A Peek Into my Occupation

The way I became a Travel Agent is kind of funny. I knew nothing about the job, but decided it sounded fun so I'd try to be one. Lowe and behold here I am. I jumped right in, not having done any research or anything. Probably not the smartest thing to do! Well, it's definitely not as fun as I thought! But when I think about my path to travel agentdom I sure have learned a lot. Here are few things you might not know:

1. Travel Agents and Airlines are NOT friends. We definitely have a love hate relationship. They need us, we need them. But that's about as far as it goes. They will give us these things called debit memos, which basically charges us money for doing something they see as illegal in our system. Some debit memos are only a few dollars, others are thousands. Either way they are not good to get!

2. English is pretty much spoken everywhere. I've had to call hotels all over the world, and can always find someone who can understand me. The English might not be very good, but usually enough have a conversation.

3. Some Airport codes make sense: LA is LAX. San Francisco is SFO.
Others make no sense what so ever: New Orleans is MSY. Orange County is SNA. Where did those come from?

4. It's not as simple as coach, business and first class. I mean seating wise on the plane it is. In that way a coach seat is a coach seat. You can't buy a “better” coach seat. But when it comes to selling seats on the plane there is usually like 6 types of coach fares you can sell, 2 or 3 types of business class fares and 2 or 3 kinds of first class fares.

5. There is an airline in Ireland that is debating on charging passengers to use the bathroom. I'm not kidding. They charge you for your ticket, your seats, your bags, your food and now to go pee too. I'm wondering what they will do if someone has to pee but has no money. Just tell them to wet the seat? I’d hate to be the one to have to clean that up!