Travel planning

[peaches2160]

How much do you depend on your travel agency / company to proactively provide you with information regarding your executives travel? 

My executive recently traveled international and had to take a code share flight on the return.  He has status with the primary airline, but had to take a code share flight on the return.  I requested economy comfort seating on the return when I booked the flights through our travel co we are mandated to use.  This co has a desk of top agents that handle our executives travel at a more expensive cost per booking.  As it turns out, I received a confirmation from an agent confirming all details had been reconfirmed while he was traveling.  I sent it to him, and he asked if his seat was economy comfort.  For some reason, my instinct told me to r econfirm with the agent before I answered, although I believed it was since that is what I asked for when booking.  I was told the only way he can get ec on the flight which he would be boarding in a few hours, was to have gone into the website and check in and request 30 hrs before departure.  I was not informed of this prior to.  Needless to say he could not ec seating and was not pleased.  His question to me was why was this not confirmed ahead of time?  I was under the impression it was when booking.   I let him know that I have reached out to our manager in charge of travel to determine if my expectation of depending on agents to provide me with information such as this proactively is not realistic.  I let him know that if I have to educate myself in all of the nuances of travel in order to avoid this from happening in the future, I will in order to ask prompting questions of the agents.  I also apologized for any inconvenience this caused him.

Needless to say I am frustrated in that I depend on them to tell me and now feel like I should have known.  I take pride in my attention to the details and my executives have always appreciated me being two steps ahead when it comes to their business travel so their trips are as uneventful and comfortable as can be within the policies we must adhere to.

I would appreciate feedback on this topic since I need to get others perspectives on how I could have handled this situation differently and had a better outcome.

[Atlanta Z3]

Any time you use a code share flight be prepared for a snafu.  Your traveler will be at the mercy of the gate agent.  My experience is their airline isn't making any money on this flight so why should they upgrade or give any perks to their not core travelers?  My hubbie and I fly code share on other airlines (he's an airline employee) and it doesn't always work out.  Even a non active employee's buddy pass will get a seat before us as active code share employees.
Travel agents may not know they details of code share unless you push them - they want to book the flight and move on to the next caller. Take away experience now you know what questions to ask.  If it's any comfort even if you had checked him in online 30 hours prior he probably would not have gotten upgraded again mercy of the gate agent assigning seats.  Would your executive wanted to book a coach seat or find alternative travel arrangements to ensure business or comfort coach?  And in this economy is your company will to pay for the upgrade seat, mine has really cut back on the travel upgrade allowance. (However some of our executive are paying their own upgrade fees or using points.)

[peaches2160]

Now I know.  Thanks for the information Atlanta.

[Katie G]

I was not informed of this prior to.  Needless to say he could not ec seating and was not pleased.  His question to me was why was this not confirmed ahead of time?  I was under the impression it was when booking.  I let him know that I have reached out to our manager in charge of travel to determine if my expectation of depending on agents to provide me with information such as this proactively is not realistic. 

Peaches, I would have been steaming if I found myself in your position.  Unfortuantely, this seems to be the way things are going now and not just in travel.  Any day now, I expect to have to instruct our catering department to provide cups and stirrers when they bring coffee for a meeting! 

Regarding travel, I've gone to the lengths of renting a car through our travel agency (as our policies dictate), then calling the pickup location to confirm that they actually have the reservation on their records. 

And does anyone remember the Seinfeld episode with the rental car??  And this was about 20 years ago!

Jerry: I don't understand. Do you have my reservation?
Rental Car Agent: We have your reservation, we just ran out of cars.
Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
Rental Car Agent: I think I know why we have reservations.
Jerry: I don't think you do. You see, you know how to *take* the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.

[msmarieh]

Oh Katie, I'd totally forgotten about that episode. So true!!!

[peaches2160]

O M G!  I needed that!  Sad to say it sounds like the agency at the airport my execs have to fly into when they go to corporate.  That is another issue for another day.:-)

Again today I had to remind the agent of my execs status with the airline and what that status entitles him to as far as booking the seat assignment.  I still don't have the seat confirmation.  Needless to say I am frustrated.  I went in online to change a flight and the system popped up a message instructing me to call.  Agent assisted bookings cost a higher transaction fee.  Hmmmmm.  Just another issue. 

[Rebecca T. Little]

I'd be irked too.  I totally disagree with the agent assisted/cost more thing too.  You'd think that the airlines & agencies would want clients and do whatever it takes to make sure those clients are satisfied.  Not a great way to run a business, IMHO.  Some bright soul is going to come up with a way to circumvent all of that and make a fortune when they do.

Rebecca