Stories Provided by Travel Agents
* I had
someone ask for an aisle seats so that his or her hair wouldn't get messed up by being
near the window.
*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 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 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 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."
* 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 darn 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, "Yeah, 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."
* A woman called to make reservations "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New
York" The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent: "Are you sure
that's the name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the
customer. After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've
looked up every airport code in the country and I can't find a Hippopotamus
anywhere." The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it
is. Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and
finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?" "That's it! I knew it
was a big animal!"