Emirates, epic fail of its Asia Pass. Here's the only way to book the 'zingarata' in Southeast Asia

A few weeks ago Emirates developed and announced a tool that makes so-called 'Southeast Asian sufferers' happy, namely those who are crazy about places like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, and so on.

With his 'Asia Pass' one can in fact book up to ten flights in the area on the Dubai carrier's website, also using two airlines from the region such as Batik Air and Bangkok Airways. The system does not offer a fixed fare for a total number of flights. It is therefore not what existed until the 1990s, for example in the United States, or what some companies occasionally offer nowadays.

It is only un clear, convenient, and fast tool for organizing do-it-yourself-a tour (with a single PNR) through as many as twenty destinations in seven countries in that beautiful region of the planet (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia) also taking advantage of theincreased direct flights operated by Emirates to that area.

And here comes the good (actually, the not so good). Because, as we at The Flight Club always do, we wanted to experiment for our aficionados with the tool developed by Emirates. And, following the instructions, we built ourselves a tour that includes six flights (we did not want to exaggerate) among the available destinations, in addition to the two from and to Italy (via Dubai, of course).

We chose flights and dates, including two connections operated by Bangkok Airways and three by Batik Air, and, to keep it simple, we opted for the entire itinerary in Economy, although the system allows you to choose Business Class routes where available.

But, at the end of the process, the system always gave us 'error', suggesting that we contact the company's customer service. After making two attempts with two different browsers, we gave up and contacted (because we can) the press agency that handles media relations on behalf of Emirates in Italy, which took up our report.

 

Very efficiently, a few days later, we were informed that "the procedure may not go smoothly due to the complexity of the itinerary. To avoid any problems during the booking process, the customer service advises to make the booking by phonemente, so they can manage any complications on the spot and receive individualized counseling."

Net of the timeliness of the response, you get a little disoriented: but how, one of the world's largest airlines, which has always been attentive to its image and efficiency, launches and advertises an online tool for its passengers and then takes it back (in part), saying that yes, Asia Pass can be done, but the way it was done in the 1990s, that is, by picking up the phone and booking flights over the phone? Mah...