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“In my 40 years in travel, I’ve never seen anything like this”

July 30, 2009

hamiltonRemember Jerry Ginnis, the traveler who booked a Bermuda vacation online, only to have the reservation taken over by a travel agent? The original story provoked an outcry from the travel agency community, and a follow-up post did little to placate it.

I didn’t name the travel agency in either post because I wanted to wait for its its side of the story. Well, the wait is over.


Last night I spoke with Jack Rice, the nation retail leader at Liberty Travel.

“In my 40 years in travel,” he told me, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

So what, exactly, is this?

The short answer is that Ginnis’ account — corroborated by US Airways Vacations — is completely true.

An agent at a Liberty Travel location in the Philadelphia area (no need to name her, and you’ll see why in a moment) received a call from Ginnis, who was looking for a good deal on a Bermuda vacation. She found one and put it on “hold” for 24 hours.

In the meantime, Ginnis tracked down a better deal, but failed to call the agent back to cancel the vacation that was on “hold.” The agent called him to find out if he was still interested, and he said he wasn’t — that he had found a better deal online.

She called US Airways to confirm the price, and when she did, she gave them her IATA number, which attached her to the reservation and made her the agent of record. She should have called Ginnis back and asked him for permission to do that, but she didn’t. She dropped the ball. We were wrong to do that.

Rice says the employee is one of Liberty’s top agents, and that the commission issue was just an oversight. Still, he calls the lapse “strange and embarrassing.” And I agree.

What’s going to happen next?

The agent will lose the $100 commission, and Liberty Travel is sending the commission to the traveler, as well as a $100 voucher to be used toward a future trip. That $100 voucher is also coming out of the agent’s pocket. A harsh punishment, but it should deter any other agents from trying the same thing.

Liberty Travel took its time getting back to me, which is regrettable. I would have wanted to publish everyone’s story at the same time. But hopefully, this update will close the loop for those of you who were wondering.

I’m not even tempted to add an “I-told-you-so,” for those of you who thought I was writing this story simply to “bash” travel agents. In fact, it pains me whenever I hear of a hard-working, bricks-and-mortar agency getting caught in the middle of something like this.

I would think the good agents — the ones who wouldn’t ever dream of claiming a commission that isn’t theirs — would be the toughest critic of a wayward colleague. Not of the messenger who told the story.

(Photo of Hamilton, Bermuda by James Jordan/Flickr Creative Commons)

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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23 comments

  • John

    Good to see that the agency “made it right.”

  • Katt

    Great follow up Chris! Glad to see the agency did the right thing and punished the agent.

  • John M

    Chris, as an agent, I think that this agent is getting off the hook way too lightly.

    As one who was critical of the initial article, I stand by my comment that you had not done a complete job of researching and reporting the story and thus the initial article was incomplete. I am pleased to see you follow up on it and give us, your readers the complete story finally. From my discussions with other agents that was the biggest compliant about the article, other than the first line.

    I am glad to see that Liberty is compensating the customer and taking some action against the agent, even though I still feel that it isn’t enough to make sure that the message sinks in.

  • Melissa

    Wow, have to agree with John M. there. What she did was both reprehensible and unethical – she accessed his personal information in order to score $100. I’m glad to see that the agency is trying to make this right with the customer, but the punishment involved here doesn’t match her egregious and intrusive break into someone’s personal info. Terrible.

  • Ron

    I have to agree with John M and Melissa here. I have been in the industry over 20 years and I an shocked that Liberty is “only” making the agent give the commission back as well as the future travel credit. In my opinion this is probably worthless as the client will probably never deal with them again, I know I wouldn’t. I wonder if Liberty would take the same stance if the agent weren’t a top producer. At the agency I work for, this is grounds for dismissal. I agree this was probably an isolated incident, but in this day and age you can’t afford this kind of bad publicity.

  • LeeAnne

    @JohnM – re your comment about the “first line” of the original story: once again, an agent is complaining about that first line. Just to remind everyone what the first line actually said, here it is:

    “Jerry Ginnis says his first mistake was asking a travel agent for a quote on a Bermuda vacation.”

    Note that it was the CUSTOMER who said that. No one could mis-read this line to be saying that Chris himself considers it a mistake to use a TA. Yet, that is one of the biggest criticisms that story received.

    For the record, I am a writer myself, and I believe that was a perfectly appropriate and acceptable first line to the article. Clearly that customer had good reason to think that dealing with a TA was a mistake – look what that one did! Who WOULDN’T think it was a mistake?

    I do want to say I fully agree with you and others that this TA was basically given a free pass. So she lost her commission – big deal, she wasn’t entitled to it. And a $100 voucher that probably won’t ever get used, so it will cost her nothing? Please. This TA deserved to be dismissed, regardless of how many sales she’s made in the past. What she did was flat-out unethical. I don’t believe for a second that it was an “oversight”. I’m sure she didn’t overlook that C-note in her bank account!

    @Chris – I don’t blame you one bit for wanting to toss in an “I-told-you-so” for the bashing you received from agents. You were treated to a severe and completely undeserved thrashing. The agents that attacked you are being disingenuous at best, and they should rethink how they respond to you, and ask themselves if they really want to be on the side of that unethical agent. Anyone who reads your blog on a regular basis knows that in most of your troubleshooting stories, one of the first things you say to the agrieved traveler is that the entire situation could have been avoided had they used a qualified, reputable travel agent. So for agents to attack you for “bashing” their occupation is absurd.

    Keep up the good work, Chris!

  • http://www.vacationkids.com Sally Black

    I totally agree that the agents actions were intrusive, reprehensible and unethical. It’s agents like this that do give our travel agent community a bad name. I believe these actions are certainly ground for dismissal.
    On the flip side, I can certainly appreciate the frustration felt by the agent because this same situation happens almost on a daily basis in our agency. I appreciate that clients price shop with online travel websites. Sometimes clients find a great sale by a specific vendor but often times they end up comparing apples to oranges and paying more in the long run. When clients call hotels directly, short sighted hoteliers will undercut published prices just to fill beds. In this case, the client might get a good deal but if there are any issues, the client can find themselves left out in the cold. Often after spending a great deal of time with clients, it is extremely frustrating when clients call to say they “found a better deal”. It is our policy and the policy of many agencies to ASK these clients to see their confirmations. If the client got a fab deal, we congratulate them…via con Dios! If there are possible issues, we’ll alert them. If they compared apples to oranges, we educate them and explain why their great deal may not be so great in the end. For us, it is very discouraging and feels like a waste of our precious time. Many agents now charge service fees because of this very situation. We have found that more times than not, these same price shoppers return and confirm future travel with our agency because of our professionalism.
    So I can understand the frustration and what motivated this agent to take such an action. That said, an agent like this should find themselves kicked out of the industry for such unethical behavior.

  • kiki d

    perhaps she’s a top producer BECAUSE of shenanigans like this, and it’s just never been caught before?

  • Judy

    Good story chris happy to see that money came from her pocket to right her wrong. I hope she learned not to do this again. For all the good agents we love you

  • Carver

    My $0.02

    The travel agent should be disciplined if not outright fired. The agency should audit her bookings to see if a pattern of dishonesty presents itself. If so, then termination is the only solution. If not, then some appropriate punishment neesd to be mete out, if for no other reason than to discourage her and others from such behavior.

  • Don

    As I understand the original story, the $100 commission came from USAir Vacations. That $100 should be returned to USA, not – as per this followup – be sent by Liberty to the traveler. The dishonest employee apparently ‘stole’ the money – repayment to USAV is the first step however the agent broke the law. This should be reported to the authorities.

  • David Z

    I an shocked that Liberty is “only” making the agent give the commission back as well as the future travel credit.

    Ron, Chris wrote that Liberty also gave Mr. Ginnis a $100 voucher…coming out of the agent’s pocket.

  • Aaron Gold

    This is slap on the wrist. That agent is going to cost Liberty thousands and thousands of dollars in lost business. I would have canned her.

  • Linda

    @Carver – I agree. Audit her bookings. I suspect this isn’t the first time she’s done this! And dismissal definitely.

    Thanks Chris for the followup!

  • susie

    Don’t all Liberty agents work on commission only?

  • Ron

    Liberty is taking the fall for an unethical agent. I agree with others’ belief that the agent got away easy, and that issues like this may be the reason this agent is considered a top performer.

    I think an appropriate way for Liberty to handle this is for the agent’s name to be listed here. Let the customers decide if they would like to use that particular agent in the future.

  • Frank

    LIBERTY TRAVEL! A name out of my past. The first year I was an agent (many, many years ago) a similiar situation came up where I had a reservation on hold for a client and it was “taken over” by Liberty Travel. When I contacted the agent at Liberty, he told me that because “they did a huge amount of business with American Airlines” and the airlines always sided with them. I was too naive to check – my mistake. So it looks like it still goes on.

  • Sheila Horowitz

    The agent got a good deal, put it on hold, Mr. Ginnis should have had the courtesy to tell her he found something better, he’s at fault too, two wrong don’t make it right.

  • Stephanus Surjaputra

    I’m glad Liberty Travel did the right thing for the customer. I do agree with Ms. Sheila Horowitz, though. Mr. Ginnis should’ve called the agent and let her know. After all, the agent did do some research for him, which, in a sense, gave him a lead.

    I remember when I was a consultant and my company used Travel Agents to book my flights, I would sometimes research the schedules and ask the agent to book the flights for me (mostly because we were required to use the agency). I didn’t ask that the agency reimburse me for researching it. I even asked her to book me an upgrade using my upgrade certificates.

  • Ernest

    This all makes me wonder just how many times the TA had done this type of thing and never got caught? Would the agency have slapped the hand if it had not been brought out by a well known expert?

    My experience as a (now retired) law enforcement officer is that people that get caught are seldom breaking the law for the first time.

    I think it was good reporting and maybe other dishonest TA’s will take note.

    Shady transactions and crooks seldom look good under outside observation. Thanks for shining the light.

  • Carver Farrow

    @Sheila

    Respectfully, Ginnis did not do anything wrong. What we sometimes forget about commission based work is that it is double sided. Sometimes, we do a little work and reap large rewards. Other time we do a lot of work and get nothing. It might have been nice if Ginnis has called back and said that he wasn’t using her services, but its hardly mandatory.

    In any event at worse, Ginnis failed to provide a courtesy. That is hardly the moral equivalent of lying, cheating, and stealing, which is what the travel agent did.

    @Stephanus

    Again, the limitation of commission work. TAs generally only get paid for closing the deal. That the arrangement that they have with their clients. If TAs want to get paid for doing groundwork, that’s fine, that’s the arrangement that they should make with their clients. But it doesn’t work to get upset when the client acts fully within the confines of the contract to his own benefit.

    In fact, in my own industry we are seeing the exact same thing. Clients taking advantage of the 1 hour free consultation and never returning to hire the attorney. Rather than complain, many of us just started charging for the one hour, with the proviso that it would be credited towards the retainer fee if we were hired.

  • Beth

    First rule in sales is called followup by the agent not the client or prospective client. Most new prospects if not all will not call you back unless they are already your client. This agent should have not assumed that because she put a reservation on hold that it intitles her to a commission whether or not the prospect called her back or not. What would have been the correct way to handle this on her part was to give a date to the prospect on the initial phone call by which they had to call back the agent or the reservation would no longer be held. I am beginning to think that this is hows she got to bew the top agent by doing this for all her “sales”.

  • Jose_Trinity

    Indeed, that was a very exciting story. I only regret that my English is so defective in order to understand it. But I am sure that it was true and fascinating. Usually all the stories are worthwhile to read, but my English is so poor, and I probably won’t surpass my current level. Congratulations for your story anyway. By the way, what is the matter about ?

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