We're off, finally...
Well... we hoped to be greeting you from Prague at this point... but, unfortunately, we're greeting you from beautiful Logan International Airport in Boston.
I'll try to tell the story as quickly and painlessly as possible, because we're ready to forget about it and get on with the vacation already. We were supposed to fly out yesterday at 6:20pm. We made it through the line to the check-in counter at Terminal E at Logan, only to find that there is a requirement to enter the Czech Republic that your passport has to be valid for 90 days after you leave. I don't know what sense that makes, but there you go. Mine expires on December 13th, so they wouldn't let us on the plane, but did give us tickets for today, in hopes that we'd be able to get my passport renewed.
I must say, it was a long ride home to Somerville from the airport after that. For a while I felt stupid, like there was some small print I hadn't seen. But I went back online, checked the stuff that I had gotten from Travelocity, and all that it said in the tool they give you to look up document requirements was that a visa is not required, but a valid passport is. I had looked at this. The airline (KLM operated by Northwest) website does give the correct information, but I never even thought to look there, because the Travelocity page says "here's all the informormation you need to get your document requirements".
So, I spent an unpleasant 45 minutes on the phone with Travelocity "customer service". All I really hoped to do was to get some kind of recompense for the hotel reservation we were losing, and the extra passport fees because I had to do a rush renewal. But their negotiation philosophy seemed to be "start with no" and also "end with no". I became actually unhinged when I couldn't get the rep (actually, the original rep's manager) to admit that the information was incorrect.
Everything I've read on the web since-- including actual newspaper articles, etc., not just posts by angry customers-- indicates that Travelocity's customer service is totally useless even in clear cut cases where they screw up.
The morals are as follows. I strongly discourage anyone from using Travelocity. We used a real travel agent last time, and franky, it wasn't that much more expensive. Also, it doesn't hurt to check with the airline, and talk to a human before travelling abroad!
I'll try to tell the story as quickly and painlessly as possible, because we're ready to forget about it and get on with the vacation already. We were supposed to fly out yesterday at 6:20pm. We made it through the line to the check-in counter at Terminal E at Logan, only to find that there is a requirement to enter the Czech Republic that your passport has to be valid for 90 days after you leave. I don't know what sense that makes, but there you go. Mine expires on December 13th, so they wouldn't let us on the plane, but did give us tickets for today, in hopes that we'd be able to get my passport renewed.
I must say, it was a long ride home to Somerville from the airport after that. For a while I felt stupid, like there was some small print I hadn't seen. But I went back online, checked the stuff that I had gotten from Travelocity, and all that it said in the tool they give you to look up document requirements was that a visa is not required, but a valid passport is. I had looked at this. The airline (KLM operated by Northwest) website does give the correct information, but I never even thought to look there, because the Travelocity page says "here's all the informormation you need to get your document requirements".
So, I spent an unpleasant 45 minutes on the phone with Travelocity "customer service". All I really hoped to do was to get some kind of recompense for the hotel reservation we were losing, and the extra passport fees because I had to do a rush renewal. But their negotiation philosophy seemed to be "start with no" and also "end with no". I became actually unhinged when I couldn't get the rep (actually, the original rep's manager) to admit that the information was incorrect.
Everything I've read on the web since-- including actual newspaper articles, etc., not just posts by angry customers-- indicates that Travelocity's customer service is totally useless even in clear cut cases where they screw up.
The morals are as follows. I strongly discourage anyone from using Travelocity. We used a real travel agent last time, and franky, it wasn't that much more expensive. Also, it doesn't hurt to check with the airline, and talk to a human before travelling abroad!
posted by Ezra | 4:55 PM
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