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I am notoriously prone to travel mishaps. On more than one occasion, I have required two separate taxis from my hotel to the airport: one for me and my luggage, and a second for my passport.
I rarely travelled for pleasure until 2024, when I discovered the world of airmiles. Shortly after, SAS announced their “EuroBonus Millionaire” promotion, and I decided to give it a shot. Given my track record, friends and colleagues questioned the wisdom of this choice, as another passport-related blunder could instantly ruin the campaign, but against all odds it went off without a hitch. The experience changed my life – I had no idea how much I would love it, particularly the time in East and Southeast Asia.
When Turkish Airlines announced their own million-mile giveaway – the “Six Continents Challenge” – I was delighted, particularly as it aligned perfectly with a significant amount of travel I already needed to do. Because I view air miles primarily as a tool to avoid flying economy, it felt counterintuitive to subject myself to endless economy flights just to escape them in the future. Instead, I set out to build an affordable business class itinerary, requiring multiple positioning flights.
At the time, I was living temporarily in the Philippines. After some trial and error, I determined that the optimal starting point was a flight from Vietnam to Dubai to tick off Asia. I relocated to Ho Chi Minh City, taking the opportunity to spend five nights there and redeem my first-ever suite upgrade voucher at the Hotel Indigo Saigon. For the most part, it was an enjoyable stay – the breakfast was decent, and the rooftop pool was lovely – but there was one bizarre incident.
While in the bathroom, I suddenly felt a sharp, burning sensation. Startled, I took a quick step back and investigated the cause. I noticed that I had been leaning against the metal support bar underneath the sink, but it wasn’t hot to the touch. I wondered if I had simply imagined it.
I stepped back up to the mirror, only to receive the exact same unpleasant shock. Further investigation led to a startling conclusion: faulty wiring had electrified the metal bar. I got dressed and headed straight to reception to report the hazard.
The receptionist accompanied me back up to the room. He began by suggesting that I must be mistaken. When I stood my ground, he offered to move me to a standard room, which would mean giving up my suite. When I declined, he simply draped a towel over the live metal bar and suggested I head downstairs to the lounge to “relax and have a drink.” I strongly suspect he thought I was having a mental health crisis. Alternatively, perhaps he just viewed electrocuting guests as a minor inconvenience!
Unsatisfied, I went back to the lobby and asked for the manager. She took the situation more seriously and quickly located an alternative suite for me.
As if this hadn’t already been embarrassing enough, this story now reaches its nadir. The manager escorted me to the new suite and suggested she wait outside the door while I tested the bathroom fixtures to ensure they didn’t suffer from the same defect. I reluctantly accepted, and stepped inside to conduct a safety check. Thankfully, this bathroom was entirely shock-free, and the ordeal was finally over.
I still find myself wondering if the hotel ever fixed that wiring, or if some other unsuspecting guest had to lodge a similar complaint!
I hoped this would be the end of the drama for the campaign, but sadly, I was just getting started.
My flight to Istanbul was scheduled on a “Turkoflot” A350, featuring the excellent Collins Aerospace Horizon business class seat. This was part of the reason I chose Ho Chi Minh over Hanoi for my departure point, so I was pleased to note that there was no aircraft swap.
I am vegetarian, so prebooked the (Asian) vegetarian meal. The food was fine, but I did look slightly enviously at the (predominantly vegetarian) food that the other passengers were receiving. For future flights, I didn’t prebook a vegetarian meal, which sometimes worked well and sometimes did not – long-haul flights were fine, particularly given the huge amount of food on offer, but short-haul flights featured pre-plated starters that included some meat. Thankfully, the Turkish Airlines app allows me to request a special meal for one flight and not the other, but it would clearly be preferable for there to be an option, “I would like the same food as everyone else, just without the meat”!
I was scheduled to land in Dubai at 1220, with my next flight, a positioning flight to Cairo with EgyptAir, departing at 1900. I had spotted that the Dubai Airport Holiday Inn was $40/night, so had decided to book two nights there for my first-ever mattress run – although the opportunity to have a shower and a nap in the room wouldn’t go amiss.
Shortly before landing in Dubai, it occurred to me that I had not yet checked in for my flight to Cairo. When I tried to do so, I was greeted by an onslaught of error messages, most of which related to the cancellation of my flight. I had been rebooked onto a flight departing the next morning which would have given me just two hours for a self-transfer, in Cairo of all places!
I rushed through passport control and headed to the EgyptAir service desk, and asked them to rebook me onto the 1620 departure. They told me to call EgyptAir customer support, who told me that, because I had booked the flight through Avianca Lifemiles, that I would have to contact them to make any changes. I’ve since been told that I should have argued with them further, but instead I tried to call Lifemiles, whose automated phone system just hung up on me repeatedly! (When I did later get hold of Lifemiles, they claimed to have tried to phone me about the rebooking. Quite why they couldn’t have emailed me, I’ve no idea!).
After a few minutes of this, I decided to cut my losses and just buy a new ticket. I dropped my hold luggage, and now had 2h40m until my new departure time. All fine – except I still had to find my hotel and check in!
The hotel was located next to another terminal, so I headed to the metro and paid 10 dirham ($2.70) for a return ticket. Just to add a bit of jeopardy to the situation, my phone was on 7% battery at this point.
As I was on the metro, I checked the route on Google Maps. It said I needed to take a circuitous route via my original terminal – a 1 hour walk or a 10 minute drive – but I found a member of staff who advised me that there was a 10 minute walking route available.
It didn’t take me long to see the hotel nearby. Unfortunately, there was a large wall between us, so I set about finding a way through or around the wall. This didn’t take long, but it did reveal that there was a second wall in the way, so I attempted to repeat the feat. Turning left seemed to be leading me away from the hotel, so I tried turning right, following the blue wall. It was a bit of a trek, and it occurred to me that perhaps I hadn’t fully factored in the 44 degree heat when I decided that my legs were the optimal means of transportation. Still, I was surely more than half-way now, so I kept walking.
Eventually, the road met the bank above it, and I thought I’d be at my hotel in five more minutes. Unfortunately, I was greeted by what I could only assume was a building site, with “keep out” signs. I now wished I had turned back earlier, but it seemed a bad idea to walk all the way back in the heat, so I set off along the path to the side of the site.
As I got close to the hotel, I noticed there were signs in the sand stating, “warning: live wires, keep out.” (No photo of these, I’m afraid – my phone was now on 1%, and I had become more concerned by my prospects of survival than by the documentation of the process). Once more, I regretted my previous choices, but felt I had no choice to proceed; so I picked up my carry-on luggage and ran across the building site, hoping that a combination of rubber soles and having only one contact point with the ground would be enough to save me if I did come into contact with a live wire.
I was now at the hotel! Or rather, I was at a hotel – there was a Premier Inn just before the Holiday Inn, with a fence between the two. I walked into the Premier Inn and gasped for water, and the woman on the front desk kindly obliged (although I was a tad concerned to note that it was marked, “low sodium” – not ideal in the circumstances). As I finished the bottle I started to explain that I wasn’t actually a guest at her hotel, and that I was trying to check into the Holiday Inn, but that I had a flight departing in just over 90 minutes. She seemed rather perplexed, but obliged me further by giving me a 2nd bottle of water, directions to the Holiday Inn (still a five minute walk despite being able to touch it through the fence), and a third bottle of water for the journey.
So, I set off once more for my hotel. Having reached it, I had to rush the receptionist to check me in quickly, and to sort me out a taxi back to the airport, all somehow without giving away that I wouldn’t actually be staying in the hotel for either night. I charged my phone enough to take a rather sweaty selfie, had a quick shower then headed back out.
Thankfully, my flight was somewhat delayed, so I had enough time to eat something in the lounge, address the “low sodium” issue and continue to rehydrate.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how I risked my life on my first-ever mattress run. I am yet to attempt a second.