Agent Diary: Helping client through visa drama boosted their faith in trade

Visas… can’t live with them, can’t go on holiday without them. Well, not to East Africa anyway! After a very nerve-wracking day for me and my customer, it was nice to hear the words: “This is why I use a travel agent.”

We aren’t supposed to get involved with visas, instead just send Foreign Office links for the relevant countries and leave the client to it. I cover my bases with a quick reminder about insurance, visas 
and so on, but what do you do when it doesn’t go according to plan?  

Taking it to the wire 

Recently, my reminder at the ticket stage prompted my client to get on the case and sort her visa for East Africa, and with 10 days to go, she had plenty of time – or so you’d think. 

Apparently, she had tried to apply on the official Ugandan immigration website but had problems uploading documents, so instead used a third-party visa company and made her application online. However, she had forgotten to keep an eye on the application process and, two days before departure, realised one of her documents had been rejected by the company, meaning no application had been made. 

It was at that point, at 8.15am with only 52 hours until departure, she called me in a panicked state.

I spent half an hour with my heart in my mouth trying to establish if the visa company was even legitimate since there were some red flags, but thankfully it was, and the application finally went in at 9.12am, 51 hours before take-off. I was not confident of her chances since the guidelines said to expect between three and seven days’ processing time.

In the meantime I started working on plan B, which was, of course, changing her flight and working out how we would overcome the issues this created when it came to joining her tour.  

I spent all day on and off the phone with the lovely Brodi at Exodus trying to formulate a plan. The biggest consideration was flight availability. With her flight in just a few hours and every hour-long delay after that seriously impacting her tour, it was tricky knowing at what point we should bite the bullet and book a later flight given the cost ramifications and disruption to her trip. It was a minefield to navigate.

Speedy approval 

But then, at 5.28pm, with only 43 hours until departure, the client rang to say her visa had been approved – it had only taken eight hours! Just as I was thinking of pouring a very large vodka, she told me her sister had always asked her why she used a travel agent instead of booking her own holidays direct.  

She told me, despite a possible disaster, she hadn’t felt alone. Even if the worst had happened, she felt she had a team behind her who would have found a way to limit the damage. “This is why I’ll always book through a travel agent,” she said.

I reached for the vodka with a contented if exhausted smile. I’ve since received a big bunch of flowers from the client and a picture via WhatsApp of an even bigger gorilla. Job done!