My Innocent Brother’s Mistake
When I opened my brother’s passport, I couldn’t believe what I saw.
“Your Indian visa will expire on 2nd of July. Didn’t you say 27th of July?”
I already booked our return flight back to India on 5th of July, and then a flight to Nepal on the 6th. For that night we planned to use our hotel voucher to stay in a 5-star hotel in New Delhi. It was a perfect ending for our family trip.
But now I found out my brother did not have a visa to enter India. And it was a Saturday, no office was open, and we had no one to ask.
I was purely annoyed. I started to look for the possibility to get his visa extended, it wasn’t possible. I checked if embassy of India in Iceland or Latvia would accept a non-resident’s application there, and it also wasn’t possible. And my only option was to check if he could transfer to Kathmandu (Nepal) from the New Delhi Airport without requiring a transit visa.
But even if it was possible, I had to reschedule our flight from the 6th to the 5th. I started to think why this had to happen just 30 hours before our flight to Europe? I planned for months, and now it seemed like my perfect plan was ruined from the beginning.
And I was very upset because I booked the cheapest tickets online, which means I would have to pay 40 euros to the online booking website plus airline charges for the change of date.
I was distressed. I wonder what Jesus would do in this situation. I wonder if Jesus ever got annoyed by his younger sibling when something was messed up.
At that time, I didn’t remember Jesus’ first sign on earth. On a wedding Jesus was invited as guest, all the wine ran out. It was a bad situation like mine. Months of effort was about to go down to drain. It was catastrophic. It was the beginning of quarrels and blame. Mary brought the problem to Jesus and told Jesus they had no wine.
And though Jesus said his time had not come yet, Mary told the servants to do as Jesus said. And Jesus helped. Jesus helped.
Jesus helped.
Mary brought the problem to Jesus because she had faith in Him.
She involved Jesus in a bad situation and Jesus helped.
I wish that was my story but it wasn’t.
In my distress, I saw from the forum that it was indeed possible to fly to Kathmandu through Delhi without a transit visa. And if you didn’t book your flights on the same ticket, then you could ask the ground staff to transfer your luggage. So it looked like this was our only option. And I had no choice but to agree to change our flights from the 6th to the 5th.
Around 27 hours later when we were in the airport, I went to the airline counter for changing the date. Our ticket was about $70 each only. And to change the date, I had to pay $30 for each ticket. That’s quite a lot for a $70 ticket, isn’t it? But we had no choice. Plus my mom decided that we should change all 3 tickets together and travel together.
I didn’t say anything to my brother. He didn’t know how much time I had spent on finding the cheapest tickets, sending couchsurfing requests, calculating transportation cost, looking for car rental deals and insurance deals and information on free and worthwhile attractions. He didn’t know. And of course he didn’t know I tried to find ways to save so that we would have budget to go on a whale watching tour.
And I didn’t want to get mad at him over $90, although it was avoidable had he checked. But the whole point of traveling together as family was to have good memories. And he won’t complain about missing out on a whale watching tour. He isn’t the type of person who wants many things in a limited budget, very unlike me.
So I didn’t want to vent on my brother, it wouldn’t be fair. And plus I decided that if I really had to go on a whale watching tour, I would go on my own budget and leave him in a cafe with free internet. It would still be better to get angry at him on this matter.
My Mistakes… And Our Luggage Was Lost
We were in Europe for 36 days. It was a lot of fun. And we went on a whale watching tour within the budget! During the trip we also bought a ticket for my dad to go to Kathmandu with us. However he wasn’t traveling on the same flight with us, as the cheapest flight was a different one now.
On the 5th of July, we came back to New Delhi Airport. First we couldn’t find the International transfer counter, and when we did, the ground staff of our airline, Aeroflot was very rude. He asked us to pass through the immigration no matter how many times I explained to him that my brother didn’t have a visa and he should just transfer all our bags (7 items) to our next flight with Jet Airways. Our flight was scheduled 10 hours later so we were not in a hurry. But he was, and he was very rude. It was 3 a.m. in the morning. He asked us to pass through the immigration and take our bags. We said we would stay with my brother for now and do that when we could check in for our next flight, or else he could just transfer our bags to our next flight.
And he finally agreed. But when he found out my dad was on a different flight, he refused to transfer our bags to two airlines. He said only 6 bags were allowed (2 checked-in bags for each passenger). So in the end my dad still had to pass through the immigration and took 1 bag as he said. My mom, my brother and I slept near the International Transfer counter.
6 hours later, someone woke me up and told me to get my boarding pass. I was pretty tired, and so I didn’t notice that we weren’t given baggage tags.
We found our dad in a cafe in the departure hall. And strangely he said the ground staff told him to take two luggage. We felt that person was not only rude, but unprofessional and inconsistent in his words. But at least my brother was almost on his flight to Kathmandu.
And then I heard my name in an airport announcement. When I went there, a ground staff from Jet Airways said she had to confirm the description of our luggage. I drew the shapes of the five remaining luggage which my dad didn’t take. And she asked for the baggage tags from Aeroflot. Now I was confused because we had 7 tags, my dad took one. But when the Aeroflot ground staff suddenly told me dad to take another baggage, my dad didn’t notice the number on it. So none of us knew which 1 of the 6 tags we had was already picked up by my dad.
And the names of the tags of Aeroflot were tagged randomly. Some were on my mom’s name, some on my brother’s and some on my dad’s and some on mine. We didn’t check it when we were in Oslo, and we didn’t see our luggage when we were in India. So we had no idea.
The ground staff said she would figure out. But she also couldn’t provide us baggage tags.
And I innocently thought the bags would show up as there were only that many bags from Aeroflot. And she could actually try to search all 6 tags and she would find out 1 of the 6 tags was already picked.
When we arrived in Kathmandu, we found out we lost two bags. It was the first time in my life that I lost a bag, no, two bags. And we didn’t even have baggage tags to prove we had two bags. It was like a plague continued from my brother’s neglect of checking his visa. And now this plague was continued by my stupidity on
1. Trying to save on airfare and bought a different flight for my dad.
2. Being non-flexible while my mom and I could have also passed through the immigration and checked in our own bags.
3. Neglecting baggage tags
Thankfully We Had Travel Insurance!
But thankfully, I had downloaded the rules for delayed/missing luggage from the insurance company (which is automatically purchased by my credit card’s bank when I purchase any air ticket with that credit card). I knew I had to get a baggage missing report if I wanted to make a claim. So I went to the airport luggage counter and he believed that I had two bags missing under the name of my brother.
I actually didn’t know whose names were these two bags tagged under. But those two bags were mainly my brother’s clothes and souvenirs. And our tents.
A day later, someone from Jet Airways called and asked us to send them pictures of the baggage tags from Aeroflot. But I was confused again. We checked in 7 bags in Oslo, my dad took 2. From the 5 bags transferred to our flight to Kathmandu, we got 3. Yet there was no way I could find out which 2 of the 6 tags I had were the missing ones. The problem was all the stickers of Aeroflot were taken away from our luggage!!! It was like all inconvenience occurred in one situation.
But I trusted they would find it, as if they check all 6 tags, they would find out 2 of those 6 tags were the ones we lost. So my mom called her insurance company and it was confirmed that in this situation when we didn’t get baggage tags, then we could still make a claim.
So! We went shopping! The maximum amount for the claim in the case of missing luggage is $2000. On the 3rd day of our luggage went missing, my brother had no clean t-shirt, no pants and no underwear to change. And no socks. And no dry shoes. And no jacket.
Basically all his stuff were in the checked-in luggage. But the truth was my mom was going to buy him new shoes anyways and his t-shirts were either cheap or handed down by me or by my elder brother. He didn’t have any t-shirt more valuable than $10 and no jacket more valuable than $25.
That’s more or less the same case with me. But in terms of material things I’ve had more opportunities to be bought nice things as I’m a girl and more favored by my relatives.
So God opened an opportunity for us to shop for my brother! I was really happy for my brother. It was very special. I felt like a poor kid adopted by a rich dad. And for the first time in my life, price wasn’t an issue!! We bought what my brother liked, which was a pair of sandals, toiletries, t-shirt, shorts, waterproof jacket and trekking pants.
And interesting enough, as we had to use credit card to purchase these things (as the insurance is also a product of credit card), we could only buy from shops which accepted credit card. In Kathmandu only big shops such as the North Face had such facility. When I carried the bags of the North Face with my brother’s pants and jacket in it, I felt God’s grace.
Yes, we are people, and we make mistakes (very often).
Yet God is kind and gracious to people.
And God has turned this ‘plague’ into an evidence of His love to me and my brother.
Or maybe it wasn’t God but simply the bank fulfilling its obligation?
For some people, including believers and non-believers, it is hard to see God’s hand in a well-structured world. But in this experience on mine, I had several obstacles that proved it was really God. Let me tell you what happened next.
Someone Made A Mistake… Again!!!
After our shopping, we found out that my brother’s boarding pass went missing!! Can you believe it? We looked everywhere but we didn’t have it. My brother said he had returned to me but I said what he returned was actually the one with my name on it. Now this boarding pass is absolutely essential for making a claim to my mom’s bank. Without his boarding pass, we would have to bear the own cost of all the shopping items.
And when our missing luggage arrived on the 5th day, the airport staff took away the original copy of the missing luggage report from me. I was told that I would get a new one from airline’s office. But when I was there, I simply got a print out with some airport terms on it, and very brief description of the missing bags. It had my brother’s name on it. So I demanded them to alter the name to my mom’s (the reason for that was we had my mom’s boarding pass and my brother was a minor of my mom’s credit card…quite technical). The officer wrote (not typed) what I said on a piece of paper.
And then when I said I needed a statement that stated the time we retrieved our missing luggage, he again wrote (not typed) the date (not time and date) we got our luggage on that same paper.
And when I said the statement should be printed on an official letterhead, he said Jet Airways does not have a letterhead.
And when I demanded for his business card, he said he didn’t have any. So he wrote down his contact number on a memo (but no name).
And then, I didn’t know how the agents from the insurance would treat this matter as we didn’t have baggage tags and we paid in cash to alter the date of our flight. It should be fine but I was afraid that they would make excuse.
And the more I thought, the more unlikely I felt we would make a successful claim. We had too many faults. The statement didn’t look official.
“If we actually make a successful claim, it’s done by God and not by us.” This is what I thought. Everyday I prayed for grace. And I prayed for God’s help.
So before we left Nepal, I even thought about whether I should try to get an official statement (it was after 4 weeks though). And I decided to leave it to God.
God’s Grace
What I didn’t know was a week before we left Nepal, the refund was already made to my mom’s bank! God made it possible! I didn’t see this when I was Nepal, even though I had checked a few times. It was 3 weeks later when I already gave up my hope in this matter and I decided to take a look.
So yes, we are people, we make mistakes (and we lose hope). But even so God can still choose to show kindness to us. I feel very grateful for this valuable lesson (for making a refund and for God’s character), and God’s acceptance.
The gift of everything my brother needed to purchase was about $300. That was the amount we spent on buying our tickets and for changing the date. This was also an accident but it shows God knows everything and He is simply…. good.
God is good!
Traveling Mega
