0 comment Sunday, May 4, 2014 | admin
I need to buy a plane ticket to journey to Awesome Location (AW) for Really Great Conference (RGC) later this year. To do so using the travel money on my fellowship, I must book the ticket through our institution's Corporate Travel Buffoons (CTBs).I call CTBs and am on hold for 30 minutes. I hang up. I look up CTB's website and pick an agent at random. I email preferred itinerary to said agent, along with stipulations such as "if the ticket costs more than $XXX.XX for a non-stop, please look for layover options". This is important because the travel money from the fellowship only goes so far and I still have to pay for the conference registration and hotel. Also because BH will accompany me and we're paying for his ticket out-of-pocket.I get an *urgent!* email reply asking me for an "OK" to purchase the enclosed non-stop itinerary (which costs WAY more than $XXX.XX), because the fare is only guaranteed for the next 24 hours so they need to book it today. I reply to say that I would prefer layover options because the ticket is so clearly out of my price range.I receive an email which includes several layover options. I select the best (and cheapest!) one. My email reply includes the preferred itinerary, a sentence to officially "OK" the itinerary, as well as the cost center for my fellowship money, and my personal credit card info to pay for BH's ticket. I also specify that I accept the additional fee to my personal credit card for the personal booking.I receive an email asking me to "OK" the itinerary, also saying the return flight stops in Mountain City for the layover...is this OK?Yes, I know that it stops in Mountain City; I can see that on the itinerary. I reply to "OK" the itinerary yet again.Several hours later I have another *urgent!* email request for the BTA so they can process my reservation.WTF is a BTA?!?!?I hate it when people just assume that you understand their very field/department-specific acronyms. It drives me absolutely batshit crazy when people just throw that around like you're just supposed to have some kind of intuitive insider knowledge as to what they're actually talking about. See how I nicely defined my acronyms in the first paragraph for you, dear reader (WTF should go without saying)?Since the agent is slow to reply to my queries after what exactly BTA's are and how do I go about getting ahold of them, I catch up with my departmental administrative assistant who I suspect will a) know what a fucking BTA is and b) know how to get one for me. She says she just needs to know the name/date/location of the conference and my itinerary and she can send it on to Other Admin. Asst. (OAA) with her approval, who will then make up the BTA. I thank her sincerely and impress upon her that the ticket needs to be purchased today, as the fare is only good for the next 24 hours. Also, that I have only had the itinerary in my possession since a few hours ago, so please don't get cranky with me about short notice.Then I go back to my desk and email her all the necessary info.And receive an email from CTB requiring my personal credit card info to purchase BH's ticket. I have already sent this, but I send it again. [I do not like sending my personal credit card info by email even once. Let alone twice.]By 4pm I have still not received any confirmation that the tickets have been purchased, so I decide to chase it down before everyone buggers off for the day.Admin. Asst. hasn't even started on the fucking BTA! She tells me she's been too busy with So-and-So's grant. Grants are important - I get it. But all she had to do was forward my email which already contains all the necessary info, and say she approves it. How long can that possibly take!?!? Then she tells me she doesn't have my itinerary. Bullshit! That message is in my "sent" box and it hasn't bounced.So she gets on the phone with the CTB (who strangely never picked up the phone when I called, nor returned my voicemail message) to try to sort things out and get her to re-book the same itinerary now so that the same fare will still be available for the next 24 hours and we they can go home and finish processing this tomorrow. [I say "they" and not "we" because I will not be going home just yet. I will now be here until stupidly late having wasted much of my time today dealing with this nonsense.] Turns out OAA already has gone home, so no BTA today no matter what. Then she has the gall to say to CTB while I'm standing there that she only just now learned about this flight purchase. Bullshit!! It's been in your damn inbox for hours!I go back to my desk and send Admin. Asst. the same fucking email with all the necessary info to process the goddamned BTA -- including my itinerary -- again.And then receive another *urgent!* email from CTB requesting that I "OK" the same fucking itinerary and can I please send her my personal credit card info so she can purchase the ticket and go home.YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!11!!!ELEVENTY!!!!!!1!!!!11!!Update: CTB just called me on the phone to say that the price she had me "OK" wasn't exactly accurate and that since we are flying on multiple carriers they can't issue the itinerary as a single ticket, so that will increase the price by about $30.00. OK, fine. But seriously, isn't it her job to figure that out before they send me the final price? I mean, isn't that what travel agents do? And then she wants to know if she should just go ahead and book BH's flight on my card right now, and then do mine tomorrow (assuming that the BTA actually gets done).Umm, no. I would like to make sure that we end up on the same flight and that I actually am for sure going (i.e., the BTA gets approved and my fellowship $$$ is not lost in the grinding beauracracy) before I fork out hundreds of non-refundable dollars to send BH to the conference without me.Holy shit! I just hung up the phone with CTB (just this second while I am typing this) and immediately received an email confirming BH's flight! WTF!?!?! Did I not just say, "Please wait until tomorrow so we can book them both together"??!?!The goddamned BTA better damn well go through tomorrow or someone will really be catching some hell.
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