Sometimes, being a travel agent is as much about providing destiny as destination. Take the couple who came into the shop this week, fanning themselves in the heat and keen to seek the cool, temperate zone that is our office.
Perhaps it was the soaring temperatures that were to blame for their tetchy mood, but they simply couldn’t agree on where to go. The choice had come down to an ‘either or’: either Krakow or Salzburg.
I got the impression that he’d prefer Salzburg, while she wanted Krakow. Price wasn’t the issue as there was only six quid between the two.
I held Lucy from Kirker Holidays on the end of the phone while the debate raged. The bloke reminded his partner that the trip was in honour of her birthday, so she should decide.
This is an age-old tactic and all women should beware of it. What it means is that if the woman makes the choice, anything remotely negative about the trip – from flight delays to poor weather and threadbare towels – will be laid at her door with the words: “Well, it was you who wanted to come here”
Yes, it looks like an act of generosity, but it is actually an act of shrugging off responsibility and shoring up the moral highground.
This girl was no fool, though, and immediately countered his suggestion with a clever and seemingly altruistic concern about his happiness: “I don’t want to go there if you’re going to be miserable the whole time, you decide,” she said.
And for good measure she threw in a casual barb: “You always get your own way anyway.”
He didn’t like that. “What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes narrowing. I thought he might start pawing the ground with his foot like an angry bull, ready to charge, so I called time on the row.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s leave it for fate to decide. Whichever one is available when Lucy phones the hotel will decide it for you – agreed?”
They both murmured their approval. Lucy, hearing me at the other end, reminded me quietly that she could do both cities, no bother, to which I replied loudly: “So, Krakow is available? That’s perfect. We’ll go with that.”
All those years as a bit part in the school play sure paid off.
I didn’t feel guilty. I’d said Krakow was available. I didn’t say Salzburg wasn’t. Everybody seemed happy. Who knows, maybe I’ll get myself a heavy fringe, a black cape and a job writing horoscopes next!
Shoestring budget
Another couple that came in were more clearly divided on the issue of price. The husband gave me the brief for the family holiday, with dates, destination preferences and the budget, while his wife looked on, unsmiling. They left it with me, asking that I call in the morning with the options.
I costed out various possibilities and duly rang first thing the following day. The wife listened as I talked her through the deals I’d found, and I asked if there was anything she liked the sound of.
It was as though I’d lit the touch paper. She went off like a firework, raging about the prices I’d come up with, and telling me that she’d been ‘frankly gobsmacked’ when she’d heard the figure her husband had given me to work with.
“I don’t know how he’s come up with that budget,” she continued, “but we can’t afford it. The children’s school fees have gone up and we need the Aga serviced before we can take an expensive holiday. Forget it, and start again. But this time you can work to my budget.”
Well, I know austerity is fashionable among the middle classes now, and they’re all growing their own carrots and heating their homes with chicken droppings, but really, the budget she gave me might just run to a tent somewhere on a Spanish roadside. Somehow I don’t think that’s what her husband had in mind.
I’m hoping that, the next time I phone, he picks up, but I’ll be sure to have a very cheap, no-star option up my sleeve just in case!
Welcome to the new Angels
Our Travel Angels’ heavenly body is swelling, and not because we can’t resist a custard cream.
No, with the acquisition of a new branch in Swindon, the divine family is growing, and we are all thrilled to be working alongside new Angels Les, Lynn, Katie and Penny, who all gained their wings on June 1. Well done and welcome to the fold!
Maureen Hill works at Travel Angels in Gillingham, Dorset
Help Maureen highlight the industry’s fraud problem