the UL staff.
The hotel booking also subsequently appeared between the flights when viewing Manage My Booking.
All good. Easy and convenient.

For J tickets we were allocated Vivanta by Taj as the transit hotel and it seemed nice. In the past we had always been allocated Ramada Katunayake which was older but fine.

 

[Scarlett]

A couple of days ago we flew the outbound sectors. CGK-CMB was on a (regional product) A330-200 which was fine. Into CMB only slightly late about 1800. Our transit was scheduled to be 1745-0415.

Now the problems begin.

Walk from the arrival gate over to the Transfer Desk: it’s a zoo. But, at the right hand end is a marked Business class section and it was empty so I walked over there and waited. The two staff working the scrum of people already there, did their best to ignore me. The chaotic process can maybe be summarised as one person holding 5-10 passports is at the point where the front of the line should be. They’re being served. Surrounding them are others who maybe next ‘in line’ but they wait next to the person being served instead of behind. Then yet others will push in from the sides to ask questions, make comments, or do god knows what else, disrupting the staff members process.

After 20 minutes another random UL staff member entered the transfer area, actually acknowledged me and went over to talk to one of the staff and said he’d be over to help me shortly. Nothing happened.
After about 30 minutes Mrs Scarlett joined one of the scrum lines in case nothing changed.
After about an hour and progress on the scrum proceeding at a glacial pace, another staff member confirmed I wanted a transit hotel and then disappeared out the back never to return.
Finally, after waiting nearly 90 minutes one guy who I think was sick of being harangued by the masses looking for transfer boarding passes, finally came over to check my voucher (shown via the email attachment on my phone). He looked it up on a computer, printed it, stamped and signed it and then gave it to me. Total time to action the process: 2 minutes.

Proceed through immigration (had applied for a free transit visa in advance, online) and then down to the next accomodation desk.

At the transit accom desk fill in a form using the information already contained on the voucher. Give it to one guy who then transcribes it onto some carbon paper pad and returns a copy to me. This same info that was checked electronically upstairs has now been handled four times! Bureaucracy gone mad! We are told to wait for the transfer vehicle to the hotel.

Previously when going to the Ramada this was generally a 5-10 minute wait and some guy would appear and take you out to his van / car and drive your family to the hotel. Now it was wait with many others. And wait some more. No info why waiting or how long the wait would be. After about 40 minutes we get bundled into a 22 seater mini bus (full of transit pax) and taken via other transit hotels. Fortunately Vivanta was hotel two for the stops. Arrive at the hotel about 2045. Check in was pretty quick but we’re told that return will be via taxi three hours before the flight, so at 0115. I tell them unacceptable and want a 0215 departure as we’re only 10 minutes from the airport and as it’s early morning, there will be no traffic. Deaf ears. Apparently a wake up call will be made to us at 0045. I tell them we don’t want a wake up call. I also check that because we’re two adults and a child the room is either a triple or a double with extra bed. Guy assured me it is. Some more waiting whilst they ‘prepare the card’, or some rubbish.

Get up to room: of course it’s only a double bed. Back to reception. Guy who lied to my face is now nowhere to be seen and the girl at reception has to make some phone calls to solve what should be a very simple issue. We’re eventually assured an extra bed will be sent up.

Extra bed appears quite quickly. Finally a positive. Get to sleep about 2200.

My alarm goes off at 0100 and we straggle down to reception. Check out in about ten seconds and then get told to wait. And wait. In this time an entire QR crew comes down, check out (and appear to pay individually, each with their own company credit card), wait for a bit then their shuttle arrives and takes them to the airport. About 0145 a shuttle bus appears and takes us and two other people to the airport.

Clear immigration again and then wait in the Serendib lounge like zombies for two hours. We boarded the CMB-CDG leg about departure time and actually took off about 30 minutes late.

Fortunately the crew in the J cabin were happy enough to delay our breakfast (which they were planning to serve shortly after take off) by about two hours to allow some more much needed sleep. A330-300 for that long leg to Europe is individual lie flat recliners so a good couple of hours achieved.

 

[Scarlett]

So, in summary:

- much more convoluted process than it had been before Covid. Waiting times for what should be a simple process were ridiculous.

- In a ten hour transit we got three hours sleep.

- I’m not sure if it is due to UL cost saving measures (likely, as they were / are pretty much bankrupt - although owned by the government so not in the proper sense) and that nothing runs smoothly, or whether it’s a deliberate ploy to make the STPC so annoying that no one will want to use it?

- If in a similar situation in the future I would likely just book and pay for the airside Serendiva Transit hotel at CMB, even if that would cost ~USD100-120 for six or seven hours.

As the title says, you get what you pay for. UL provided me with a free hotel during a 10 hour transit but it was a frustrating and eventually mostly pointless experience.

 

[SYD]

I recall someone else posting a similar conclusion a few months ago.

I got close to booking UL SYD-LHR for the current trip I’m on but was put off by the long layover (and some other reports). So went for an even more convoluted route via CGK/HKG/DPS to LHR and home from MAD…