Receiving compensation for our extra expenses due to Lufthansa's behaviour turned out to be a much more difficult task than we had ever imagined. Firstly, it was more or less impossible to get a written confirmation that our plane had actually been delayed. Secondly, our insurance company, Gjensidige Forsikring, argued (for reasons beyond our comprehension) that the incident was not covered by our travel insurance. Thirdly, Lufthansa appeared to ignore our polite request to refund our money, but finally backed down once we pointed out that their behaviour would be exposed on the Internet. However, the story did not end there, as shortly after uploading our travel diary, we were contacted by Gjensidige Forsikring who were worried about the way they were being portrayed. This prompted an "interesting" exchange of e-mails....

Despite the problems we had faced at the start, the holiday had been a big success! However, our late arrival in South Africa had increased the total costs somewhat, and we thought it was quite unreasonable that we should cover all these extra expenses ourselves. The largest amount was the plane ticket from Johannesburg to Hoedspruit, but we had also paid for the telefax to Drifters and accommodation for the first night in Johannesburg without being able to stay there. All in all, this amounted to around 1000R each. Not a large amount of money, but still quite annoying considering we had done nothing wrong. We therefore set out to recover the money.

On visiting our insurance company Gjensidige Forsikring, and briefly explaining the situation, we were told that our travel insurance should cover the extra expenses. We only had to fill out a form describing the circumstances and enclose a confirmation from Lufthansa that our planes really had been late.

Filling out the form was done in a few minutes, so now we only had to contact Lufthansa and get a written confirmation of the events from them. We checked out Lufthansa's homepage on the Internet and dialled the phone number given there. To our big surprise, the phone number led to SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) instead of Lufthansa. However, the lady on the phone explained that SAS were taking care of business for Lufthansa in Norway, so we had come to the right place after all. (SAS and Lufthansa were part of the same alliance.)

Unfortunately, the woman couldn't help us with our request, but at least she could put us through to someone else who could help. Unfortunately, the next person couldn't really help either, but she could put us through to someone else who would be able to help. It turned out that this guy couldn't help us either, but at least he could put us through to someone else who would be able to help. Unfortunately, this woman was definitely not the right woman to help us, so she put us through to someone else who would be able to help. Unfortunately, this guy was also unable to help us, but at least he could put us through to someone who would be able to help.

Finally we reached a woman who was able to help us! It was all very simple, she explained. We were given their fax number and told to send them a fax with a copy of our boarding cards for the delayed flight. SAS would then send us the necessary confirmation of the delay. We couldn't quite figure out why they needed a copy of our boarding cards, but since we were still in possession of these, there wasn't really a problem.

The next day we faxed a copy of our boarding cards to SAS, together with our addreses and a list of the information we wanted.

We then waited two weeks without receiving any confirmation of the delays or any other feedback from SAS. We therefore found it necessary to call SAS and ask what was going on. Apparently nothing was going on at SAS! They didn't have any recollection of receiving a fax from us, nor was the fax anywhere to be found! However, if we could just fax them the same information one more time, they would take care of the matter urgently. We also got them to confirm the fax number, just to make sure we really had the right number.

Shortly afterwards we faxed over the details one more time.

Now we waited for only one week without receiving anything from SAS, before deciding to call them up again and hear whether they were working on our confirmations. It turned out that they were not working on them, as in fact they could not find our fax this time either! This was just unbelievable! How is it possible to lose two important faxes in a row?

It got even worse! As we explained to the guy that we needed confirmations of delay for a Lufthansa flight, he said that this had nothing to do with SAS. We would have to ask Lufthansa!! This was, of course, what we initially had tried to do, but we had then been told by SAS that they would take care of it!! We asked if the guy could help us with the phone number for Lufthansa since the number on their homepage was obviously not right.

However, the new phone number which he gave to us didn't lead to Lufthansa, but instead it lead to some other guy at SAS!! This was really getting more and more ridiculous!!! We explained that we were trying to call Lufthansa and were put through to some other person. This guy couldn't help us, so we were put through to another guy. It turned out that this guy had another number for Lufthansa!

To our large surprise this new phone number actually lead to Lufthansa, so now we were right back were we started from, except that we had wasted three weeks, sent two faxes which mysteriously disappeared, and spent an eternity on the phone. We were starting to realize why SAS and Lufthansa would form an alliance. They were quite simply made for each other, with incompetence at all levels in both organisations!

To be fair to Lufthansa, they were quite fast in sending us the confirmations once we got in touch with them. They even explained the reason for the two delays. The first plane was delayed due to large traffic over Central Europe, which was the same reason as had been announced at Gardermoen.

However, the Johannesburg plane was apparently delayed because of an extra security check. This was not what the captain had announced. He had stated quite clearly that they were waiting for passengers from a delayed plane from Manchester. When we saw some passengers boarding the plane a long time after scheduled departure time, we had figured that these were the people we had been waiting for. Obviously, what Lufthansa now were saying about this "extra security check" could not be the whole truth. Maybe they also had an extra security check after the passengers from Manchester had boarded?

Anyway, we were happy to finally have the confirmations, so we immediately sent in the necessary forms to Gjensidige Forsikring. Two weeks later we both received letters from Gjensidige saying the same thing.

Our claim was rejected, so they were not refunding our money!

They argued that since our first delay was not due to a "technical or mechanical error", this situation was not covered by our insurance. On reading the insurance conditions very carefully, we found a point saying exactly this. It therefore seemed to be within their rights to deny our claim.

But maybe there was still hope? Gjensidige also wrote that it was their understanding that all the trouble was caused by the first delay. However, this was only half the truth, as we would have made it in time if the second plane had not been delayed. And according to Lufthansa's letter, the second delay was due to an "extra security check". Maybe we could argue that this "extra security check" was of a "technical or mechanical" nature?

So we called Gjensidige and spoke to the woman who had handled our case. She didn't disagree that the second delay was caused by a "technical or mechanical error", but she had another argument for not refunding our money. And here follows the lamest excuse we have ever heard:

The second flight was not covered by our insurance since we were not supposed to be on it! Our insurance apparently only covered flights which we had actually paid for, which was only the case with the flight which had left us behind in Frankfurt! Our flight the next day had to be considered as some sort of "free transport" provided by Lufthansa, and was therefore not covered by our insurance!

We were very disappointed, but there was nothing we could do. However, our our faith in Gjensidige Forsikring was severely weakened after the way they handled our case. This was quite worrying because we both have all our insurances in Gjensidige. If this was their attitude when someone makes a very inexpensive claim, how would they have behaved if my appartment had caught fire and I was asking for "big" money?

Our trust in Gjensidige did not increase when my parents suddenly discovered that Gjensidige had no record of their travel insurance, even though they had been paying for it as long as they could remember. They accidentally found this out the day before they went on holiday to Italy and had to sign a completely new travel insurance!

Our insurance company had been chosen more or less at random, as we figured that there probably wasn't that much difference between the various companies. Now we realize that this might have been very naive, so we have decided to check out the other companies to see if their conditions are any better. It is very important to have an insurance company which one can trust, and at the moment we are not so sure about Gjensidige. On the other hand, lots of people have had trouble with different insurance companies. It could therefore be that there isn't much of a difference, but it's worth checking out, though.

We figured that our last hope of reclaiming the money was to request them directly from Lufthansa, the source of our problems. Therefore, we wrote a very polite letter to Lufthansa with documentation of our expenses and kindly asked them to refund our money. The letter was sent on October 20th.

For completeness we should also mention that right after receiving the letter from Gjensidige, we also received a letter from SAS where they confirmed that our planes had been delayed! It took them over two months to complete this simple task, but they managed it in the end! Quite strange, though, since we were told that SAS couldn't do such confirmations for Lufthansa!

At the same time as we posted the letter to Lufthansa, we also sent a letter to SAS, telling them about our experiences with their customer service, and politely suggesting that their routines for handling incoming faxes needed to be improved.

A few days later we received a letter from SAS, thanking us for our letter, and saying that our letter had been forwarded to Lufthansa! We were kind of lost for words! Why in the world had they forwarded our letter to Lufthansa?? It had nothing to do with them at all! We still haven't figured this out!

After having waited four weeks without hearing anything from Lufthansa about the refunding of our money, or anything else for that matter, we were getting increasingly annoyed. We decided to make one final attempt by writing another letter to Lufthansa. This letter would be much stronger worded, as the "nice" approach didn't seem to lead to anything.

We started by telling that we would prefer to have a decision on the matter as soon as possible, because our website dealing with our holiday was soon finished. Since our problems with Lufthansa had been an important part of our trip, they would be featured on our site, and it would therefore be in everyone's interest to have the matter concluded, so that the information we put out on the Internet was correct and complete.

We further said something about similar sites having 15-20000 hits, and we were expecting the same amount(!) Finally, we gave them a deadline of December 3 to reply to us. If no answer had been received by then, we would get in touch with "TV 2 hjelper deg" (a TV show helping consumers) and "Forbrukerrådet" (Consumer advice), we wrote. I also enclosed a copy of the previous letter in case it had gotten lost.

This letter seemed to shake them up a bit, because two days later I received a phone call from a woman at Lufthansa! She said that they had not received our previous letter of October 20th (hmmm...), but our claims seemed to be very justified! They would definitely cover some of our expenses! We only had to send them the documentation of the actual expenses one more time, and then things would be taken care of.

This sounded very promising, but we didn't want to celebrate until we actually received the money. Copies of the relevant receipts were sent to Lufthansa at once, on November 29, and we were eagerly awaiting their response. After waiting for a while without anything happening we were starting to have some doubts, but in the end justice was done, as on December 24 all the money we had requested were transferred to my account!

It took about six months to retrieve our money, but our persistency had finally paid off! We were really pleased that the matter had been solved in the end! Our impression of Lufthansa, or at least of their Norwegian office, certainly improved somewhat when the money was transferred to us!

The story finally seemed to have come to and end, but then suddenly on December 16 (while we were waiting for the money from Lufthansa), things took an unexpected turn. On this day we received an e-mail from a woman (let's call her CH) who claimed to be in charge of marketing travel insurances for Gjensidige Forsikring. She seemed very friendly and polite as she explained the reason for contacting us:

Apparently, some guy in Hønefoss (a small Norwegian town not so far from Oslo) had been studying our website for advice, as he was planning a trip to South Africa. He had read about the way we had been treated by Gjensidige, and had become so worried that he had contacted their local office at Hønefoss. The staff at this office had then found this to be such a serious matter that they had contacted Gjensidige's main office in Oslo, suggesting that they deal with the situation.

It appeared that CH had only read our section on practical advice, and not the whole background story in this Epilogue. She explained that they were disappointed with our criticism of Gjensidige, and wanted to know more about the background of the case which had prompted us to write rather negatively about them. They would then look closely at our criticism, in order to clear up any misunderstandings. She even suggested that this might eventually lead to a change in their travel insurance policy.

We were really pleased about receiving such an e-mail, mainly for two reasons. First, it looked like Gjensidige might not be as bad as we had initially thought, but were indeed willing to learn from their errors. Secondly, we were amazed at the impact of the website. It had only been on the Internet for 10 days, had not been promoted very much by us, were not yet listed in any important catalogues or search engines, and still people we had never heard of were using it to plan their travels! What would happen when we became listed in all the catalogues, we were asking ourselves!?

On the same evening, we wrote a friendly and polite e-mail reply to CH at Gjensidige. We gave her the link to this document, and slightly expanded on our criticism. It was made very clear that if we had treated Gjensidige unfairly, we would change the content of our website immediately. However, as far as we knew everything on the website was strictly correct, not having been made any better or worse by us, so to make us change something, Gjensidige would have to tell us exactly which sentences they felt were wrong.

However, we also praised her a lot for taking this initiative, and suggested that Gjensidige might be a better company than our earlier experiences suggested.

After sending this e-mail, we were expecting a quick reply, as it seemed Gjensidige were genuinely interested in reviewing our case. However, this did not happen, as no reply came, neither by e-mail, regular mail or telephone. We just waited and waited, and after 6 weeks, we realised that no reply would ever come. It was therefore decided that we should send another e-mail to CH, politely asking what was happening with our case. This was done on January 29, and on February 1 we finally received a reply.

However, the reply was very short and just said that she fully understood that we were surprised not to receive any responce from them. After she had received our first e-mail, she had given the case to someone else in her department, and was unaware that nothing had been done. However, she would talk to the guy who was now in charge to ask why I had not been contacted.

We then waited, waited and waited. After another month, we still hadn't heard anything, so on March 1 we sent CH yet another mail, requesting information about the status of our case. We also explained that after we had been promoting our website, it was now listed in all the major catalogues and we were receiving a substantial number of visits every day. Further, we made it clear that quite a few people were now sending us e-mails asking for travel advice, and that we then tried our best to help. However, in providing such advice, we had to rely on our own experience, and our experience with Gjensidige was not that impressive, something which was reflected in the advice given by us. As long as Gjensidige kept ignoring us, our experience was all we had to rely on, so it should definitely be in Gjensidige's interest to provide us with details about possible misconceptions made by us.

On March 6, we received a very short reply from CH. She said she had given our case to another guy in her department (let's call him MK), and was certain that he had been in contact with us. She also sent a copy of her reply to MK, to remind him that we were still waiting.

To be honest, it was not really a big surprise for us, that after having waited another month, there was still no reply from Gjensidige, neither from CH or MK. On April 4, we made one final attempt at receiving a reply, by sending an e-mail to both CH and MK. As always, we were friendly and polite, but this time we made it clear that if no reply was received, we would assume everything on the website to be endorsed by Gjensidige, because, to be honest, four months should be more than sufficient to locate any errors/misconceptions in just a few paragraphs of text.

No reply was ever received from CH or MK, neither by e-mail, regular mail or telephone.

These are the events so far. It is tempting to make some further comments, but we think that the events speak for themselves in such a manner that people should be able to draw their own conclusions. The most amazing thing is probably that it was Gjensidige Forsikring themselves who contacted us. When we responded in a very positive manner, they suddenly ignored us completely. This didn't exactly make us very confident about their response if one of us ever had to contact them asking for money, say after fire in the apartment or similar.

Our skepticism turned out to be well founded. If we thought their behaviour was bad this time, much worse was to come during our trip to Southeast Asia next year.