The short of it:

We were ripped off by Oh Darling guesthouse (aka Funky Monkey Hostel). They overcharged us for our plane tickets and would not admit what they had done. Instead they made us wait and made up lies in attempt to get away with it.

The long of it:

After spending lots of money and time at the guesthouse Old Darling we were very disappointed to find out that we were over charged for our plane tickets. We paid for our tickets nine days before we received them. We became suspicious because whenever we asked for our tickets we were told 'later'. It was frustrating. We would be told to come back at a specific time because our tickets were in a safe, and whoever had the key would be back. However, every time we came back the person was still not there.

We finally got a half a piece of a printed off piece of paper with our flight information on it the night before our flight date. When we checked the same flight on line the difference was 70USD. We understood that the guesthouse would charge a service fee and that some money would be used to pay for our transportation to the airport, but $70 seemed like too much. We asked them why we were over charged that night, but the manager (Micheal) was not in. The staff member working promised us that Micheal would be in the next morning. At the same time another couple was asking for money back on a different ticket that they had been over charged for. We were sad to find out we weren't the only ones.

The next morning, however, we were given the usual 'come back later'. We talked on the phone to Micheal and he told us he would be back in two hours. We explained to him that it was frustrating to keep coming back when we wanted to do things in the city. Our flight was that night, though, so we didn't really have a choice.

When we came back we were pretty much ignored while the staff had lunch. They finally told us that Micheal was not there. The staff member working told us that the reason the ticket was more than the price we found was because it was with a different company. He said that Air Asia and Thai Air Asia were different companies and that Air Asia was better and we would get better service. He put the blame on us because we should have asked for a cheap flight. We argued that Air Asia and Thai Air Asia were the same and had the same flight numbers. He assured us that many flights have the same flight number. He couldn't produce any evidence that Thai Air Asia existed (nothing on the Internet, he had no phone number or contact person). Then he promised again that Micheal would be back later in the afternoon. We had to argue to get a specific time to come back because we didn't want to wait around all day. Our flight was that night and we were really annoyed to not have any answer yet. We just wanted an explanation of why our flight cost so much, or some of our money back.

Of course when we returned at 5pm Micheal was not there. The same staff member continued to insist that Thai Air Asia was different from Air Asia and that was he reason for the price increase. We talked to Micheal on the phone and his brother was on the way to help us. Micheal was still out of town and would not be returning to help us. I don't believe he ever planned on coming back to help. It seemed that by telling is he would be there later saved them time to come up with an explanation.

Once his brother got there we argued for over an hour. We insisted on talking to Thai Air Asia, since they still had no proof of this company. They dial ed for me and I talked to someone who sounded exactly like Micheal in the same place when I had talked to him before. It was noisy with people talking in the background. He did not talk to us like he was someone at a company either. When I asked him for the company address he assured me that it was too far for me to get to today. He told me general information that we think his brother had relayed to him in Vietnamese. When I asked him to give us our booking date and number he had to call me back and talked to his brother again. His brother asked to see my booking information to see the departure time (which the company should know, and the 'company' had told me). I think he wanted to tell Micheal the information. I told him the info and wouldn't let him see the paper. He soon hung up and 'Thai Air Asia' didn't call us back. Eventually we asked to call again, and got no help again. He said there was no problem and that the taxi was coming. When we asked for our booking number again he said that he would have to look in the computer and call us back. When we said we would hold he hung up. At this point we demanded our money back. The brother said he had to talk to Micheal, who at this point had turned off his cell phone.

After making our taxi wait for 20 minutes we finally had to leave without an answer or any money. We feel that we were treated very poorly and that our complaint was a joke to them. They thought (and knew) that by giving us our ticket at the last minute and by putting off Micheal retuning they could get away with their cheating. They treated us like fools as they tried to convince us that Thai Air Asia is a company. Calling this company and having Micheal pretend it was real was simply insulting.

Please do not stay at this guesthouse. We are just two people who they ripped off, but surely there are many others. For the most part the staff is very friendly. However, friendliness does not excuse overcharging and cheating customers. We can't get our money back now, but we can help other people save theirs.

Good luck with your travels.