Hi Guys,
Flew in October from Mumbai to Goa with Air Deccan and they took our Credit Card details on line.
HTH
Boyd

Just managed to book with Spicejet. I emailed them and got a reply saying ring their customer number (in India). After finding a cheap call operator (DialARound) I rang and booked over the phone, no problem!! I instantly got an email 'ticket' and my flight is confirmed. All in all, it took about 8 minutes and cost £27 each for a one way flight from Mumbai to Goa!! It's saved us a huge amount, because we were quoted £153 in total to book the exact same flight through a travel agent. I'm glad I spent the time looking through it.

A word of caution, some domestic airlines quote different fares for Indians and non Indians. I found which ones don't through a useful post on the IndiaMike forum. I'll happily post the link up but don't know if Fiona will let me?

Toe - thanks for the info - I wanted to get something in place before hitting Mumbai airport for the first time. As January is busy, I wanted the security of a guaranteed seat on a plane.

Bodissimus - I think the overseas credit card block only came in recently -and I think I tried all the sites I could and my card was rejected by all. Lets hope they sort it out soon

Helen

I returned on Monday 11/12/06. Having travelled to Goa several times over the past 5 years I have never had to pay excess on my luggage. They weighed both my own & my partners cases together and told us that we were 7 kilos over the limit & would have to pay £7 per kilo. We were taken to another office where a queue was beginning to form, which struck me as interesting. We paid £49 by visa card as we did not have the cash. It appeared that most people were being charged on this one. We then proceeded to Immigration and Security (which took over an hour due to lengthy queues). A Customs Officer then took us both to a room and asked us which were our cases pointing at 3 that had been put to one side. None of them were ours & in view of time from checking in were probably being transferred onto the Plane. Being open & honest we described our cases & answered all his questions admitting that we had purchased Duty Free goods, ie. cigarettes & alcohol (within limit). He then charged us for this & took 700 rupees off us & indicated that if it had been "another customs officer" we would have had to pay extra with dollars or stirling - as if he had done us a favour! I observed that they were also doing this with older people & felt was very unfair & intimidating especially for those who are not used to the corrupt system that operates in India. So be aware & to be on the safe side ensure you have enough cash on you at the airport to meet the needs of these new 'fines'.

I wonder what would happen if you didn't have any cash or cards?

Thats shocking Vonblonde , did you get a reciept for the 700 rps ? I bet the customs rub their hands every time a coach pulls in like shooting fish in a barrel, a big payday on every coach that comes in. My friend was caught last week at Dabolim, fair enough he had 2000 cigs in his case, the official(sic) pulled 400 cigs out and told him that he would have to pay 100% duty on the other 1600, now correct me if I am wrong but wouldn`t the duty be collected at the UK end ?? anyway he offered up a `small fine` to save the hassle of arguing the toss, a £10 changed hands and off he went.

This seems to be a continuing trend at Dabolim now and needs to be looked at, I am going to make some enquiries through a friend who works for one of the big travel companies main office and find out what I can about the aiport authorities and who they are answerable to, the season has only just begun and already these incidents seem to be cropping up all a bit to often.

I will keep you posted on my findings

It is definitely worth asking for the officers name and demanding a receipt. As far as I know there is no restricion on taking goods out of India, only currency. They were doing the same thing with viagra a couple of years ago. They got quite excited when they xrayed my case ans saw a large batch of pills. Unfortunately for them it was zantac.

we had a similar problem a couple of years back, as our cases were scanned an ''official'' pulled one to the side, i walked round to ask what the problem was, he said you have drugs, to which i laughed and said no drug - ibuprofen, no no you have drugs and it will cost you £20 or I will have to report you. By this time I was starting to panic a little, hubby came round and asked what the problem was, the official repeated that we had drugs and needed £20 - I was now in my handbag getting my purse out to pay - hubby still protesting to the official and I said just pay him- hubby said give me £5 and said he can make do with that as of course we guess that not paper work was going to be filled in - unfortunately I only had £10 notes so it had to be that and yeah the money went in his back pocket, hubby not happy at all and everytime we have return since, while having a drink in airport hubby keeps hold of any £5's just in case we get caught drug smuggling again:-))

The airport staff are 95% crooks and I sometimes wonder why we put up with it but once away from the airport we know why we return year after year.

Roll on Feb

I did not receive a receipt from the Customs Officer nor was I quick thinking enough at the time to request one (we'd been up since 3am ready to leave). I wonder if there is anyway this kind of theft (which in my opinion is what it is) can be stopped, as it is all too commonplace & can be intimidating if you haven't experienced it before. The Police are even better......they lie in wait at night time for tourists who have bikes, they wear balaclavas so you can't even see their faces....you daren't ask for their ID! Mind you we did come across a couple last year who where most kind & having obtained a cigarette each from my Partner & myself advised us to take care & let us go without having to give any money at all!

Hi, a few years back me and my partner arrived at airport on way home and I was sitting with bags as we had checked cases in, Chris went outside for a ciggie and I was approached by a policeman asking for my passport and when he saw me looking outside trying to get Chris's attention he asked for his passport as well.
I was panicking a little so gave him both passports which had our immigration slips inside as well and he walked away.
When Chris came in I told him what had happened just as the policeman was returning with our passports.
He had got them both stamped and marched us straight through to the waiting lounge passed everyone standing in long queues that was after asking Chris for money, we gave him 500rps as he had already done the job and we wanted our passports back.
Spottiswoode

It strikes me that it would be worth taking a photo of these officials with a mobile phone. Perhaps if they could be identified someone could take action against them. Mind you they would probably just have to pay a bribe to their superior to get off scot free. I think I will keep a Scottish fiver handy though while in the airport, it may come in useful!

I got stopped with Silagra in my case in 2001, flying from Goa to Delhi for the cricket. It was only about 5p a tablet from the Goan chemist, when British prescriptions were about £10 per tablet at the time. I bought 100.
It was when the 'war' with Pakistan was going on so security was incredible, and the security was all Army.
Anyway, Mr Head Honcho Army Man came to question me about the Viagra, asking all sorts of questions about dosage, including the immortal "and how long before you go to bedroom do you take these?"
I thought he was checking that they were for me and not for me to sell on, so i told him "about half an hour before".....so he opened the box, put a strip of 6 pills in his pocket and told me to put the rest in hand luggage.
Later on when boarding was announced, they were searching hand luggage again on the tarmac by the plane. The same Army bloke was in charge, he came and grabbed me from the departure hall, escorted me right the way past all the extra checks and walked me straight onto the plane, saying "enjoy the cricket" as he patted his pocket.
Mad..... :-)

So you didn't ask him if that was a gun in his pocket ?

Had no problems with the porters this time, only said "no" once.

whats security like at the minute? has anyone noticed it taking longer than usual to get through customs and security checks?

Last week coming home on the Monday morning was dreadful. 4 charters and a Columbo flight all trying to get through, took us from 5.15 til 7.30 to get from check-in to departure lounge, so every plane took off late.
Immigration was the problem as usual, no ordered queues, people pushing in causing a few arguments, no sense of urgency from anyone except the passengers !

Dreadful for us coming home in November as well, two hours to get thru all the security checks/checking in etc. The worst ever. If anything I think it is getting worse.

We are due to fly to Mumbai in February and then down to Goa, however, we are having problems booking flights on line as Go Air etc are not taking international credit cards. The only one we have found is Air India at a hiked up price. Does anyone know of any other way to book an internal flight please!!!!???

Dawn/Graham,

I had exactly the same problem a couple of weeks ago. The sites are not accepting non Indian credit cards due to the high level of criminal activity. Some domestic airlines also have one price for Indians and another (higher) price for non Indians. I rang Spicejet (their number is on their website) and booked over the phone using my credit card. It was very easy, and the price you see online is the price for everyone. All done in about 5 mins and I got email confirmation immediately.

If you want to make the phone call cheaper ( you are calling India) then pm me for an easy way to do. Good luck

Thanks for that we will try that. I have just been looking at spice jets website and the flight times fit in with our getting out there etc. We didn't have this problem before but we noticed that there are two different prices!! We will try to contact them.