[Papillion53]

Morning MrMichael

Don’t know about the trip report, but your tales gave me a good laugh this morning over my coffee and toast! 😉 🙂

My DH would be in total sympathy as he landed up in some gawd awful place last night in Hartlepool – his comment on the food at dinner “well, I’m not hungry any more!”. Fixed price carvery for £9 all in – he declined when he overheard the comments about the rubbery beef and settled for a Club Sandwich. But he assured me the sheets and towels were spotlessly clean!

Re the travel managers – he now asks me to look for suitable and convenient flights for anything other than UK domestics and then gets them to book what he wants from this – otherwise goodness knows what they will book (and I do understand route deals etc etc etc.).

This reminded me of a recent hotel acquisition when the owners wanted the Sales Manager to trawl Inverness for corporate overnight stays – for an hotel in Aberdeen! So it is not just travel managers whose geography is somewhat lacking. In their defence they told me that “it didn’t look too far on the map”!!! (rolls eyes)

[RocketBoy]

Your point about lack of geographical knowledge in many travel managers is true, but it’s also inevitable with the focus on price, costs and efficiency.

Many travel managers are not experienced travellers, have not travelled widely and won’t have experienced the products they are expecting their travellers to use.

It’s not that they’re not interested, and I’m sure the travel suppliers would give them a free room in a hotel or send them on a familiarity trip, but they aren’t allowed to go, or don’t feel they can spare the time from the office.

As a result you have the unique situation where a company has put someone in charge of buying a product they know nothing about.

[MarthaGeorge1]

Talking of travelling by train, I had to make a trip up to York from Kings X – by searching and booking online, I found 1 particular morning train was so much cheaper than the others, that my First-Class ticket was around £25 cheaper than Standard-class tickets on other services that morning. So I had comfort, plenty of space to work, and trolley service with free tea and biscuits – and saved company money. Would an agency have got me that fare? I don’t know, but certainly not if they were following a no-first-class policy.

[Papillion53]

RocketBoy –
Yes I agree, these days I guess time is money more than ever! And people don’t want to give up their free time and bosses don’t want people out of the office.

I used to escort many travel agents on familiarisation trips all over the place – I loved it! Especially the USA trips! I stayed in some wonderful hotels and we always flew in the highest cabin available – and I always tried to arrange different things for the group to do in a city so that they would know a bit more than just the flight and the hotels. As I write this I am remembering some stories that I simply couldn’t write here! 😉 But I do remember on one occasion I was taking a group to AMS from ABZ and the fog at ABZ prevented us leaving on the first flight, and the next flight would have not given us enough time in AMS for this short day trip. So we went back to the hotel for champagne and breakfast – a couple went back to work but the rest decided to make a day and head on into Aberdeen for “a long lunch”! I went with them, no drink for me as I was driving. Left a few after lunch and that was it, or so I thought!

Next day had a panic phone call from one of the group – could I come to their office immediately. Long story short – many drinks later, they had landed up in a tattoo parlour! Winnie the Pooh with balloons on this person’s thigh in full technicolour – for ever! I couldn’t stop laughing when she showed me! I’m so bad! She declined the re-scheduled trip!

[cityprofessional]

Ahhh, just seen this. Travel managers. My pet hate. The problem with travel managers is that they only ever offer you what’s on their screen. Sometimes this is a good thing e.g. we have route deals with BA that mean we pay a far lower price on certain routes, and hotel deals with some properties in key business destinations, and all with more flexible conditions/late cancellations etc. These deals are not accessible to the public, and are therefore A Good Thing

For everything else, and anything remotely non-standard (e.g. a triangle route, or a city they cannot pronounce), they have no clue. Their screen shows BA at the top (because our chairman has a black card). And the hotels are only the standard international chains

Google (which is about 500 times quicker than the GDS search) will yield closer, more convenient hotels (e.g. than the Swansea Mercure). And Kayak will yield cheaper, more flexible flights

It’s not rocket science. But Travel Managers only want to do the easy stuff (NYC, FRA, by BA, staying in the Sheraton by the office), and aren’t bright enough to do the mildly out-of-the-ordinary stuff (any other city in the world)

[ZKSmith]

Several years ago the company I work for was trying to cut its costs, and reducing travel expenses was one of their main targets. However, thanks to an incompetent travel manager this backfired horribly.

Instead of flying from the nearest airport (EDI), we would often receive tickets ex GLA or even MAN because these flights were cheaper.

Of course once you include the extra costs of getting to these airports; the overnight accommodation at these airports if you were booked on an early morning departure; and the cost of luggage, because the cheapest fares don’t include any checked baggage; the total cost would end up significantly higher.

The same issue applied to hotels – getting booked in to a hotel on the city outskirts which required taxis, rather than a more central one with a metro or tram stop right outside.

Thankfully the company soon realised that final travel costs had nearly doubled. Employees are now free to book their own flights and hotels, within certain budgets, and the company will only book flights and hotels if a large number of employees are travelling on the same trip. As I’m sure you can imagine, we are much happier with this arrangement.

[Poshgirl58]

My employer has recently appointed a new travel management company (TMC) who, so far, has provided an good service, understands duty of care and can think outside the box.

The previous two TMCs were lacklustre. Taking away the opportunity to “do your own thing” has met with resistance from some managers and designated travel bookers. Before confirming a booking, I check the details with the traveller. TMC also provides booking information to our international medical and security services provider.

Geographical knowledge should be top of the training schedule. I have heard horror stories about people being booked on a flight to Belfast to attend a meeting in Glasgow, because “it looks close on the map”. Also the favourite of booking a flight at 1500 when meeting isn’t scheduled to end until 1700. Reminds me of a previous life when a rookie buyer was asked to order 4×6 plywood but got 4×3 instead because it was cheaper!

[MrMichael]

As some people seemed to find my stay at the Swansea Mercure amusing I may as well finish my trip report. Had a pretty good breakfast and an interesting meeting at the DVLA. My goodness a place to forget, it reminds me of being in prison, no, rephrase that, I imagine it is what prison is like. At the end of meeting in AOB I requested and was granted no further meetings on a Friday unless at DfT in London.

Needless to say I did miss my 2.28 train as my meeting was not due to finish until 3. I managed to catch the 4.28 to Paddington and had to put up with a very loud woman on the phone for the first 55 minutes of my journey. She was incessant, I wanted to kill her more than my travel co-ordinator on Monday. Rest of trip was actually quite pleasant, FGW are not too bad. Roll on Monday.

[NameRemoved-18/12/14]

Are you looking for a new Travel Manager Mr Michael?

[MrMichael]

Well, generally to be honest she is ok, but then I tend to go to the same place over and over again. Something different and probs, Are you volunteering?

[BAfanatic]

MrMichael thanks for posting your reports. So sorry to hear about your trials and hope you get over them soon… but honestly everyone on the forum must be vicariously enjoying them… I bet virtually everyone here has had similar experiences (I have, in Osaka)…

May next week be much better! ~SYMPATHY, been there~

[Author]

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