Those of you who use me, particularly those who've used me for many years, would likely know that I work long and strange hours to ensure everyone is looked after.
It seems that it's a case of damned if I do, damned if I don't. I personally haven't had a meaningful break for a very long time, and this one time that I attempt to do that, people get jittery. Perhaps I have a popularity problem?!
So to clear the air - I was / am still away since after the AFF Masterclass in June.
@drron correctly put two and two together with noticing that my profile was showing mostly late evening/early hours Australian time visits.
@Zero has also worked out the other half of the puzzle - I have two desktop devices that are permanently logged into my personal social media accounts and also AFF, Flyertalk and a number of other sites and these sites are on auto refresh.
So lets address a few points:
Why do I have auto refresh turned on? There's a reason for it - I run a custom built system that tracks passenger movements on the day of travel. Unlike most travel agents, I actually monitor passenger journeys. The system proactively looks for pending delays and alerts me to such delays (if you use the Flighty app you'd be familiar with a similar concept).
Many here have probably experienced this when I've contacted passengers and said it's time to reroute you and many of you would know and have experienced that I also manage disruptions to journeys on the day of travel rather than leave passengers to have to deal with the ground handling staff.
At the start of COVID, many here may remember when I proactively told (or very strongly pushed in some cases) my passengers to consider coming home, uprooting itineraries to bring people home free of charge. I spent a copious number of hours doing that, at no charge. Most other agents wouldn't even think of doing such a thing.
In a disruption scenario, If I can physically do something meaningful to save a passenger being stuck sleeping overnight in an airport, or being in a 100+ deep queue for rebooking, I almost always will drop everything to try and get a passenger moving. Obviously I can't necessarily guarantee that I can always do something, I can tell you from having taken action swiftly over the years that there's been a number of cases over the years where I've had passengers on the move whilst everyone else on their disrupted flight was stuck wondering what to do, by which time alternate options have filled up.
Even though I'm away, I am still managing disruptions. (Can you see where the attempt at a meaningful break has gone?).
Some examples of recent disruptions that I have had passengers involved in (in the space of just the last 2 weeks):
1. VH-ZNE (QF) being diverted back to MEL a few days ago
2. G-ZBKI (BA) being out of action for multiple days in the last week of July causing multiple BA long haul cancellations
3. G-ZBKC (BA) being out of action around the same time as G-ZBKI causing more BA long haul cancellations
4. Typhoon Noul (CX)
Why have I not responded to the OP? On any given day, I need to prioritise who I respond to first, and given that I have been/am away, there's unfortunately also a backlog of emails that have built up.
Here are some examples of issues that require more urgent attention (in no particular order):
1. Day of travel issues such as being at risk of turning up late to check in and needing to be offloaded to avoid the entire booking being cancelled
2. Changes to imminent travel (imminent being anything within the next 3-4 days)
3. Uprooting and reorganising travel plans due to being jittery about travelling via the Middle East (if travelling in the near future)
4. Chasing passengers who have not responded to my requests for info when their travel is imminent
5. Ticketing passengers who are trying to book a time limited sale fare.
The OP has clearly indicated in this thread that their travel is not until late September (and even later than that). Cancelling and refunding is not an urgent issue that needs to be addressed right now on the spot if there's other passengers that I have assessed to require more urgent attention. If anything, it may actually be advantageous to wait for the airline to cancel something or change something so that you can avoid the refund penalty.
My inbox is triaged accordingly and to be fair to everyone, prioritisation is a must to ensure the most urgent items are dealt with first, and then following that, I am responding by date order. The non urgent list was at about 6 weeks, now down to 4 weeks. The OP has clearly indicated here this week that they've had some response from me recently - that's me clearing the non urgent requests.
Some of you might be wondering why I don't hire someone else to join me - well I've tried. It's impossible to find someone who's passionate and can competently deal with the niche that I deal with, which is primarily complex itineraries.
Agreed: but I have tried really, really Nate. Maybe 50 calls and the same number of emails.
Literally I have sent 50+ emails…..
I receive a number of unknown number scam calls virtually every day and I am guessing that you've probably tried to call from a hidden number for the majority of your calls. That's not helpful - I can't identify you from a scam call from Nigeria nor a bar of soap.
I can see a higher than average number of unknown number calls on 22/07. If that was you, I personally think calling every 15 minutes is getting a little unreasonable for a request that is not critical. I would absolutely understand such a frequency if you were stuck at check in at the airport, but in this scenario, you are most definitely not.
I would also say that's an exaggeration that you've sent 50 emails. If you want to refute this, I'd be quite happy to make the mail server logs public and inbox screenshots to match.
If you require that level of service, where someone will pick up the phone immediately at any time, I would strongly suggest that you look for another travel agent. I am not going to sugar coat it - unfortunately you aren't going to get that with me - I can only call so many people, and that's before we consider that calling airline staff takes up a substantial amount of my time (I'm looking at you Qantas).
And as I have no knowledge of what happened with the COVID repats, I havent forgotten those, I never knew of it. So I'm not factoring into my comments. And shouldn't.
You aren't even a client and you've benefited from me previously free of charge. If I recall correctly, you messaged me about a QF/EK redemption PNR issue some years ago (before COVID) and out of courtesy I pointed out to you that QF had not reissued your tickets after a schedule change.
). We digress.
