Message-Id: <199408212232.SAA20454@it.sei.cmu.edu>
To: bovik@CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: Disrecommendation: Travel Agency
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 94 18:32:16 EDT
From: Barbara White <bjw@SEI.CMU.EDU>


I advise you to avoid using the "Pleasure Travel" branch of
the American Express travel agency. I used them to book a
quickie and truly simple trip to Orlando.  However, even
despite the incredible routine/conventional nature of the
trip, I had the type of trouble with them that could have
been avoided completely.

Namely, although we booked and paid for our trip way back in
June, a couple of days after the tickets arrived (two weeks
ago), I noticed that Irene had neglected to give us seat
assignments.  This was unacceptable given that 1) I was
travelling with a 7-year old; and 2) I had booked and
paid for the tickets long ago.

I phoned the airlines directly to make the seat assignments
myself.  I did this because by then, I simply wanted to avoid
involving AmEx further since I had sometimes had trouble
getting Irene to return my calls and to even deliver the
tickets to me before I left on PTO (she wound up having to
FedEx them to me).

The USAir agent told me that it was too late to get a seat
assignment and that I'd have to take whatever seats were on
hand on the day of the flight (airport check-in), and that
even then, they could make no guarantees that we'd get
adjacent seats since our flight was full on both legs of the
trip.  In fact, at no time after which I received the tickets
from Irene would I have been able to make the seat
assignments personally since the tickets arrived AFTER the
deadline that USAir imposes for making seat assignments.

I phoned Irene about this and after having to call the AmEx
office twice just to get a return phone call, Irene finally
phoned me back (the next day, at the end of the day) to tell
me that she was able to get seats.  Unfortunately, she put my
7-year old son in one part of the plane while I was in
another.  Not acceptable.

When I tried to straighten this out with her, Irene told me
that the fault was not hers, but rather, the fault was with
the tour company, Fun Jet, since THEY issue tickets and since
they issued mine in a hurry.  Irene told me that Fun Jet was
responsible for securing seat assignments, that the travel
agency itself is not responsible for this, although she did
apologize for not having caught this error before FedExing
the tickets to me.  I asked Irene to give me the name/phone
number of the supervisors at the Fun Jet office so that I
could speak with them directly.  After being on hold for ~20
minutes, Irene came back on the line and told me that Fun Jet
told her that they do not accept external calls and that they
refused to talk to me about this issue.

By this point, I was irate since none of this was my fault,
since Irene charged me for the ticket weeks and weeks prior,
and since no one seemed to be able to do anything to rectify
this situation.  I found a number on the itinerary that Irene
gave to me, a number to call if I had any questions.  Turns
out that the number was for Fun Jet, the company that
supposedly does not take external phone calls and the company
that reportedly refused to speak with me about this
situation. The Fun Jet supervisors that I spoke with were
quite helpful and indicated that they would never refuse any
call and that, in fact, I could have booked through them
directly, sans AmEx (information that completely contradicted
what Irene had told me previously).  The Fun Jet supervisors
also told me that Fun Jet does not handle seat assignments,
that securing seat assignment is the travel agency's
responsibility (whenever a travel agency is involved).  They
then proceeded (for about an hour) to try to convince USAir
agents to free up some of the seats for us, but they were not
successful.  

Ultimately, what I did was to spend a total of ~6 hours on
the phone with various USAir agents and supervisors before
this situation was resolved.  Basically, the only thing that
I could do was to call the USAir office very early on the day
of travel (for both legs of the trip) and try to convince the
supervisor to reassign the few seats that remain open for
airport check-in. I was also told to phone each day between
then and when my flights took place to see if other adjacent
seats had opened up in the interim.  For both portions of the
trip, I was eventually able to get adjacent seats with my son
by phoning on the day of the travel and going through several
agents and supervisors before reaching someone who had
authority to do what I was asking.  (Alternatively it would
take going to the airport 4-6 hours in advance of the flight
although even then, USAir could still not guarantee me that
we'd get adjacent seats.)

To add insult to injury, Irene booked us in a hotel that was
about 10 miles outside of several of the attractions that we
wanted to visit and when I asked her about transportation,
she matter-of-factly told me that there were shuttles all
over the place.  She simply neglected to mention that the
shuttles, on average, cost about $7-12/person EACH WAY
(which, for us, essentially meant at least an additional
$42-72 each day just for minimal transportation).

And lastly, Irene booked our airport transportation with a
shuttle company that, unfortunately, forgot to retrieve us on
the morning of our return flight.  This, despite my
confirmation call the day before our scheduled pick-up.

At some point before I left, by the way, I enlisted the help
of Lori, who works in the business office at the SEI branch
of AmEx.  Lori was so helpful and had I had her help from the
outset, I have a feeling that things would have gone
smoothly.  Unfortunately, she became involved at the end of
the ordeal so there was little she could do to rectify things
(and I believe (although I'm not 100% sure of this) that she
handles only business trips, not pleasure trips).

Anyway, based on this experience, I would advise you to avoid
the "pleasure travel" branch of American Express Travel
Agency.  But if you DO hire them and if you DO use Irene,
consider having your tickets in hand at least 4 weeks in
advance of your travel.  Then go over the tickets with a
fine-toothed comb and verify that each voucher and each
reservation that she makes for you is what you expect and
that it's current, correct, complete.  Anything else, to me,
is just flirting with trouble.