In all my years of traveling, this is the first time that something like this had ever happened to me. Fortunately this incident also showed how helpful a great hotel concierge can be…

My phone decided to stop charging at Delhi Airport!

In a previous installment, I wrote about my Air India A350 business class flight from London to Delhi. The plan was to have a roughly eight hour layover at the airport, before connecting to my Air India A320neo business class flight to Kuala Lumpur. I had booked a room at the Holiday Inn Express inside Terminal 3, and I was hoping to get a bit of sleep between flights, since I didn’t sleep much on the flight.

Now, for context, let me mention that on my long haul Air India flight, my phone started charging in a very strange way, but I didn’t think much of it at the time, as airplane charging ports are sometimes super unreliable.

So I checked into the hotel, got into bed, and of course plugged in all my electronics to charge. However, my iPhone wouldn’t charge. Or more accurately, in increments of under a second, it would charge, then not charge, then charge, then not charge (with the lightning bolt symbol at the top of the phone going on and off constantly). Ummm, that’s not good. Charging the phone would actually drain the battery rather than charge it, due to the constant switch between modes.

Now, let me mention that my phone isn’t just important for the obvious reasons (staying in touch with the world, tethering, etc.), but my iPhone is also literally my travel camera. And when you’re taking a trip specifically to document and review travel experiences, that’s kind of an important detail. 😉

My unsuccessful attempt to fix my iPhone problem

While annoyed, at first I figured I would be able to find a solution to this. Was the issue with my phone, or was it with my charging cord? So I went online and searched for people who had similar experiences.

I saw some people suggest this problem may be due to an issue with a dirty port, and to use a toothpick to clean it out. So I went to the restaurant in the hotel and asked for a toothpick, and tried to clean it out. Nope, the issue persisted.

I then tried to figure out if the issue was with the cord, my adapter, or something else. So I tried plugging into all kinds of different outlets, used my secondary cord, etc. Nope, nothing worked.

I then figured it couldn’t hurt to at least try to buy a new cord, since I needed to find a solution. Here’s what blows my mind — in all of Delhi Terminal 3, not a single store had a USB-C cord for sale. There seems to be only one store selling electronics, and then they didn’t have it.

How is it possible that a massive international terminal doesn’t have a single charger for sale? It’s a disservice to passengers and a crime against airport economics. For the record, I asked multiple people, and I walked the entire terminal inspecting the inventory of virtually every business.

At this point I had around 20% battery left. I should also mention that I was in international transit, and didn’t have a visa for India, so it’s not like I could enter the country and try to go buy something there. So I decided to put my phone into airplane mode.

That way I could at least still take pictures from my connecting Air India flight, and I could figure out my issue when I got to Kuala Lumpur, whether that involved buying a new iPhone, or whatever. That ended up being a good solution.

What’s hilarious is that my iPhone lasted throughout the flight for taking pictures, and the phone literally died after I took a picture of the exterior of the plane upon landing, which would’ve been my last picture anyway. So at least that worked out well for me.

Here’s something else people may get a kick out of. Usually I take notes about flights on my iPhone, but in order to preserve battery life, I instead took notes the old fashioned way. The thing is, I didn’t have a proper piece of paper, so my flight notes were instead taken on the key packet for the Holiday Inn Express transit hotel. Pardon my absolute chickenscratch, as I never handwrite anything, but here you have it, unfiltered…

The Park Hyatt Kuala Lumpur concierge saved the day!

While researching my issue online at Delhi Airport, I saw one other possible solution. If it was my charging port that was broken, it seems that wireless charging still potentially works. So my next goal was to find a way to buy a wireless charger, since that was my only other hope, short of buying a new phone. Of course there were no wireless chargers for sale in the terminal… but then I had an idea.

I don’t think I’ve ever used a hotel concierge for any special request, but you’ll often see interviews with luxury hotel concierges about all of the amazing strings they pull for guests.

So I thought to myself… I was checking into the Park Hyatt Kuala Lumpur late that night, long after the Apple store would be closed. That being said, what if the Park Hyatt Kuala Lumpur could send someone to the Apple store for me to buy a wireless charger, so that it would be available when I arrive? I hate to ask others to do things for me, but this is certainly something that was urgent for me, and it’s not like it was an impossible task…

So I got on my laptop and called the hotel concierge, and I was connected to Jerome. He was an absolute rockstar, and arranged to have an Apple wireless charger sent to the hotel.

While I was initially going to just take a taxi or the train from the airport to the hotel, I also asked Jerome if the hotel cars have Wi-Fi, which they do. Since I wouldn’t have Wi-Fi on my Air India flight, and the pricing wasn’t unreasonable, I went ahead and just booked a car, so that I could be productive, and wouldn’t have to worry about the more complicated transportation logistics when being disconnected from the world.

But I had another angle as well. Since I knew the car service was being provided directly by the hotel, I asked Jerome if they could also send the wireless charger in the car that would pick me up. Jerome executed this beautifully, and the first thing I saw upon entering the car was a bag from Apple.

I unwrapped that package faster than a kid unwraps gifts on Christmas, and was delighted when I saw that my phone was working fine with wireless charging. Now, I still have the issue of having a phone without a functioning charging port, but that’s a problem I can push down the road, and for now life is good again. Whew!

Bottom line

I guess I’m really lucky, because in all my years of travel and taking review trips, I’ve never had an issue with my iPhone. That changed on this trip, when my phone suddenly decided it no longer wanted to charge, while in international transit at Delhi Airport. This incident really showed the power of a great hotel concierge, who sprung into action and saved the day.

In retrospect, maybe I should travel with a backup phone, or something? But hey, if this is the first time in so many years that something like this happened, I guess that’s a fair risk to take…