Airmiles

In anticipation of our upcoming trip to New Zealand, I'm booking our accommodations. We are extremely lucky that we have five (count 'em, 5!) Rotary hosts, 4 of whom invited us to stay with them for a few nights each. We are so lucky. This was a major highlight of our recent trip to Scotland, where we were hosted by two wonderful Rotary couples and invited to participate in several Rotary events during our trip.

But I digress. This is about Airmiles. For the nights that we are on our own, I decided to book us into Best Westerns as they are scatterefd all over New Zealand
and I can convert Airmiles into Best Western gift cards.

It takes an awfully long time to book any kind of travel with Airmiles. I've learned they have 350-400 agents on duty at any time but still, it's a ridiculously long wait on the phone. Last year Hans and I took turns sitting with the phone glued to our ear for over an hour.

So we bought a speaker phone.

Since we bought it, we've rarely had to use the speaker. But how hard can it be? So I'm on the speaker, number dialed and listening to their recorded messages telling me I am in the queue, but I have to wait. And wait. But I'm on the speaker so it's okay and I play Spider Solitaire to pass the time.

Eventually, a live person speaks. I pick up the receiver and turn off the speaker - and also the live person for whom I had waited for the last 30 minutes. Aargh!

Comments

Anonymous said…
"Your call is important to us."

Yeah, right! That's why I've been on hold for an hour.

~2nd dotter
12:27 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summer Palace

Image
Wow. Our days are full of strange sights and long hours. In the bus every morning at 7:00, and never home before 5:00. The summer palace was built by Rama V to commemorate the village where he met his wife. How romantic is that! Lo hiding between the antlers The gardens are gorgeous, with topiary herds of elephants, deer and rabbits. Sounds of peacocks echo through the gardens but they remained frustratingly elusive. Their cries were augmented by the screech of other unseen birds in faraway branches. But we did see an amazing variety of bougainvillea in all colours. Hans standing by the elephant's trunk. From the walls in the Reception Hall, yellowing faded faces of Ramas I to IX gazed out from acestral photos. Each Rama is believed to be an incarnation of Vishnu. Other rooms held lacquered furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl and stunning teak carvings. As with all Buddhist buildings, we have to remove our shoes and in some cases, we were asked the night before to dress respectfu...
Read more

At Sea

Image
Today we were scheduled to stop in Marseille but overnight the wind picked up and we apparently have heavy swells. Too heavy to allow a vessel of this size to dock safely, so the port was cancelled. Didn’t matter much to us since we hadn’t scheduled a tour and were just planning to take the shuttle into the old part of the city for a walkabout. Instead, we have a day at sea and that’s never a bad thing when you’re on a fabulous cruise liner. Already, I was part of a losing team at a game this morning and now I’m catching up on blogging. Later, who knows? There’s never a shortage of things to do on the ship. And there’s always the fitness room. I can only hope it will be full.
Read more