$3000 Lesson
As a few of you know, I learned an expensive lesson last week and I just wanted to share my experience with my TBH family so that none of you make the same mistake.
As many of you know, a friend and I both won Africa Hunts from the LSBA’s membership drive a while back. We were responsible for transportation so we contacted a travel agent and bought plane tickets. Fast forward through several months of preparation and anticipation and you find the two of us at the DFW Airport waiting in line to check our baggage and board our plane. Well we get our tickets printed out, are about to check our luggage and a real pretty little lady tells us my buddy; Ricky can’t go because he needs a Visa. Rewind a couple months and we find out that because Ricky’s not a citizen but a legal resident he can’t get a US passport. We’re told that he must get a Mexican Passport. So he makes a trip to Presidio where he gets a Mexican passport and asks the people there if it is all he needs to travel to South Africa. They tell him yes and he goes on his way.
Now for a little background, Ricky used to be one of my Jr High students. After attending my Hunter’s Ed Class he took an interest in bowhunting so I let him come over to the house and shoot. Well, as I got to know him I soon discovered he was a good kid who needed a positive male influence in his life. We developed a friendship and he has become much like a little brother to me.
Well back to the airport. I was responsible for Ricky and had promised his grandmother (who has raised him) to look after him. So of course I couldn’t go without him and we watched the plane fly away from the benches outside. I thought surely we would be allowed to pay an exchange fee and reschedule for August (so he would have time to get a Visa). Well, the airline told us that to do that we had to do so through the travel agent. I called the travel agent and explained what had happened and she assured me she would try her best to accommodate us.
The travel agent then called DFW Tours (the company the tickets were bought through), explained what had happened and asked if we could exchange our tickets. DFW Tours was not sympathetic and refused to exchange the tickets.
And that is the $3000 lesson. If you buy plane tickets through a travel agency and something unexpected comes up, you may simply lose the money you paid them because they don’t have to make changes or give you a refund. The airline said that they would have been happy to work with me if we’d bought the tickets through them. So now I know for next time (several years from now). In the meantime Africa will just have to wait.
As many of you know, a friend and I both won Africa Hunts from the LSBA’s membership drive a while back. We were responsible for transportation so we contacted a travel agent and bought plane tickets. Fast forward through several months of preparation and anticipation and you find the two of us at the DFW Airport waiting in line to check our baggage and board our plane. Well we get our tickets printed out, are about to check our luggage and a real pretty little lady tells us my buddy; Ricky can’t go because he needs a Visa. Rewind a couple months and we find out that because Ricky’s not a citizen but a legal resident he can’t get a US passport. We’re told that he must get a Mexican Passport. So he makes a trip to Presidio where he gets a Mexican passport and asks the people there if it is all he needs to travel to South Africa. They tell him yes and he goes on his way.
Now for a little background, Ricky used to be one of my Jr High students. After attending my Hunter’s Ed Class he took an interest in bowhunting so I let him come over to the house and shoot. Well, as I got to know him I soon discovered he was a good kid who needed a positive male influence in his life. We developed a friendship and he has become much like a little brother to me.
Well back to the airport. I was responsible for Ricky and had promised his grandmother (who has raised him) to look after him. So of course I couldn’t go without him and we watched the plane fly away from the benches outside. I thought surely we would be allowed to pay an exchange fee and reschedule for August (so he would have time to get a Visa). Well, the airline told us that to do that we had to do so through the travel agent. I called the travel agent and explained what had happened and she assured me she would try her best to accommodate us.
The travel agent then called DFW Tours (the company the tickets were bought through), explained what had happened and asked if we could exchange our tickets. DFW Tours was not sympathetic and refused to exchange the tickets.
And that is the $3000 lesson. If you buy plane tickets through a travel agency and something unexpected comes up, you may simply lose the money you paid them because they don’t have to make changes or give you a refund. The airline said that they would have been happy to work with me if we’d bought the tickets through them. So now I know for next time (several years from now). In the meantime Africa will just have to wait.
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