Travel Agents and Geography

The following are supposedly actual encounters related by travel agents.
(You wonder why U.S. citizens score less than the rest of the world on
geography!)

A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawai'i. After going over
all the cost information, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to
California and then take the train to Hawai'i?"

I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to
explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she
interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown
is in Massachusetts." Without trying to make her look like the stupid one,
I calmly explained, "Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in South
Africa." Her response... click.

A man called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was
wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view
room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the
middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and
Florida is a very thin state."

A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it was possible that her
flight from Detroit left at 8:20 a.m. and got into Chicago at 8:33a.m. I
tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could
not understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went
VERY fast, and she bought that!

A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on
your bag so they know who's luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do
you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put
a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any
connection?" After putting her on hold for a minute while I "looked into
it" I came back and explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the
airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

I just got off the phone with a man who asked, "How do I know which plane
to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, which he replied, "I was
told my flight number is 823, but none of these darned planes have numbers
on them."

A woman called and said, "I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola on one of those
computer planes." I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter
plane. She said, "Yeah, whatever."

A business man called and had a question about the documents he needed in
order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I
reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh no I don't, I've been to China many
times and never had to have on of those." I double checked, and sure
enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, "Look, I've
been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American
Express."
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