Hard Day

Sometimes it is just better to stay in bed.



Thursday was the big day, I had setup a nice week-end in Mauritius Island to go scuba diving. My suitcase was full with what I needed for 4 days of diving, reading on the beach and sleeping. The taxi dropped me at the airport, I gave my passport at the check in counter, the agent looked at it and told me that he couldn’t check me in because my passport would expire in 5 months. I went to the office of Air Mauritius to discuss this with someone, the hostess explained that there was nothing that could be done except contacting the consul of Mauritius to request for a dispensation, the approval for the dispensation would take a day. I had to board the plane the same day, not the next day so I asked her to refund my ticket. “I am sorry sir but this kind of transaction can’t be done in this office you will have to go to the main office in Saint-Denis”. It was like the only thing I had to do in my life was to wait in an office to get my money back, well as I was not going away for the week-end I had plenty of time. The plane ticket would of course not be fully refunded, a 15% charge would be applied and the refund would take a minimum of 30 days. What a bunch of thieves.



On the way back from the airport, I asked the taxi driver to stop at an ATM so that I could get some cash to pay for the fare, it was higher than expected has it was a holiday. I inserted my card, it came out instantly as the screen displayed “card expired”. I looked at the card, my face changed when I saw that expiry date on the card read 10/12 meaning the 31/10 at midnight. The taxi took me home where I got two American Express cards I didn’t want to take with me for the week-end, the expiry of one was 10/12 and the expiry of the other was 10/13. Only a handful of ATMs accept American Express cards in Reunion Island. I tried 2 ATMs with no success, the taxi was starting to get nervous when he drove me back home. Luckily the landlord was around and loaned me the money I needed.



I then went for a walk in the city to find an ATM where I could use my Amex. I felt joy rushing in when I found one but it left me as quickly as it came when the card was rejected because I used the wrong pin code. I rang my was who had travelled back home the day before and asked her to check the pin code, I tried with the right code this time but the card was still rejected. The anger started to rise but I told myself that the ATM recorded that I made numerous attempt with the wrong pin before using the right one so I went to look for another ATM. Lucky for me the ATM of the lask bank had a nice American Express logo, again the good pin was rejected. I called Amex support service and explained my situation, the operator could definitely see my attempt to get some money but each time the pin was wrong. I tried again with the good pin as I was on the phone with him but the result was still the same. I asked if he could reset the card but the only thing he could do was offer to send another card. That was so what I needed.



I walked home hoping I would be able to use my card the next day. Waking up this morning it downed on me that had I been allowed to fly I would have ended up in Mauritius with 100€ and an expired credit card, that would not have been fun.