My Experience At Garuda Travel Fair 2016

It's been awhile since I wrote a blog post regarding my experience. For today post, hopefully it will be very useful for you guys!

So if you are not familiar with Garuda Travel Fair, it is basically an event where you guys can buy flight tickets that are way way cheaper in price!

You know when you browse for tickets and suddenly the prices doesn't make any sense? Basically the airline is keeping/saving the ticket for those kind of fairs!

So back to the event itself. I was suppose to go from my house at 8, but I overslept (yay insomnia!) so I only able to leave my house at 9.

My friends who were already there are kind enough to buy me entry ticket. Now when I reached there, it was super crazy loaded with people. First of all, the event was sponsored by BNI. If I'm not mistaken (most probably not), BNI card owners are able to get free entry to the event, while non-owner need to pay IDR 30.000. Unfortunately, this 'free-entry' created chaos, whereby everyone queued on the BNI line and it was just too many people, that my friends decided to use the normal lane instead.

I didn't queue for the entry ticket, but it took me awhile to wait for my friend, who already entered the venue to come out because it was just too crowded. When my friend finally came out, my other friends who were actually already talking to the tour-ticketing booth called me. She told me that she queued for quite some time, since I was looking for international flight and so did she, she offers me whether I wanted to get my tickets from that travel tour as well.

When she said so, I texted my family because it is a family trip about the dates and all. I rushed to go to the main venue. The GTF16 venue was at JCC by the way, and the main location was at one of the halls.

So basically every where you go, it is just SUPER CROWDED. Like if you're lost, you will find a very hard time to find your companion. So after I reached the tour booth, I thanked my friend and asked about my flight tickets.

Unfortunately, my friends didn't get her flight ticket. She needed a fixed flight, but there are no more available flight when she reached, although we reached quite early. So when I took over her seat (ok I admit it was quite bad for me because I skipped the queue, but technically we're on the same group so), I asked regarding my flight. There are direct flights and flights with one stop, so I kept messaging my family. It was quite chaotic, tbh. Because I only have one plan in mind so I need to keep asking my family regarding the changes.

After my tickets were book, I go to the cashier. Now usually each travel booth will have their own cashier. But imagine there are so many people buying tickets and they actually only have 2 cashiers... Imagine how long do I have to wait to pay my tickets. Furthermore, we have time limit to pay our tickets and if we missed it, the tickets would be available for other people to book which is, quite frankly, very annoying.

Buttttt with all those hardships, I finally snatched my tickets! Hopefully nothing goes wrong and if everything goes well, next summer I'll go to Sydney, Australia!

As you guys know, Australia's seasons are different from the rest of the world, but that's the thing that I look forward to because I want to experience winter! Having that said, living in a very tropical country, my closet is full of all-year-long-summer-clothing (not, because I actually love turtlenecks and outerwear). So I've been browsing a lot of online store to get my hands on coats, sweaters, jumpers, basically winter clothes!

Now if you like me, and you love online shopping, surely you wouldn't miss harbolnas (Hari Belanja Online Nasional) or Singles Day, especially in Zalora website! If you want to get more products in lesser price, do visit their sites here!

I'd definitely check their sites because their outerwear selections are just too cute and if I could save some bucks, why wouldn't I?

Now back to the Travel Fair, if you are interested to go to the next travel fair, here's my tips:

1. If it is possible, there are travel agencies that provided pre-booking for travel fair so you could book your tickets beforehand! I'm not sure which companies that provided such service, but you can definitely google them!

2. Go with a friend! It would be super stressful there and by friends I mean not like a group of 8 people, small enough to be your companion.

3. I wouldn't recommend you guys to buy tickets that are close to the date of the fair. I could guarantee that they won't have any slot left for you.

4. If it's not possible for you guys to actually go to the venue, you can go to the travel offices and they will have the same promo-priced tickets. Just that they won't have any extra benefits like extra promo from sponsors, cashback, or whatsoever.

5. Bring some snacks and definitely water. It is basically a warfield there and you don't want to collapse during your fight.

6. Plan properly! Have more than plan a, because if let say your departure tickets are ok but not your arrival tickets, would you like to move the arrival date further or forward? Those things will make the transaction smoother and definitely make you less stress. If its not possible, if you are travelling with your friends but you're the one who's buying the ticket, make sure they're contactable during the time you're going to purchase the tickets.

aaaaand that it is guys for today's post! Hope it is helpful! Xx