Only one Thumbs Up out of five this week. Looks like some travel agents are finding plenty to grumble about mid-year. If you want to report something well done by a supplier, a res agent, or rep, we are happy to give them some coverage in TRO’s Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down. If you have a problem with airlines, tour companies, etc. or getting commissions, maybe we can assist. Contact Les-Lee at packagedeals@comcast.net.
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A THUMBS UP for TravelBound…and their courage. They now have TripAdvisor on their booking site. Agents can select a property, read the reviews from comments on TripAdvisor, and decide if they should sell it. For years, TravelBound has had the most detailed descriptions on hotels around the globe. They touted the fact that they checked each one out carefully before offering it. Now, after reading some of the comments, good and very very bad, you are the judge of whether to sell it.
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THUMBS DOWN for Carnival…and it’s one of many. After booking a cruise, an agent received the e-mail confirmation. She printed it out and gave it to her client who was in the office as part of the receipt. After the client left, she realized that the pricing was lower than what she was quoted. She called Carnival to ask about the difference. After waiting on hold for quite awhile, she was told that gov’t fees and taxes were not added for the third person in the cabin.When the agent complained that her client had seen the incorrect e-mail and she had to tell the client that Carnival made a mistake, the res agent became indignant. She said “This why we don’t want agents calling the res department- book online.”
Continuing on with Carnival, they hire an outside firm, Assist, to be telephone agents for the public, their personal planners. A prospective client called one of these agents, named Jackie, to get pricing for cabins – a suite with an adjoining outside cabin. She did tell Jackie that she was also going to check with a travel agent, which she did immediately.
The travel agent called the res dept. to book the cabins and was told the pricing didn’t exist and there were no suites that connected with an outside cabin. She called again, thinking a different agent could figure out the puzzle. The agent tried to book it on the website, the cabins weren’t there as well. Finally the agent called Jackie, to verify the pricing and get the cabin numbers. She didn’t mention she was a travel agent, Jackie never asked that question. The agent just said she was referred to her. With this new info, the agent called res again, and booked exactly what the client wanted. Within 30 minutes, Jackie, seeing that the cabins were now booked, called the client and bawled her out for working with a travel agent. The client got very upset, and is making a formal complaint to Carnival. But why did Jackie have that info at her fingertips, but Carnival’s res agents did not? The THUMBS DOWN trifecta for Carnival is their announcement of yet further lack of phone service for travel agents. They just don’t want us calling.
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SITA, a great tour operator that I have applauded many times, raised some havoc with one agent. Her client lives part of the year abroad and part of the year in the US. Thank goodness for Skype. The client called from London, and asked her agent about a trip to Sri Lanka. The agent said SITA offered a good independent tour and she would contact them.
Due to the time difference, the client called SITA on her own, got the itinerary she wanted and the next day she skyped her agent and told her to book it. When the agent called SITA, she was told the quote to the client, directly, was at net rate…no commission. That was their policy when there was no agent involved. The agent was told to add a fee if she wanted a commission. After much debate back and forth, and with help from her BDM, SITA offered to slightly vary the tour and give the agent a commission. Problem is, they took out some of the sightseeing that was offered to the client. THUMBS DOWN. |
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THUMBS DOWN for Globus. They offer a combo of land and Holland America cruise for Canada and New England. Problem with this is the online registration that Globus neglected to mention to the booking agent. The agent had called Globus numerous times to find out the cabin number and was told all the info would be in the document package. Well, the docs arrived 10 days before departure with no cabin assignment and no HAL confirmation for any online registration.
A bad oversight for Globus, and now the agent has to tell her client that the cabin number won’t be given out until she gets to the ship. |
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An agent complained to the Delta phone agent about the change fees charged for her client. Delta adds on an additional charge if the flight was booked by a travel agent. She told the phone person that Delta is the most agent unfriendly airline. The phone agent said she disagreed. She admitted that she had been an agent for twenty years, and after air commissions became extinct, she gave it up and went to work for Delta. She thinks they are very agent friendly.
Hey, say it like it is…you wanted a salary and benefits. No problem with that. But “agent friendly”. Give me a break…THUMBS DOWN. |
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8 thoughts on “4 out of 5 Thumbs Down!”
Thumbs up to Les-Lee! She went to bat with Gogo over a ticketing fee charged a group I had, and I now have that back. Great to have someone on our side for a change!
In my dealings with airlines most are decent, save the no commission part, all except Hawaiian who REALLY have an attitude! I made mistake on a booking, left the “N” of of the name Linda. Took 2 months and finally a lette to their CEO to get it fixed. BTW the booking was make 8 moths out and they still sid they could not fix it. Meadow Mufins!
As far as Carnival, I seldom book them because of an older client base and thei past performance. I am glad that their incomptenance do not carry over to their other brands.
OK, add the R.C.C.L. brands to my list of shame as well for deserting the West Coast. Who is the “brain trust” there who thinks the Med is so damn hot? Think, political unrest, strikes and volcanos!
We don’t pay any additional fee to DL than the normal change penalties – Delta, like several of the airlines does charge a fee to ticketing/exchanges done over the phone – they charge that to the consumer or the TA – whomever calls.
@dcta, I believe she was saying that DL charged the consumer additional for a change becasue it was originally booked via a T/A. So the consumer gets a change fee PLUS a penalty for having us book it.
Your Carnival thumbs down is a good lesson in why agents should NEVER give the vendor receipt to a client. @dcta mentioned yesterday that Crystal is now including agent commission information in their docs.
But what about Carnival’s new TC policy? Yet another way to stick it to the people who support them the most.
I do understand that John – I actually think it is incorrect. I think it is the phone call that triggers a fee, not whether it was booked by a TA. I think the consumer misunderstood – the rule is that all changes should be done using the same “portal” that the original booking was done in, or you pay a fee for calling DL. Yes, it was done by a TA in a GDS, thus the changes are supposed to be done by the TA in GDS. It’s been that way for several years. If she did it herself on Orbitz, then to avoid a fee, she has to go back on-line to Orbitz or get an Orbitz staff person to do it for her, but if Orbitz calls DL there is a fee. She is not paying extra because she booked with a TA, she is paying extra because she is calling DL. Be that as it may, I have recently been able to get DL to reval some stuff for me over the phone without having to pay the fee – there have been so many sked changes since the merger that it’s really hard to figure out the exchange on some of these….
dcta ~ you are correct about the phone call
casues teh charge however, some airline agents make a point of saying that the extra fee is because it has been booked by a travel agent. 15 years later, they are still harboring the resentment that we used to make them money and now they do nothing but lose. Despite having different channels of distribution.
I have no idea why some so-called successful tour operators want to quote net to a client calling directly? You can actually make a little extra and if you do not want to talk to them, have them look for a travel professional. The Carnival episode – well watch out, lots more to come from that side of the fence. Why do we continue to allow them to feed on both sides of the fence? Jackie lost her ‘baksheesh’ and knows that we know a lot more than the average phone operator/representative. We should mention Assist in our client newsletters from now onwards.
Kel,
RCCL’s reason for pulling out of California is financial. Even though they are sailing full (or nearly) full, the onboard spend isn’t enough to support the sailings.
I’d also hazard a guess that working out of Calif. is probably more expensive (higher priced fuel, food, and other supplies).
I finally figured out what the letters in ” DELTA ” stand for: D idn’t…E ver…L ove
T ravel… A gents …There… the ‘Mystery; is solved