Stupid (and mean) customers part 1

[TravelSucks]

Hi everyone... I work on the phones all day and get quite a few "special" calls.

Here's one from today... hope you enjoy...

me=me
sc=well, you know

#1
me - This is me, how can I help you
sc - Yeah, I need to go on a trip and I need to get to Chicago by 9. What flights are available?
me - Um, what city are you flying from?
sc - Orlando
me - Ok - what date?
sc - FLORIDA... sighs...
me - No.... what DATE?
sc - oh, the 20th....
me - of....?
sc - SEPTEMBER.... sighs
me - ok....now, when you say you need to be there by 9... is that am or pm?
sc - ...sighs... PM! I have to work in Orlando that day!
(So, I give her some flight times)
sc - I wanted nonstops
me - that's what I gave you
sc - well then maybe you can explain why it only takes me an hour and 40 minutes to fly to Chicago and why it's taking me 3 hours and 20 minutes to fly back????
me - well, you are traveling between different time zones
sc - You don't know what you're talking about.... "time zones?"... I'm going to call back and talk to a person who knows what she's doing...
me - ok, thanks for calling (and good luck!)

[Horsetuna]

Oy...

Though that DOES explain why, when I was doing flight plots for a trip last summer, one trip took 2 hours longer to go back home.

Then again, for some reason the online schedule kept taking me through Los Angeles.

I was going from colorado Springs to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. O.o

[RogueOne]

I don't think time zones have aything to do with the length of the flight. She must have been confused.

[Canarr]

Uh... RogueOne... that was sarcastic, right? Right?

[KuzcoLlama]

Yeah. Your flight didn't take longer, you were flying into a different time zone.
If I leave CA at 8:00am, I will arrive on the east coast at about 4:00pm. Looks like eight hours, but actually, it's only five. It's the three hour time difference that "tacks on" the extra hours.

And the last part in the OP was sort of about the time zones. Chicago and Orlando are in two different time zones, which she probably had no idea of, hence the ranting and raving.

[ditchdj]

When I read about calls as idiotic as that one they almost sound like the prank calls that Richard and Sal make to different places on Howard Stern.

[PhotoChick]

Oy...

Though that DOES explain why, when I was doing flight plots for a trip last summer, one trip took 2 hours longer to go back home.

Then again, for some reason the online schedule kept taking me through Los Angeles.

I was going from colorado Springs to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. O.o

It's cause Colorado Springs really doesn't have as many direct fights as most airports. Most flights are routed though Denver but with online reservations the computer just gives you matches that work... not necessarly ones that make sense.

The computer once tried to fly me from DC to California, then California to Denver.... I wasn't to happy.

[South Texan]

sc - well then maybe you can explain why it only takes me an hour and 40 minutes to fly to Chicago and why it's taking me 3 hours and 20 minutes to fly back????
me - well, you are traveling between different time zones
sc - You don't know what you're talking about.... "time zones?"... I'm going to call back and talk to a person who knows what she's doing...

"Oh, the computer just gave me the information for the difference in times. The jet going from Orlando will be flying WITH the sea breezes from the Atlantic. It will make the plane go faster. The plane coming back will be flying against those breezes which slows it down."

[BusBus]

The computer once tried to fly me from DC to California, then California to Denver.... I wasn't to happy.

I had a travel agent (a face-to-face real live person) suggest that I take the following route from Vancouver to Paris (France):

Vancouver to Chicago or Houston, then
Chicago or Houston to Copenhagen or Stockholm, then
Copenhagen or Stockholm to Paris , then
the reverse when it was time to go home....

I coughed up an extra $50 and flew to Paris via Toronto.

[Tejas]

the worst i got was when i went to moscow from my hometown in australia. it was something like this:

Melbourne - Kuala Lumpur
KL - Vienna
Vienna - Moscow

with a 14 hour stop over in Vienna.

(on the way home i changed my flights and went to the german f1 gp)

than there was the ime i went to toronto:

Melbourne - Sydney
Sydney - LA
12 hour stopover spent at LAX
LA - St Louis
St Louis - Toronto
(and in reverse inc. stopover to come home)

[skeptic53]

In the days before computers, I was in Peace Corps in Sierra Leone. When my tour was over, I had a voucher for a flight home. The rule was you could cash in the voucher for flights anywhere, but the voucher was worth the most direct way to your home of record. KLM had a very bored and underworked agent in Freetown, she spent a lot of time with a pile of flight schedule books figuring out flights for me. I paid an extra $40 over the voucher, instead of Freetown-Dakar-NYC-Seattle I flew Freetown-Casablanca-Amsterdam-Edinburgh-London-NYC-Denver-Seattle. My $40 European vacation! I bless that woman to this day!

[trunks2k]

When I tried to find a flight from the Northeast to London, I found one flight that was cheap and was about to book it until I realized it flew me from NYC>Chicago>Boston>London.

The most annoying one was when I was trying to do the same trip. There was a flight that went from NYC>London and coming back The flight went London>Philadelphia>NYC. Since I live in Philadelphia I figured "great, I'll just change it so I'll just change it to go PHL>NYC>LON>PHL for the whole trip." But doing that cost $150 more. So then I figured ok, I'll just fly out of NY and fly into philly. That cost $200 more than the original price, and I'd be on the plane less than either of the other two trips routes I tried. I wonder what would have heppened if I took the original flight, and just got off at the plane in Philly.

[One-Fang]

Time zones will not account for the difference in flight time between x hours 20 minutes and y hours 40 minutes.

[Jester]

When I tried to find a flight from the Northeast to London, I found one flight that was cheap and was about to book it until I realized it flew me from NYC>Chicago>Boston>London.

The most annoying one was when I was trying to do the same trip. There was a flight that went from NYC>London and coming back The flight went London>Philadelphia>NYC. Since I live in Philadelphia I figured "great, I'll just change it so I'll just change it to go PHL>NYC>LON>PHL for the whole trip." But doing that cost $150 more. So then I figured ok, I'll just fly out of NY and fly into philly. That cost $200 more than the original price, and I'd be on the plane less than either of the other two trips routes I tried. I wonder what would have heppened if I took the original flight, and just got off at the plane in Philly.

Most of the ones I saw on here made sense. This one was just plain stupid. (On the airline's part, not on yours!)

I had something vaguely similar happen. I was being flown to Las Vegas to do a private magic show (YAY!), and I my flight both ways had layovers in my hometown of Phoenix. Now, the plan was to fly to Vegas, do the show, spend a couple days in Vegas, drive the rental car down to Phoenix (only a five hour drive), visit friends and family, drive back to Vegas, and fly home.

But after it was booked, I started thinking. Why not drop the rental car off in Phoenix, get the flight out of there, and head home that way? I had nothing waiting for me in Vegas except a flight to (where else?) Phoenix. And while the rental car company would have charged me a penalty, it was not that bad a deal. Problem was, the airline wouldn't do it. Apparently, if I did not get on the flight in Vegas, they would consider my entire return itinerary cancelled. And I would not be allowed on ANY flights on that itinerary. So of course I played bitch to the airline and drove all the way back to Vegas just to fly back again to Phoenix, wasting half a day of my life for no good reason. (Ask me about that whole experience sometime....amusingly, the return was the easy part...heading out there was the part that made it the worst travel experience I have ever had.)

By the way, I know what would have happened if you had gotten off the plane in Philly. You would have walked out, unchallenged, walked down to baggage claim, felt really good about yourself....until you realized that your damn bags were still heading to NYC!

[friendofjimmyk]

My trip to Hawaii was the worse for flights. First, I have never been on a plane for longer than 2 1/2 - 3 hours and I was looking at about 10 - 12 to Hawaii! OH JOY!

The b/f I went with at the time had a sister who worked for American Airlines so both our flights to and from Hawaii were $1000. CHEAP! BUT - we flew standby the entire way there and back. There was no problem. Back was an absolute nightmare. On the way back, we flew from Honolulu to Los Angeles. We got into LA about 11pm and missed the last flight out from Dallas. We spent the night in the International terminal of LAX. We didn't get out of LAX until 7:30am-ish the next morning. We flew to Dallas and had to wait there until 4:30pm-ish when the next flight to Omaha left. My b/f didn't make it on the 4:30pm-ish flight and had to take the 9:00pm-ish flight out of Dallas.

UGH! Hawaii was great but the way home was a bear!