indigo_rose99

What do we truly expect from our Travel Agency?

Have an extremely long phone tree that requires I spend longer than 30 seconds pushing buttons on the phone to make my way to the correct option
Have ludicrous hours that no one actually is awake during. 9am-4pm is not reasonable. I don't care what time zone they are in.
Have an 800 number as your only means of contact. 800 numbers only work in the US.
Reject collect calls.
Put me on hold for more than 5 minutes.
Lose all of my information so that I have to tell you every single detail about myself every time I call.
Have an "after hours" service that cannot actually do anything. Telling me that someone will call me back during "regular business hours" is not the solution to any reason I might call.
Ask me to key in some sort of personal number identifying me, and then have the human ask me the exact same question as their first item of business when they get on the line.

Put my frequent flier number on my reservation.
Include my seating and meal preference with each and every reservation. I don't care if you personally have to call each airline involved in the multi-airline trip individually.

Choose the most expensive hotel or car because you will get the best fee. Some of us do not have the company paying for everything. Some of us have to pay for the hotel and rental car out of our own pockets.
Choose the longest travel route because it is $200 cheaper. 10 hours of my time is more valuable than $200.
Book each flight on a completely separate ticket, thus making it impossible to get all of my boarding passes at the beginning of my trip.

This means that the "24 hour support" needs to be TWENTY FOUR HOURS!!!!! And this does not mean that a SINGLE human being is answering the phone!!!
At 2am, the wait time should be considerably less than 5 minutes. If it wasn't an emergency, I wouldn't be calling at this hour.
Have a means to contact you other than phone alone -- email or texting would work, with a required 3 minute response time.

If things go wrong, come up with a solution, and implement it quickly and smoothly to extract me from the situation

Change my ticket and not tell me.
Change my ticket to a paper ticket when I am already in the middle of the trip. Really, there is no way to get me the paper ticket.
Try to "overnight" me anything when I need it 12 hours later.
Tell me to call back during regular business hours.

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