Here is where the online travel sites let you down.

After taxiing around Laguardia airport in NY for three hours today waiting takeoff clearance our plane had to go back for fuel. They told us to stay in the gate area, that we would reboard soon.

As I was deplaning I got the mobile alert that the flight cancelled. I got on line and was told the next flight was at 9AM tomorrow. As I was doing this I called my travel agent to check all airlines, not just the one I was on, as the airline you are on doesn’t like to put you on other ones.

She said, I have you on the next flight. A seat just opened up and she took it. I asked the gate agent to check my record, which she wasn’t inclined to do, but when she did she saw I was protected on the flight.

This meant I got home tonight, 5 hours late, but not tomorrow.

What is the point? $25.

I know people who use the online sites becuase they dont want to pay the travel agent the 25 bucks for every ticket they book. This is classic case of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

That $25 got me home today. It has also gotten me upgraded to first class for a few dollars and out of a number of other jams, just like today. We are talking over the course of a year maybe $1000 in fees to my travel agent. Well worth it on day like today.

Do you provide a service people could get cheaper, or free elsewhere? Why should they come to you.

(THANKS Teresa)

This entry was posted on Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 2:38 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.