Flight Centre

I had spoken to Shannon and I was shocked how incredibly unprofessional she was over the phone saying words like «stupid» and «shit» clearly had to rethink if i was speaking to a travel agent.

I just feel extremely frustrated and feel the need to share my experience. First of all I think that because of the internet, Travel Agents already need to find a way to provide extra value or they are just obsolete. I think perhaps going in with that mentally and also being someone quite familiar with finding good deals online made me a bad candidate to go through a travel agent but I had some false hope that they would be able to either find a fun flight route or get a good deal. Neither of those were the case and I spent probably an extra 2 hours with them and an extra $ 12 than I would have booking direct through the airline’s site.
So now the details. I had asked for a return flight to Australia. I had said that if there were any cool stopovers that would be great. I had pretty flexible dates and no definitive budget. I was given a direct flight with Air Canada. no fun stopover options. Then I noticed there was only 1 bag included. The travel agent knew I was going for a year and I think it would have been nice for her to mention that there was only 1 bag but that I could add one. I think being that it is your occupation there is some foresight that would be useful. Then I noticed the return flight on the Air Canada was for November. I ended up finding a better priced flight with Air New Zealand which allowed for a further out return date (you can only book flights within 350 days or so of the booking date so for 1 year Visa holders you have to call the airlines to change the return date during your trip but you only get 1 free change so having a little more time to know your return plans/​a further out return flight date is beneficial).
With the Air New Zealand flight I could book an extra bag for $ 30 less than with Air Canada and I could book the return flight for a later date. Then I realized that with Air New Zealand if I booked one way it wasn’t more expensive… with Air Canada if you book return it was about $ 1700 and one way was $ 1200 but that wasn’t the case with Air New Zealand. Did I learn all of this on my own? Sure did. On top of that I felt that the travel agent was annoyed and she likely was but I had given her the option for me to book on my own but she had mentioned that do to our back and forth (AKA me finding flights and telling her about them and then telling her all the things I needed which she hadn’t asked or thought about), she hoped that I would book through her. Then I learned that I could only book the flight through her and would have to add the extra bag separately online. Simple enough I thought and not wanting to offend her I booked through her. only after she booked the flight (which somehow cost $ 12 more than it would have on the Air New Zealand website) I had to call Air New Zealand and wait on hold and speak to an agent as the website wouldn’t access my flight online to add an additional bag.
When I asked her why it cost $ 12 more (I know it’s not a lot of money but the principal pissed me off and at my old age of 30 I have become very much about the principal of things) she told me that the flight was now $ 50 more than it had been. That was not my question at all. I am aware flights go up but I wanted to know why the day before the price online had been $ 12 less than I had been charged. I sent her a screen shot later and she said sometimes prices vary — again I wouldn’t think by the hour and I had only seen that one lower price (which it was now back to at the time of this review… and the same price to the cent so I don’t know why one hour it would have changed by $ 12 but every other time I saw it it was the exact same).
Honestly, there was nothing they did aside from prolong the process… I had gone down in person but after 30 minutes of waiting and sort of being talked to while an agent was also trying to talk to an airlines, I left. Booking the flight took about 5 days from when I found what I wanted online. I would suggest that if you understand how to google airlines and flights, you would be better off doing this on your own.

terrible terrible company, and especially this location.
Long story short (I’ll try my best to keep it short…). Due to personal reasons, my wife had to bump up our wedding from April 2014 to Nov 2013, which means we only had about 2 and a half months to plan. Since we already live together and have everything in our condo, we decided to NOT get a typical bridal registry, but a travel registry at Flight Centre (so our friends/​family can help pay for our flights to Maui in May). We stopped by this location and were told to register it online. So we did. More than a week went by and we didn’t get any kind of email confirmation… NOTHING. We wanted something to put in the wedding RSVP to get the word out, but we just couldn’t wait any longer. The wedding invitations went out withOUT any links or information on the travel registry. Which is a HUGE bummer. Finally, we called Flight Centre and the link was up… My wife and I felt cheesy to send out a mass email or post on Facebook about this and figured we’ll just have to tell people «if they ask». And only a handful of people asked.
Anyways, we got married on Nov 15^th, and to this day, we have NO idea if there are any contributions in the registry. What a terrible setup… Seriously? We can’t simply go into their site, log in and find out? Very backwards if you ask me.
So, we’ve gone into the Flight Centre on Pacific Blvd (Yaletown), and asked to speak to someone about this, and the 4 ladies there had no clue what to do, just kinda stared at each other, one of them told us that she’ll refer this matter to someone and have that person contact us. Never heard from ANYONE thus far. Today is Dec. 23^rd, it’s been 5+ weeks since we got married… and yet, we have no idea how much money is in our registry (if any at all, but that’s not the point).

Disappointing experience at Flight Centre. We are planning a trip to Europe with flexible dates, flexible points of departure and two possible destinations, so we wanted to speak with a travel agent to access some experience and expertise as to what would be the best bet for the time of year we are travelling and our budget.
We walked in to find 5 travel agents all eager to help us. We happened to sit down in front of the one who said hi to us first and within 2 minutes had the dreaded feeling we chose the wrong travel agent. We gave him all of the details of what we were looking for and the poor guy looked like a deer caught in headlights. Even before he had searched for a flight for us, he was trying to upsell us some travel insurance. It was bizarre. A few minutes of him pounding away on the keyboard yielded a $ 1300 flight (when I was sure I had seen something in passing the day before online for $ 900). He also seemed incapable of searching for multiple options or offer any sort of advice. The other travel agents must have sensed that he was likely to lose the sale and tried to jump in and offer some information but it was too late, my husband wanted nothing to do with this travel agent. As we were trying to make our get away, the agent asked for my contact info so he could do some more research on the flights and email me the results. I still have not heard back.
Needless to say, I spent about an hour last night doing lots of research online and found a great deal ($ 500 cheaper than what the travel agent found).
It’s a shame because I have had good experiences in the past with Flight Centre. Although there are lots of options online these days, I really do prefer dealing with a person. The main thing I look for with a travel agent is someone who is confident and knows their stuff and can offer good advice. This guy definitely seemed green and very very unsure of himself. Unfortunately, this experiene has turned us off of using a travel agent. With a little bit of hard work on our own part we were able to find flights heads and shoulders above what the agent was able to find. This goes to show that in the age of technology and dozens of websites offering great deals for travellors, a travel agency needs to ensure their staff is well trained, experienced, and able to provide great customer service in order to compete.