Agent Diary: If the computer says no, keep on asking questions

Do you remember that character in Little Britain whose computer always said no? That used to make me laugh as part of a sketch show, but now that it’s becoming more a fact of life, I don’t find it quite so funny. 

It worries me that we are losing the ability to question anything we are told by technology and instead just blindly accept it as fact. Is our instinct to recognise when something doesn’t feel quite right dwindling, along with our motivation to push for answers and to generate alternatives? 

Or, perhaps, is it a sign of ever‑increasing workloads on staff who haven’t got the time to question things? Whatever the reason, it gave me a bit of a nightmare over the Christmas break. 

‘Cancelled’ tour

I received an email just after Christmas apologising that my client’s India tour, due to depart in 11 weeks, had been cancelled due to lack of numbers. 

My client had been offered full cancellation and her money back, or she could move her dates by three weeks to join the next available tour for an extra £2,200.

Unsurprisingly, she didn’t find this attractive, and who can blame her? To be fair, I think the hike was mostly due to the flight costs on the new dates as she was travelling business class and availability was tight. 

Her booking was for a back-to-back tour and I knew the first part was popular, so my first question to the consolidator was whether the whole thing was cancelled or just the extension at the end. 

I thought that was a reasonable question, given I really didn’t want cancellation to be her only option. I assumed the consolidator would have checked this before contacting me – after all, this was an £11,000 per person holiday; didn’t they want to save it as much as I did?

Apparently, they hadn’t asked and instead had just accepted the email they had received from the company running the tour and made no further enquiries. So, I pushed for answers and off they went to investigate. 

Holiday period bank holidays being what they are, it was a couple of days before I got my answer. And the answer was: definitely all cancelled. However, in the meantime I had checked the ground handler’s website myself and the first half of the tour was marked, clear as day, as a definite departure. 

Trip saved

To cut a long story short, it took one business development manager, one partnership manager, two weeks of chasing and three agents at the consolidator tour operator to finally discover that only the extension was cancelled. This meant we could keep the flights and the first tour and just rearrange the second part of the holiday. 

Eventually we got it sorted and I switch-sold the new extension to the client. Turns out the client knows another passenger on the first tour, so how foolish would I have looked if I’d accepted the first answer? 

The moral of the story is: just because the computer says no, it doesn’t mean it’s so. If it doesn’t feel right, just keep pushing until you have something you can work with.

Get outside your comfort zone

Do you still get excited about your own holidays? After almost 40 years exploring the world, the honest truth for me is that once I’ve booked a holiday for myself, aside from visas etc, I give it no thought at all until I’m packing my bag, which is usually 11pm the evening before I depart. Of course, I still love to travel, but never really get excited anymore. 

Until now, that is. Last week, I boarded Star Clippers’ Star Flyer in Sint Maarten. This holiday was so far out of my comfort zone that I had butterflies of anticipation, and I was packed a week before I left, which is unlike me. I love this feeling. Note to self: find more comfort zones to smash!