As nice as the title sounds, it didn't start off as a nice day! I was transiting through Bangkok one Friday evening when they refused to let about 20 of us board; the Thai lady behind the counter looked at us and said "the plane is full". I looked at her like she was speaking Khmer or another language that I have absolutely no knowledge of, and said "sorry to hear that, but what's that got to do with me? I booked my flight weeks ago".
One by one as she booked the rest of the stranded passengers on other flights that were leaving that night, I noticed how the counter area gradually emptied out; and there were two of us left- a Ghanaian lady and I, the airline lady looked at us and said "you'll leave in 28hours time, yes tomorrow night". At this point, I burst into tears and said "look, I have a Nigerian passport so that means that I can't stay in Bangkok for more than 24hours without a visa (I learnt that the hard way, that story is for another day). She said "its ok, we take care of everything madam, we take good care of you, no worry". She pleaded and begged in as much English as she could muster that she had no other choice because they had no flights headed our way that night, so I calmed down...
She took us upstairs to a fancy hotel at the airport, and gave us four meal vouchers each; for dinner that night, and three meals the next day. We stayed at the hotel which was amazing, and spent most of the next day sleeping, talking, walking around Suvernabhumi which is quite a large airport, and waiting for nightfall so we could leave.
That night we went to the counter and got our boarding passes, finally!!!! Then, a man that worked with the airline came up to us and gave us a form to sign; It acknowledged that we were put on another flight, and that we received the meal vouchers etc. After signing the forms, he handed us envelopes and walked away. We looked in them and each of us had been given $230!!!! That was awesome for a trip that hadn't turned out the way we planned it, but boy was I glad for the extra money which would go toward my next mission trip!
With a big smile on my face, I looked at the airline official behind the counter and said "is the flight full again tonight? Feel free to keep me here for one more night" :) Well, that didn't happen so I happily boarded the plane, and got ready for the long trip ahead!
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