In early February, Garuda announced that they will be reducing the flight frequency to Amsterdam due to some financial reason, from 7 times a week becoming 4 times a week, starting March 1st, 2012. Since that date, GA 088 (Jakarta to Amsterdam) will only run every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, while GA 089 (Amsterdam to Jakarta) will run every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. This new policy make our flight on March 1st (which is Thursday) as NO FLY status. If I didn’t read the news in detikcom, I would not know this information because Garuda has not informed us. I then came to Garuda office to confirm this issue and follow up the solution for our flight to Amsterdam.
Garuda gave us several options to choose, whether to be rescheduled to 1 day after, 1 day earlier, or transferred to another flight (SQ, direct flight from Singapore). After thorough consideration and discussion, we then chose to reschedule 1 day earlier to February 29th, to keep fly with Garuda flight scheme (which is transitting in Dubai after 8 hours). Luckily, after quite long negotiation, Garuda also gave us a room to stay 1 night in Novotel Amsterdam Airport in effect of arriving 1 day earlier than planned. Even we would be happier if Garuda could upgrade the class to business, but it’s enough to cure our complaints.
We also got a complimentary room in Crowne Plaza Zurich Hotel from my uncle living in Switzerland. We then changed the place of stay in Barcelona to NH Belagua Hotel that have better location but more pricey than Putxet Hostal. Hopefully, there will no other change in last minutes.
| Date | Type | Name/Code | Depart | Dep Place | Date | Arrive | Arr Place | Lodging |
| 29 | Flight | GA 088 | 8:30 PM | CGK | 1 | 7:45 AM | Schipol | Family |
| 6 | Train | Thalys | 09:16 AM | Amsterdam Centraal | 5 | 11:10 AM | Bruxelles Midi | – |
| 6 | Train | Thalys | 4:37 PM | Bruxelles Midi | 6 | 5:59 PM | Paris Nord | Altona |
| 9 | Flight | Easyjet | 1:45 PM | Paris CDG | 9 | 3:30 PM | Barcelona BCN | NH Belagua |
| 12 | Flight | Vueling | 3:10 PM | Barcelona BCN | 12 | 5 PM | Zurich ZRH | Crowne Plaza |
| 14 | Train | City Night Line | 8:42 PM | Zurich HB | 15 | 8:55 AM | Amsterdam Centraal | Family |
| 17 | Flight | GA 089 | 10:00 AM | Schipol | 18 | 8:05 AM | CGK | – |
Spikey Daddy 