I once wrote about the benefits of business class and how it can give a certain peace of mind if you’re rushing to the airport due to unforeseen circumstances. I never thought it would happen to me since I’m usually an early bird. But there’s always a first.
The story:
I booked my friend and I on an impromptu trip to Bangkok via SQ’s Business. Three days & two nights are hardly enough time for us to do all that we want to do there. In summary, our flight back to Singapore was at 8pm and my friend realised he lost his wallet at 4.45pm after we visited True Love, A husky cafe full of different wonderful breeds.
Background: We went to True Love around 1pm, but the next available play session only starts at 3.30pm (petting only starts at 4pm), and ends at 5pm. We decided to go for it but leave early. Talk about living on the edge!
To put things into perspective, we were about half an hour away from the hotel (the luggage was left at the hotel) and the hotel is about half an hour away from the airport.
We left the husky cafe prematurely at 4.30pm. My friend called Grab taxi back to the hotel. Three minutes into the Grab ride, my friend realises that his wallet is not with him. “We’re not going to panic,” is what both of us probably had on our minds. We got the driver to go back to the husky cafe; no luck, no wallet. Perhaps, it might have been at the massage place we visited whilst waiting for the husky play session, or the nearby convenience store we bought raincoats at. The Grab driver kindly obliged, or perhaps the meter was running so it didn’t really matter to him. I waited in the taxi while my friend retraced his footsteps.
It was 5pm at this point. Two minutes quickly became fifteen. I was doubly nervous. We had a plane to catch, and he was nowhere to be found. I didn’t have the means to contact him either.
After fifteen minutes, he emerged. Still no wallet. Apparently, the convenience store allowed him to view the CCTV camera. The CCTV showed that I took out my wallet to pay for the raincoat. There was no more time, the only choice was to head back to the hotel, and then to the airport.
We reached the hotel at 6pm. We paid the grab driver hundreds of Baht and asked if he could take us straight to the airport on ‘taxi meter’. It’s definitely a good day for taxi business.
We reached Suvarnabhumi International Airport at around 6.30pm.
The first sight that greeted us was the economy queue. I’ve spent half my life taking economy, I know what’s it’s like behind a long queue that never seems to move. The Business queue was a breeze as usual, thankfully.
At this point, one thing weighed heavily on my mind: “Will I be able to get past immigration and baggage check fast enough to be able to experience BKK’s SQ SilverKris lounge?”
I took a peek at the immigration queue. It was a long snake line of people. Thankfully, we had this (see picture below) and the rest is history. Click here to read my review of the SilverKris Lounge in BKK.
A brief introduction to Priority/Premium lane:
Bangkok is one of a selected few airports that provide both Fast Track Immigration Clearance and Fast Track Security Screening. Most destinations with a premium lane provide access to both, but some only have either.
NOTE: Priority/Premium lane is NOT the same as priority boarding.
This concludes my first experience with fast track clearance on my trip to Bangkok and back to Singapore.
And of course… there’s priority boarding after… enroute back to Singapore.
Till next time!
