I Want to go to Oslo

Soooo, I have this doctor call and want to book a flight. He says he wants to go to Oslo. Great! I ask him where he is coming from. He tells me some po-dunk town in the middle of nowhere.
So I ask him, "is that where you want to fly out of?"
He tells me, of course not... it's an international flight.
So I ask him, "what airport do you want to fly out of?"
He tells me, "whatever is cheapest."
So I ask him again, "what city do you want to fly out of?"
He tells me, "Well, you tell me. What city is cheapest."
At this point I've about had it with trying to pry information out of this idiot. So I say "OK, I'll book you out of Ft Lauderdale...."
I swear to GOD!!! He thinks it over and says, "well, no. That won't work for me... how about Newark."
So I ask him what dates he wants to travel. He...tells...me...whatever...day...is...cheapest.
I am beyond irritated and say, "sir I need a DATE!!!"
He asks for my supervisor. Well, guess what... that is NOT going to happen. Click

Blog, Blog, Blog...

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Multi tasking

What is the matter with people who call from work. Do they really think they can book travel while waiting on customers??? Or the cop that another agent tried to help.

The agent says, "I had a cop once calling from his car and I was competing with his 2 way radio the whole time, and it was for his personal travel. He kept saying, I need to answer this..."

The worst I had was a guy at work at a pizza shop. Every couple of minutes he would set down the phone to take an order. It took me at least 3 times longer that normal to put together that itinerary. Then after that his credit card wouldn't go through.

Question....

Why do people spend 15 mins on the phone with you, then go into the hotel and book for the same price? And talk to you while they are driving there. I hope they dont make their living selling things to people on the phone.

Ummm, I don't understand...

There is a point program that can be used for travel. For the most part it is fairly straight forward and easy to use. The one exception however, is car rentals. It is insanely complicated. So much so that we cannot even do it for the customers, it must be done on the website, following explicit directions to the letter.

We invariably will get the customers who want the benefit without the work and will devise ways to try and get us to do it for them. Such was the case today...

The woman wanted to use her points to rent a car. I told her I could not do it for her and directed her to the website. She pretended not to understand what I was saying, so I gently told her again in simpler terms. I explained briefly that she would need to get the instructions on the website and basically that would entail, selecting a rental company that would accept a certificate in lew of payment, calling a special number for specific pricing, then booking the reservation on the website and then ordering a certificate for the price of the rental. Then she would need to mail or fax the certificate to the company before the day she needed to rent the car. It all must be done within a specific timeframe or you lose the points.

She acted confused. By this point I was starting to realize she didn't want to fuss with it, she wanted me to do it for her. Again I steered her to the website for instructions. She wanted me to verbally give her the instructions step by step so she could write them down as I gave them to her. Again, I told her they were on the website and she needed to get the instructions there.

She started to get frustrated when she realized I wasn't buying her helplessness and was not going to do it for her. Her parting shot was I "wasn't nice" and wanted me to transfer her to someone who could help her (do it for her).

I'll Show YOU! I'm gonna save 25 Big ones!

An agent had a caller she spoke to on three different occasions today, putting together an itinerary. Each time refusing to book because she wanted to save the booking fee. She also spent 45 minutes on hold with customer service trying to save the $25 booking fee. She finally got tired of waiting and hung up. And on the 3rd quote the price went up $1k . So she says to me I should have booked with you this morning.... I spent the whole day on this now I can't afford to go at all. I said... remember I told you twice before that we did not know when or if the prices would increase?????

gotta love it

All You B***ches Should be Fired!

I got a call from a customer who right off the bat was itching for a fight. He had tried to book a reservation and his card would not go through. Acording to him he had contacted the credit card companyt and there was no problem with the card. Before I could even offer to help he goes into a tirade and insults me. I thank him for calling and end the call. Done, right? Well not exactly...

He calls again and gets a different agent, probably one of many. Here's what she said:

"The first thing he said to me was he was transferred to customer service and was on hold for 39 minutes and he wants that agent fired and wanted a manager so he could make that happen. lol.... I had a chuckle over that one. Then he said all us B____ should be fired. I said to myself, "Off to India for you... enjoy."

Another agent got him and said: I told him, "let me transfer you to customer service since there are complications and I don't want to waste your time", so I transfered him.

Poor sad little man.

I see Money in your Future...

I had a call today from a woman wanting to book a vacation to Las Vegas. She went into great detail about how she didn't have the money but would put half of it in the bank tomorrow. She asked me if there was a way to hold the reservation until Thursday when she would have more money. I told her we didn't have a way to hold the reservations and the card would be charged as soon as the reservation was completed. She would need to book the reservation at that time. Then she asked me what the price would be on Thursday. She didn't get it when I told her I would get out my crystal ball.

The World

Today I was booking a flight for a man who had a middle eastern sounding name, as did his wife. When I was adding his child's name I commented it was an unusual name and asked about it. He told me when his child was born he was speaking to his mother about what to name is newborn. He was having difficulty coming up with a name and asked for her advise.
She said, "well, what does this child mean to you?"
He replied, "She means the world to me."
She said, "well, you have your name."
He named her Doonyah which means "world" in Farsi.
LOVE it!