Here are some wonderful sayings I read the other day that I would like to share....
Instead of living life to be rich, live richly!
Keep life simple, travel more, buy less stuff, seek more adventure!
I prefer to spend my money on travel, rather than buying more "stuff" that will end up collecting dust. But the travel memories will always endure.
New England Fall Foliage Group
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Online Reservation Holiday Disaster
Over the holidays I recieved a call from a very good long time client. He explained to me his son had recently ordered a ticket through a random internet site to go to Xiamen China. The problem started when his son "sean" had some car problems and arrived at the airport an hour prior to departure instead of the customary 2hrs for an international flight. This would not have been a huge issue except that the flight was full and the airline had given his seat away. Well this too should have been a solvable problem at the airport. They could have rescheduled him in the next couple of days or gotten him on the next flight to Vancouver which is where his first connection was. "Sean" had shown up for the flight and checked in but the agent was unwilling to help with the situation, was overwhelmed with holiday traffic and basically said sorry and tough luck. The United ticket agent (this was a code share flight for Air Canada to complicate things even more) said he was a no show, which means that you lose the value of your ticket. Sean paid over $2000 for his ticket and was understandly upset. He no choice but to go back home and try to get help from the internet provider - airfare.com. Sean explained the situation several times to an agent that spoke very limited english but, the only solution they gave him was to buy a new one way ticket at $1500 to get there and he could use his original return reservation (this was almost as much as he paid for the whole roundtrip). Thats when I told his Dad I would call him and see what I could do. I can understand a change fee but losing the whole ticket....ridiculous!
After talking with Sean and getting more details and a copy of his original ticket, I could understand why the ticket agent was having such a hard time getting his ticket reissued for another day. Sean was booked on Air Canada for four legs of his trip and Southern Air China on the very last hop from Hong Kong to Xiamen. Well, any international ticket should be validated on the over seas carrier or at least the carrier for the majority of the flights....no carrier could reissue that ticket except airfare.com (which they said they couldnt do) or Southern Air China which has only two airport locations in the USA, none in Portland Oregon. After several phone calls and frustrating conversations I was able to get ahold of an exteremly knowledgeable agent at S.Air China in Los Angeles. He was able to rebook the ticket and charge the change fee of $125.00. He couldnt understand either why the ticket would have been validated on So Air China when it was just one small hop out of five flights on Air Canada - I'm sure it was a commission issue for Airfare.com but it created a major disaster for the passenger. As it turned out Sean was delayed a couple days but arrived on Dec.24th and was able to spend Christmas with is wife.
After talking with Sean and getting more details and a copy of his original ticket, I could understand why the ticket agent was having such a hard time getting his ticket reissued for another day. Sean was booked on Air Canada for four legs of his trip and Southern Air China on the very last hop from Hong Kong to Xiamen. Well, any international ticket should be validated on the over seas carrier or at least the carrier for the majority of the flights....no carrier could reissue that ticket except airfare.com (which they said they couldnt do) or Southern Air China which has only two airport locations in the USA, none in Portland Oregon. After several phone calls and frustrating conversations I was able to get ahold of an exteremly knowledgeable agent at S.Air China in Los Angeles. He was able to rebook the ticket and charge the change fee of $125.00. He couldnt understand either why the ticket would have been validated on So Air China when it was just one small hop out of five flights on Air Canada - I'm sure it was a commission issue for Airfare.com but it created a major disaster for the passenger. As it turned out Sean was delayed a couple days but arrived on Dec.24th and was able to spend Christmas with is wife.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Weather Delays
Well, due to the Oregon/Auburn game today....very short weather post (GO DUCKS!).
The best advice I can give you today is please get to the airport earlier then the 1.30hr normal check in time and reconfirm your schedule before making the trip to the airport.....yes, we are over the holidays but we are in the thick of winter. With weather delays and cancelled flights across the country it causes the domino effect across the board. Just today I had two clients call me about delayed flights that were delayed over 2-3hrs and of course would not make their connection flight. I was able to get them rescheduled ahead of time and save them going to the airport to wait. They would have been sitting at the airport for a very long time and at the mercy of the airport ticket counter and all the other passengers battling for those few extra seats which fill up very fast when flights are cancelled.
The best advice I can give you today is please get to the airport earlier then the 1.30hr normal check in time and reconfirm your schedule before making the trip to the airport.....yes, we are over the holidays but we are in the thick of winter. With weather delays and cancelled flights across the country it causes the domino effect across the board. Just today I had two clients call me about delayed flights that were delayed over 2-3hrs and of course would not make their connection flight. I was able to get them rescheduled ahead of time and save them going to the airport to wait. They would have been sitting at the airport for a very long time and at the mercy of the airport ticket counter and all the other passengers battling for those few extra seats which fill up very fast when flights are cancelled.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
My First Travel Blog
This is my first attempt at a travel blog and we'll see how it goes. For the past 28 years I've been in some aspect of the travel buisness and have collected many interesting stories over the years of travel mishaps, blunders and even some positve tales. I'm going to try and clear out the cob webs of memory lane and share some of the scary, funny and positive escapades.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)