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British Mensa Travel Special Interest Group |
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High
Street travel agents...who needs them? by Philip Garrison My old friend Ian suggested a "lads' weekend" in Reykjavik in March next year, and I agreed to investigate. Knowing that Jan has only recently left the ranks of the unemployed, and has a wife and two young children to support, I suspected cost might be an important factor. Against my better instincts, therefore, I decided to visit my local High Street travel agent to get an initial impression of the availability and price of such an enterprise. My previous visits to the well-known travel chains have invariably ended in tears. I have always found the staff unhelpful and totally clueless about anything more unusual than a last minute package holiday to Benidorm. The person across the counter from me always appears to know less about travel than I do, and clearly wishes I would just go away. I'm normally fairly easygoing, but on these occasions I usually have to restrain myself from being patronising, sarcastic or just downright rude And so I set off to my local branch, where Claire greeted me with a smile. On hearing that I wished to go to Reyjavik, her face fell somewhat. She clearly had no idea of where Reykjavik is, but felt, tightly, that it would be wrong to admit it. Instead, she asked me if 1 wished to take away some brochures (clearly the easy option for her), but I said that I wanted to get some idea now of what was available. Claire disappeared into a back room to pick up some brochures, and, I assume, to enquire of a colleague as to where Reykjavik is. Certainly, when she reappeared with three brochures in her hand and seated herself back at her desk, she said "Iceland, right?", then confidently turned to the page headed "Ireland" in the brochure. I toyed with the idea of letting her sweat for a bit before informing her, as gently and tactfully as I could, that she was looking at the wrong page. She then turned to the second brochure, perused the contents page briefly before announcing that that brochure didn't cover Iceland. However, even reading upside down, I had noticed that Iceland was included. I didn't want to appear a smart-ass, but I did want to move things on a bit. So I directed Claire to page 166. With the correct page and reference number now in front of her, Claire now turned to her computer. Which airport did I wish to fly from? (Manchester, if possible.) When did I wish to go? (Next March.) But "the computer" needs a specific date. All right then, the first weekend in March, departing on Friday afternoon if possible, returning on the Sunday, as late as possible. The computer informed Claire that there were "no flights available". I found this difficult to believe, but who knows, maybe I'd hit on the weekend of an International Fish Processing Festival or something in Iceland, so I asked Claire to check the next weekend. Guess what - there were no flights available then either. I asked Claire what this meant: did it mean there were 110 planes flying at that time, or did it mean that all the flights were full? Claire said, with no conviction at all, the latter. I asked Claire if she found this surprising, but she appeared to have no opinion on the matter. Personally, I cannot imagine that every seat on every flight to Reykjavik on a low-season weekend eight months hence is fully booked, but who am I to argue with the computer? Claire then phoned the travel company concerned, but their lines were closed. (Not Claire's fault, this one!) Claire offered to phone the company for me the following day, but I declined, as I was growing bored with this game now. I took the brochure away and perused it, whereupon I quickly found out that the reason there was "no availability" from Manchester was because the company concerned only offered flights from Heathrow or Glasgow. Why is it that High Street chain travel agents seem to be so poorly trained and generally clueless and so uninterested in making a sale? I'd be interested to hear of other members' experiences, and I'd be particularly keen to hear the comments of any travel agent reading this. First published in VISA issue 39 (winter 2000) |