The following
are actual stories told to travel agents
(and you wonder why US citizens generally
score less than the rest of the world on
geography)...
A client called in inquiring
about a package to Hawaii. After
going over all the cost info, she asked,
"would it be cheaper to fly to
California and then take the train to
Hawaii?"
I got a call from a woman who wanted to
go to Cape Town. I started to
explain the length of the flight and the
passport information when she
interrupted me with "I'm not trying
to make you look stupid, but Cape
Town is in Massachusetts." Without
trying to make her look like the
stupid one, I calmly explained,
"Cape Cod is in Massachusetts,
Cape Town is in
Africa." Her response?
....click.
A secretary called in looking for hotel
in Los Angeles. She gave me
various names off a list, none of which I
could find. I finally had her
fax me the list. To my surprise, it
was a list of hotels in New Orleans,
Louisiana. She thought the LA stood
for Los Angeles, and that New
Orleans was a suburb of L.A. Worst
of all, when I called her back, she
was not even embarrassed.
A man called, furious about a Florida
package we did. I asked what was
wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He
said he was expecting an ocean-view
room. I tried to explain that is not
possible, since Orlando is in the middle
of the state. He replied, "Don't lie
to me. I looked on the map and
Florida is a very thin state."
I got a call from a man who asked,
"is it possible to see England
from Canada?" I said,
"No." He said, "but
they look so close on the map."
Another man called and asked if he could
rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up
the reservation, I noticed he had a
1-hour layover in Dallas. When I
asked him why he wanted to rent a car,
he said, "I heard Dallas was a
big airport, and I need a car to
drive between the gates to save
time."
A nice lady just called. She needed to
know how it was possible that her flight
from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into
Chicago at 8:33am.I tried to
explain that Michigan was an hour ahead
of Illinois, but she could not understand
the concept of time zones. Finally
I told her the plane went very fast, and
she bought that!
A woman called and asked, "Do
airlines put your physical description
on your bag so they know who's
luggage belongs to who?" I
said, "No, why do you ask?" She
replied, "Well, when I checked in
with the airline, they put a tag on my
luggage that said FAT, and
I'm overweight, is there any
connection?" After putting her on
hold for a minute while I "looked
into it" ( I was actually laughing)
I came back and explained the city code
for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline
was just putting a destination tag
on her luggage.
I just got off the phone with a man who
asked, "How do I know which
plane to get on?" I asked him
what exactly he meant, to which he
replied, "I was told my flight
number is 823, but none of these
damn planes have numbers on
them." A woman called and said,
" I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola
on one of those computer planes." I
asked if she meant to fly to
Pensacola on a commuter plane. She
said, "Yea, whatever."
A businessman called and had a question
about the documents he needed in order to
fly to China. After a lengthy
discussion about passports, I
reminded him he needed a visa.
"Oh no I don't, I've been to
China many times and never had to have
one of those." I double checked, and
sure enough, his stay required a visa.
When I told Him this he said, "Look,
I've been to China four times and every
time they have accepted my American
Express."