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 is cheaper to fly to
California and then take the train to Hawaii?"
I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown. 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
Capetown is in Massachusetts." Without trying to make her look like
the stupid one, I calmly explained, "Capecod is in Massachusetts,
Capetown 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 lay-over 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."
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"More Travel Agent Anecdotes"
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 whose 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, 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 4 times and every time they
have accepted my American Express."