Europe flights are finally booked!

[frantic36]

9 hours ago, CruisingSince2012 said:

 

People are too judgmental here. It looks like everyone assumes just because my travel agent does business a different way from many others with at least one of her clients, she sucks.  The truth is.nobody else understands what my mom needs and wants in the process of booking flights better than she does because nobody else has her as a client. So people on message boards don't have a right to judge her in the form of lashing out on a traveling companion of her client without having the same travel agent.

 

 

At this point in time I don't think your travel agent sucks...I think she deserves a medal.

[brian1]

16 minutes ago, Globaliser said:

 

I set out exactly what I was earlier referring to.

 

Do you have any useful advice for anyone on this forum, or are you here to just snidely snipe?

That's the problem,gangs of bullies don't have a sense of humour.I always try to defend the underdog on this board.

[fbgd]

2 hours ago, brian1 said:

Reunion,you hit bedrock with that one.

 

Hang on! We haven't even hit the Russian domestic routes yet...and we let AnnoyingTAssince2012 off lightly by not mentioning JFK-HNL...or ANC-DFW....

Edited November 2, 2018 by fbgd

[Zach1213]

31 minutes ago, fbgd said:

 

Hang on! We haven't even hit the Russian domestic routes yet...and we let AnnoyingTAssince2012 off lightly by not mentioning JFK-HNL...or ANC-DFW....

 

Anadyr-Moscow is clocking in at around 8:15-8:30 in recent days.

 

Vladivostok-Moscow around 8:20-8:40 in recent days.

 

 

[Chairsin]

I’m with Frantic on this one - after all I have read I must agree the TA (who no doubt has been banging her head against the wall) deserves to be nominated for sainthood. 

 

 

[Zach1213]

2 hours ago, brian1 said:

Reunion,you hit bedrock with that one.That's it now,no satellite states or regions left.Even Brize Norton to Stanley is no longer nonstop.Anyway, Waterbug has come up with more sensible routes to quote.

 

To be fair, Reunion is domestic for France. It's part of France, part of the EU...but admittedly not part of Schengen. EU citizens can enter Reunion without a passport (they do need their national ID card, though), can stay indefinitely, and don't need work permits to work there, just like it was Paris or Marseille or Bordeaux.

[brian1]

4 minutes ago, Zach1213 said:

 

To be fair, Reunion is domestic for France. It's part of France, part of the EU...but admittedly not part of Schengen. EU citizens can enter Reunion without a passport (they do need their national ID card, though), can stay indefinitely, and don't need work permits to work there, just like it was Paris or Marseille or Bordeaux.

I know that,Iwas there a few months ago.I was just commenting on digging deep to find obscure ultra long distance domestic flights.

[Zach1213]

2 minutes ago, brian1 said:

I know that,Iwas there a few months ago.I was just commenting on digging deep to find obscure ultra long distance domestic flights.

 

Definitely not the most obvious long-haul domestic route, but five airlines fly between Reunion to Mainland France, so I would personally disagree with the term "obscure" being applied to it.

[Globaliser]

59 minutes ago, brian1 said:

I was just commenting on digging deep to find obscure ultra long distance domestic flights.

 

Digging deep? This route is well-known (although clearly not to you). Not only are there about 5 non-stops a day on it, it's been seriously mooted as an A380 route. In fact, one of the airlines on the route did actually sub in that second-hand A380 to operate it a few times over the summer (although you probably didn't know that either).

 

There are lots of other long domestic flights, some over a lot of water. When the OP said to Zach1213 "You are totally wrong" and then proceeded to suggest that domestic flights are all short and easy, and international flights are all long and difficult, it wasn't hard to identify who was actually wrong about that.

[brian1]

I've always fancied Corsica.I think I could drive there in 2 days from here,lol.

[CruisingSince2012]

3 hours ago, frantic36 said:

At this point in time I don't think your travel agent sucks...I think she deserves a medal.

 

They are not medals, but every year she is awarded as a top 11-15 travel agent in a 14-state region in her company. That is how I, know she does not suck. Now she is too popular to accept new clients because of her excellent performance as a travel agent.

 

To everyone else: My problem as never been about the duratoin of a transatlantic flight. Somehow people twisted my comments. I would have the same issues if I was flying to Mexico City. It is all about the layover duration, not time in the air, especially when we return to the USA, and paying a lot less than if we had booked flights directly through the airline.

Edited November 2, 2018 by CruisingSince2012

[Globaliser]

 

On 11/1/2018 at 2:33 AM, CruisingSince2012 said:

On 10/30/2018 at 12:59 PM, Zach1213 said:

The ocean distance isn't that much different, it's just that there's an ocean and a language in between.

You are totally wrong. It takes at least 9 hours to fly from Atlanta to central Europe. My flight from Atlanta to Rome was 9 hours. I flew into a tradewind between Paris and Atlanta, sob that flight took 9.5 hours.

 

15 minutes ago, CruisingSince2012 said:

To everyone else: My problem as never been about the duratoin of a transatlantic flight. Somehow people twisted my comments. I would have the same issues if I was flying to Mexico City. It is all about the layover duration, not time in the air, especially when we return to the USA, and paying a lot less than if we had booked flights directly through the airline.

 

I can't see any reference to layover duration in the first of your posts there, but much about time in the air.

 

You can hardly blame us for not understanding you, if you choose to say something different and inconsistent every time you post.

 

4 hours ago, frantic36 said:

At this point in time I don't think your travel agent sucks...I think she deserves a medal.

 

2 hours ago, Chairsin said:

I’m with Frantic on this one - after all I have read I must agree the TA (who no doubt has been banging her head against the wall) deserves to be nominated for sainthood. 

 

I'm coming round to this point of view.

[fbgd]

1 hour ago, CruisingSince2012 said:

 

They are not medals, but every year she is awarded as a top 11-15 travel agent in a 14-state region in her company. That is how I, know she does not suck. Now she is too popular to accept new clients because of her excellent performance as a travel agent

 

I think the medals comment went right. over. your. head.

 

Also being in the top 11-15 TAs doesn't necessarily make her a good TA. If that award is based on commissions it just means she is slinging more widgets than the next person. Good widget slingers aren't necessarily doing customers a favour...

 

You mentioned in one of your other threads that the TA couldn't process an airline booking without you being there in person (I can't find the post within the hundreds that have been on the handful of threads about these flights) and by the time you showed up the price was no longer available. That sounds particularly consumer unfriendly, a good TA would have taken your details from file and put the booking on hold for the free 24hr hold. 

 

If you're happy then that's cool, but to someone like me with some experience of working with high end TAs this person doesn't seem to be the hero you hail her as. Or she just knows cruises and knows little about flights.

[Zach1213]

3 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

When the OP said to Zach1213 "You are totally wrong" and then proceeded to suggest that domestic flights are all short and easy, and international flights are all long and difficult, it wasn't hard to identify who was actually wrong about that.

Not only have I flown an 11 hour domestic flight, I have flown an 11 minute international flight (Brazzaville to Kinshasa)!

[CruisingSince2012]

2 hours ago, fbgd said:

I think the medals comment went right. over. your. head.

 

Also being in the top 11-15 TAs doesn't necessarily make her a good TA. If that award is based on commissions it just means she is slinging more widgets than the next person. Good widget slingers aren't necessarily doing customers a favor.

 

Wrong. One hundred percent of. the money she earns is an hourly salary. She never gets commission for anything from anybody, according to my mom. So being ranked that high really means she is a great travel agent and has nothing to do wiht money.

Edited November 2, 2018 by CruisingSince2012

[CruisingSince2012]

Also when the flight was finally booked, she did it with the AMA Waterways lady on hold knowing the amazing airfare wouldn't be held once she hung up. She learned from her mistake the first time. The $981 flight was bad anyway, so it worked out better.

Edited November 2, 2018 by CruisingSince2012

[waterbug123]

17 hours ago, CruisingSince2012 said:

To everyone else: My problem as never been about the duratoin of a transatlantic flight. Somehow people twisted my comments. I would have the same issues if I was flying to Mexico City. It is all about the layover duration, not time in the air, especially when we return to the USA, and paying a lot less than if we had booked flights directly through the airline.

 

YOU are the one who started talking about length of domestic flights vs. length of international flights in post #68.  Throughout this entire discussion over various threads, you have consistently adjusted your story.  First it's about one thing, then it's about something else, then it's about yet another thing.....

Besides all that, layover duration which you're now switching to, also isn't necessarily longer for international flights than for domestic flights.  I connected at CDG last year in something like 1:10, but had a 5+ hour stop at JFK on a trip the year before.  I have also connected at ATL in 20 minutes (not scheduled that way but had an inbound delay) and have sat in the lounge at AMS for upwards of 4 hours.  Point being, please don't start making blanket statements or incorrect assumptions about layover times for either domestic or international flights.

 

13 hours ago, CruisingSince2012 said:

 

Wrong. One hundred percent of. the money she earns is an hourly salary. She never gets commission for anything from anybody, according to my mom. So being ranked that high really means she is a great travel agent and has nothing to do wiht money.

 

Well there you have it folks... "mom said...."   so it must be gospel truth.  With all due respect to your mother, she seems rather naive about traveling, what with only wanting to book flights in person, picking up hard copies of itineraries from the TA, and being generally stressed about the whole process.  Somehow I doubt she is an expert on TA compensation.   Never mind the fact that even IF the TA never earns a penny of commission, it doesn't mean she's a great TA; it just means she has figured out how to compensate for her own shortcomings to still sell a high volume of tickets.  Part of that strategy could be making relatively inexperienced travelers like your mother feel more dependent on her than necessary, ex. speaking of tickets when she really means itineraries, intimating that only she can print/provide a hard copy of an itinerary, etc.   I don't know her, so maybe she really is wonderful, but you yourself have admitted that she made at least one bonafide mistake in this process (not putting a potential ticket on hold) that a truly expert TA likely wouldn't have made.

Edited November 3, 2018 by waterbug123

[fbgd]

5 hours ago, waterbug123 said:

Well there you have it folks... "mom said...."   so it must be gospel truth.

 

That, and generally salespeople don't tell their clients they make commission off selling to them!

[em-sk]

On 11/2/2018 at 2:01 PM, CruisingSince2012 said:

 

Wrong. One hundred percent of. the money she earns is an hourly salary. She never gets commission for anything from anybody, according to my mom. So being ranked that high really means she is a great travel agent and has nothing to do wiht money.

 

Your travel agent may very be a salaried employee of the travel agency.  I have no basis to dispute that and no reason to believe she would not be upfront.   Personally I like dealing with sales people that are salaried over commissioned in they usually work for companies with a longer-term perspective in building a customer relationship.

 

That said, the way the industry works is travel agencies are paid commissions by the airlines, cruise lines, hotels and the like.  What has happen in the last decade or so is airlines have reduced those commissions to very little if anything.  The agents have switched to charging service fees.  Cruise lines are one of the areas where they still get a commission from the cruise line.   

[westcoastcruiser]

On 11/2/2018 at 7:21 AM, Chairsin said:

I’m with Frantic on this one - after all I have read I must agree the TA (who no doubt has been banging her head against the wall) deserves to be nominated for sainthood. 

 

 

SMH.....I think this post sums it up.  I know if I was the TA I would be considering a career change.  And whatever commission she got, it likely was no where near enough.  

[LuckyStar]

Note to self:  never ask a question about airfare on cruise critic.  This has been painful to read.  

[FlyerTalker]

7 hours ago, LuckyStar said:

Note to self:  never ask a question about airfare on cruise critic.  This has been painful to read.  

 

And you will lose out on some good advice.  You won't get reassuring pap, nor lots of "attaboys" for whatever price you pay.  You will get the input from folk who, collectively, probably have over 10 million flight miles under their belt, as well as being very frequent flyers who understand the avaition market.  (And that estimate may be quite understated)

[fbgd]

18 hours ago, LuckyStar said:

Note to self:  never ask a question about airfare on cruise critic.  This has been painful to read.  

 

I think you need to read all of the other threads the original poster started (which between them have reached hundreds and hundreds of posts) about booking this one simple set of flights before jumping to that conclusion. 

 

Plenty of people ask questions here about air travel and get the answers they want, it's one of the reasons I'm here, I don't even like cruises! At various stages the OP was being combative, making definitive statements that were incorrect, and posting information that seemed nonsensical. It was inevitable that a group of far more experienced travelers were going to ask questions or respond.

Edited November 8, 2018 by fbgd