Flips & Flops

By Les-Lee Roland

Welcome to the Flips and Flops column. We are able to do what we do here because of your input and information. If you want a supplier or a res agent or DSM to get special recognition, let us know. If there is something amiss with a company’s policies or actions, share them with us as well. Let us know which booking engines and Web pages are hits and which are misses! E-Mail your suggestions to packagedeals@comcast.net

A FLIP to the passengers on select American Airlines flights. To celebrate the company’s anniversary, it is giving $50 travel vouchers to random people waiting to board their flights. The four smiling recipients I saw on a recent flight were all booked for middle seats. (Hmm, $50, just enough to pay for the chiropractor…)
A big FLIP to the increase of Web-Ex training sessions. All agents should make time for these hour-long sessions offered by consortia or suppliers. In a short period of time, you can learn about new booking engines, products, destinations, marketing programs and accounting. You also have a chance to ask more questions than at your typical breakfast meetings.
A FLOP to Collette for canceling a tour after final payments were received with no commissions being paid. Agents need to have confidence in tour operators who promise guaranteed departures. They rely on receiving the commissions which they have been promised. Operators should not overlook the work agents put in to selling their product. If a tour falls through, a portion of the commission should still be paid. Couldn’t that be covered by the company’s insurance program?
A FLOP to agents who think they know it all. A company offered a fam paid by agency check only. When they went belly-up, do you think the agents got their money back? No sireee — not unless they had taken out travel insurance. If we sell insurance to our clients, we should sell it to ourselves as well.
A FLOP to the self check-in kiosks at airline counters. The last six times I have used them, there have been malfunctions and I ended up still needing personal assistance. In each instance, having the res agent process the boarding pass or change the seat was a shorter wait time than using the kiosk. If my clients spend hundreds of dollars on a ticket, they want to deal with a person who smiles, not a machine.
A FLOP to the car rental companies. If you put in your client’s frequent flyer partner numbers for the car, your clients will pay a daily rate to get those miles. Do they know that? Did you? It’s buried in the small print of the contract.
Is if a FLIP or a FLOP that Northwest Airlines just announced they were going to discontinue giving out pretzels? Do your clients choose the airline based on the munchies they get? If so, that’s earth-shattering news. Let’s see, I can put you on Southwest and you can get a cookie, or for $10 more, on Northwest, you get zilch.

Keep those flips and flops coming. If you want to share an experience, good or bad, or give mention to someone who went far and above the expected, E-mail Les-Lee Roland at packagedeals@comcast.net