Dotson European Vacation 2007

18 May 2007

Travel agents…a dying breed?

Posted by tjdotson under: Planning stages .

I must take a moment to rant about my horrible experience with a travel agent.  I have not used a travel agent in many, many years.  The last time being when I was in college and needed to find some cheap airline tickets.  With the invention of the internet (thank you, Al Gore) you can just look up everything yourself, book it and be on your way without the added fees. 

I started doing the preliminary research for our trip, where we wanted to go, do, see, etc. and quickly became a little overwhelmed.  Perhaps, a travel agent would actually be useful in this case.  These people are well-traveled.  Been there, done that, know the inside story are full of amazing tips and advice, it is their job, afterall.  Full of optimism for the powers of the agent, I eagerly dialed Avant Travel Agency located in Joseph-Beth.  I told the nice receptionist that I was planning a two-week sojourn to Europe next year and would like to have a little help.  She connected me to an agent and I proceeded over the next half hour to tell her everything I had already decided, gave her a rough outline of the things we would like to do and provided her with the specific details about travel times, traveller needs, etc.  After exhausting myself of every last bit of information I had taken months already to compile, I told her that I would like for her to do some research, come up with a plan and that my mother and I would meet with her in person in two months.  I was being extra nice and giving her plenty of time, it was around the holidays and all so I wanted to give her some slack. 

I called back two months later to make an appointment and took time off work to go and meet with her.  Mom and I had a nice lunch at the Joseph-Beth Cafe and went downstairs to eagerly hear what she had to say.  I couldn’t wait to see all the options she had found, the quaint little B&B nestled in the German countryside, the oh-so-chic flat in Rome, you know, the stuff only a travel agent could find.  She calls us over to her desk and we sit down in front of her, perched eagerly on the end of our seats and I look at her expectantly.

“So, when are your travel dates?” she asks, scribbling on a BLANK piece of paper.

“Uhm, August 24th through September 9th,” I stammer, very confused by this woman.  Did she momentarily forget we had already talked for an hour?

“Do you know which countries you would like to visit?” she questioned, not looking up from her paper.

“I already gave you this information two months ago,” I replied, just starting to get a bit angry.

She smiles with a condescending smile like I was some naive 2 year old that just didn’t understand the workings of a travel agency and said, “Honey, you know how many people call me and give me information?  I would have to go back through a lot of notebooks to find all of that out.”

At this point, I am irate.  She has wasted my time and my mother’s.  We arrived here, expecting her to be prepared and she has done absolutely nothing.  She can’t even find notes from where we spoke before.  Do these people not know how to use a computer?  How hard would it be to just write your notes in Notepad and save them under the client’s name?  Let me tell you, NOT HARD!  I choke back a tirade of insults about her mother and calmy state how disappointed I am that she is not prepared and remind her of what we agreed to on the telephone.  She says nothing of any substance to my polite accusation and instead, gets up to go get us some brochures. 

I don’t know what to do now.  Mom and I have set aside time to meet with this woman and we are already here…  I decide to wait it out a bit more, maybe she can get us a good plane fare at least.  She returns to her seat and I tell her the most important thing right now is to book the plane flights.  She agrees and starts tapping furiously on the computer that she obviously can’t use to take notes.  She comes back at me with a price that is significantly more expensive than what I found on my own on Delta.com.  How could this be?  The one way I thought this crazy woman could be useful, and she is not.  I point out the discrepancy in price and she babbles at me about fees and the time of day, etc.   I’ve decided now that she is not now and never will be useful to me.  This woman hasn’t even been to Europe!  How does she expect to help me plan a trip there? 

We chatted with her for a bit longer and she pretended to be eager to help us.  She promised to do some more research on plane fares and to get back to me the next day.  I give her my cell phone number and my email and stress one more time before we leave how I want to buy the tickets before the end of the week.  She agrees with my statement wholeheartedly and says her goodbye.  Shockingly, she didn’t email or call the next day or the next or the next or the next…

I bought our plane tickets on my own and figured out a way to compile all of our miles and to get my Mom’s ticket for “free”.  I think I will act as my own travel agent from now on, I can pay myself a percentage of the cost for a European vacation and buy myself a really nice cuckoo clock.

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