quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:


Well if according to your location you are out of Jersey you whole existence should be daisys and sunshine.

He's Vinnie Antonelli shopping in a grocery store

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
It's not difficult to book a freakin' ticket. I can't even fathom why people still use third party ticketers anyway. I always book directly from the airline website.

Many inexperienced people are intimidated, do not understand how easy it is, are under the impression that it takes a "professional" to buy an airline ticket.

It's easy for you, as you travel regularly for work. Somebody who has never done it before might not even know where to start. I know people like this. I have family members who were like this.

I'm one of them, especially for business. I always used the corporate provided service to book flights and hotels for me. I tell them when I need to get where and when I'm finished. They know the company policies and whatever rules are specific to my grade level. I figure I'm going to waste a lot of time figuring all that on my own.

I snorted at the line in the article where it says the airline called to ask where they can send flowers. Are you shitting me????

Let’s not forget the instagram sensation in Miami.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyl...olice-214419330.html

Don't ya love how this is spun (including this thread) into the evil BIG Corporation keepin' the man (woman in this case) down?
This p o o r old woman couldn't get to see her dying mother (tragic yes) at the expense of the greedy blood sucking airline just for a few dollars.
Shit happens and people die ~ sometimes they aren't related.
This is an over-hyped story, IMO.

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

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Originally posted by corsair:
Going to the airline directly, you know, the company that's actually providing the service isn't a first option?

Let me try this again. I have known people, in fact I am related to people, who have never done anything like this in their entire lives. Airline travel is something that is foreign to their existence. The whole process is a mystery to them. There are travel agencies in the neighborhood, everybody they know, uses travel agencies to make simple arrangements. The agencies are staffed by "professionals" who know how to deal with the mysterious and complicated intricacies of making a reservation and buying a ticket.

Yes, this is true. I am not kidding. There really are people who are so intimidated by the thought of dealing with an airline that they are relieved to have an agency do it for them.

As I said, I have relatives like this. I have offered to make the reservation and buy the ticket for them, but my offer was turned down. They are brainwashed, for lack of a better term, into thinking that a travel agent is the only one capable of dealing with the complexity of making travel arrangements.

Got it. Thank you for the reasoned and measured response.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
Going to the airline directly, you know, the company that's actually providing the service isn't a first option?

Let me try this again. I have known people, in fact I am related to people, who have never done anything like this in their entire lives. Airline travel is something that is foreign to their existence. The whole process is a mystery to them. There are travel agencies in the neighborhood, everybody they know, uses travel agencies to make simple arrangements. The agencies are staffed by "professionals" who know how to deal with the mysterious and complicated intricacies of making a reservation and buying a ticket.

Yes, this is true. I am not kidding. There really are people who are so intimidated by the thought of dealing with an airline that they are relieved to have an agency do it for them.

As I said, I have relatives like this. I have offered to make the reservation and buy the ticket for them, but my offer was turned down. They are brainwashed, for lack of a better term, into thinking that a travel agent is the only one capable of dealing with the complexity of making travel arrangements.

Got it. Thank you for the reasoned and measured response.

VTail is pretty awesome.

My own relatives who are like this are all old. They are still living and acting on old information, because 40 or 50 years ago you really did need a travel agent.

Constantly having to update your mental maps of how things are, and how things are done, is a modern curse. Some older folks do not think that way.

Speaking of travel agents...

Many years ago, in a life that I have almost forgotten about, I worked for the Eduction and Training department of a large computer manufacturer. Many of my assignments were to travel to a corporate client and present a one or two week class to their programming staff. Topics like The C Programming Language, or maybe UNIX™ Shell Programming, etc.

The company did have a formal policy regarding employees doing their own flying for company travel, but obtaining approval for this was a long and involved process, so for the first several months I had to use airline travel. Our branch had a mandate to use the travel agency located in our multi-tenant office building.

The folks at the travel agency had absolutely no idea of what my "real world" requirements were for travel: they probably just threw potential flight bookings into a hat and pulled them out, blindfolded, when needed.

After they fucked up a few times I took a different tack. I would get busy on the telephone (no internet for this sort of thing at that time, as I said, it was a long time ago) and make reservations for airline, hotel, and rental car, that met my needs. I would then type these arrangements and hand the list to someone at the travel agency, saying "Here is my itinerary. All reservations have been made. DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING! Just issue the airline tickets and pre-pay the rental car and hotel." When they followed directions, life was simple. The one time that they made a change I documented every problem that arose and sent a letter to our management, cc the travel agency, explaining why this agency should no longer have our business. The agency did not get dropped, but they were told that if one of our employees had gone to the trouble of making his / her own reservations, there was an operational reason for it and if that agency wished to continue to earn commission on our travel requirements, they would follow any and all specific instructions from the individual client. Mission accomplished.

Of course there are some people who aren't familiar with travel and might not understand that they can deal directly with the airlines. But the woman didn't have any issue calling the airline directly to change the ticket so she clearly knew that calling the airline directly was an option. Someone who truly thinks that they have to use a travel agent would continue to use that agent for any changes as well.

Also I doubt this Traveler Help Desk company has a local office near her that she walked into. This isn't your grandparents who don't have internet access and have used the same travel agent for 30 years and only use cash or checks for all transactions. She clearly had internet access and she had access to a credit card. Even though it wasn't hers apparently.

I get that she was allowed on the plane but when she was allowed on the plane the ticket may have been valid. As RogueJSK points out it is possible that the travel agency voided the ticket after they found out it had been used for a flight that they didn't book. That means they won't be paying for it. What is United supposed to do? Let her fly for free? And I am sure she told them that her mother was dying but I am sure they hear that every single day from people who have ticketing issues. I've been on a lot of flights and it always amazes me that every single person denied boarding is either a doctor flying to an emergency surgery or heading to see their dying relative.

It is a shitty situation and as someone who has aging parents in different states I feel terrible for her. But I can't fault United for not letting a non-paying customer fly. Maybe she didn't understand the rules for changing her ticket but ignorance is not a valid excuse and doesn't mean she should be able to fly for free.