travelwriter

So by now you know I owned a travel agency for many years.   We had problems with clients all the time complaining about this and that – mainly the weather during their trip – and we also had clients supply their names incorrectly for airline tickets.  Which, by the way, are legally binding documents.

We proceeded to get our staff to ask for clients full legal names as they would appear on their passports prior to purchasing any travel through our agency.  Many countries throughout the world also require that passports be valid for a minimum of six months beyond the date of travel.  This is where my next story comes in.

Another passenger and her boyfriend were to travel from Canada to Asia with a change of aircraft in Tokyo.  Our agents did not see their passports as they were told repeatedly, and almost belligerently by the clients, that yes indeed they did have valid passports that met these strict requirements (as they travelled all of the time).

They produced their passports in Vancouver and proceeded to fly onto Tokyo.  When they tried to re-board the flight in Tokyo to continue onto Indonesia, they were denied boarding.  Apparently the girl’s passport was only valid for another four months, not the required six months.

We received a distressed phone call from the Tokyo airport advising as to what was happening, which of course became our agencies problem in the end.  The passengers were not allowed to fly onto Indonesia and instead were given the choice by the airline to fly onto Thailand or to fly home, at no additional cost.

Thinking quickly, I had to turn this problem back onto the airline stating that these passengers should never been allowed to board the departure flight in Vancouver, little alone be allowed to fly all the way to Tokyo on a passport that was not up to requirement.

To make a long story short, the passengers stayed in Thailand for two nights and then paid the change fees to return home early from their trip as they could not continue with the documentation they had.  When they arrived home, they presented our agency with the bill for Thailand hotels, food, and change fees along with also suggesting there may be a lawsuit to follow.   I finally got the airline to pay half of these costs (and our agency paid the other half) which calmed the passengers down and hence the lawsuit was avoided. 

Overall, it was awful for the passengers and for our agency as well which cost us about $1000 to save our butts.

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