the evil travel agency

Warning: This is a rant.

For my job, I travel. Sometimes its good, sometimes its bad. What really kills me is the travel agency. We use a certain travel agency for all of our booking. I can feel my butthole pucker every time I have to call the agency up, because I know, something will go diaboliquely wrong. Case in point:

1 month ago I was told to make reservations for germany. I had some vacation pre planned so this entailed two seperate reservations. Our rule is to always make refundable tickets, because our schedules always get changed.

SO. I make my reservations, 2 weeks later I am told to change them (big surprise). No big deal right? Wrong. Evil travel agency made my first ticket non refundable. Being the good company man I am, I decide the moral thing to do is to get the ticket transfered. I call the travel agency, go through 40 minutes of pain to explain what I want. Cancel trip #2, move trip #1 forward by 3 weeks. They say, "Kool and the gang, just mail us back the paper tickets to address x.

I comply. Fast forward to today. I still havent received my tickets. Butt hole puckers, I call evil agency. I said, "Yo where are my tickets. I fed exed my old ones back and have the tracking number. I see they were delivered on tuesday." "What address did you mail them to", asks evil agent. So I tell her. "That is the wrong address, that is the address for central refunds", came the evil, sadistic reply. "Ma'am that is quite impossible, your own agent gave it to me.", I whimper. "Okay, okay, let me make some calls.....(on hold, listening to peaceful classical music use to calm upset customers)......... "okay, I emailed central refunds, asked and asked them to find the ticket and deliver it to us, call us back in a couple of days. Buh-bye."

I am a type a, so i can't leave it at that. I call back and get a new evil agent. I give her my sob story and ask her how i can contact central refunds. "You can't. They only are accessible via email." (I picture an old man chained at the leg in a dimly lit room in front of a computer). Call back in a few days.

So the moral of the story. I have 2 plane tickets for overseas flight on my corporate card. I have no tickets for my upcoming trip. All I can do is wait.

Not really, I am calling back first thing tomorrow morning, and I emailed that poor old man in central refunds.

I hate travel agencies.