Travel agency screw up: Name discrepancy looks to thwart Swede’s trip to the U.S.

by Jeffrey White on

Here’s the rare case of an airline getting the back of one of its customers.

A Swedish woman who recently booked a round-trip ticket to visit her boyfriend in the States through a UK travel outfit called Gold Medal Travel is being told she’s going to need to pony up another $200 because the agency botched her name on the tickets. Gold Medal says the woman’s last name appears twice on the tickets and that this won’t fly with the carriers involved, namely KLM and Northwest. Gold Medal says the woman needs to pay for the change or forfeit her trip. The agency also says the airlines involved are the ones that require the high fee for name changes on tickets.

That seems like news to Northwest.

The woman’s boyfriend contacted Northwest and was told the ticket as it reads now wouldn’t be a problem and that she should not have to fork over so much for a simple name change. KLM has yet to be consulted, it seems, but I’m guessing it will conclude the same thing.

Seems likely the travel agency is trying to squeeze a little bit more out of this particular package. But then again, the name discrepancy might matter.

I have a Czech friend who once had some trouble in the U.S. because of a slight discrepancy with her last name. The last names of Czech women often end in ‘ova’, though my friend goes by a westernized version of her last name that drops this suffix (she grew up in Canada). So her printed ticket sometimes does not match the name on her Czech passport.

I wonder if Gadling’s dear own Iva, also a Czech native, has any trouble with this, since she too goes by two last names (her last name is Skochova in Czech, though I don’t know if that is how it is printed on her Czech passport).

Right now it appears the couple in question are weighing their options, including logging official complaints with travel boards in their respective countries. Whether Gold Medal Travel will come around remains to be seen.

More American Airlines flights cancelled for more MD-80 inspections

by Grant Martin on

Over two thousand flights are being canceled over the next few days on American Airlines for more maintenance checks.

The nation’s largest carrier continues to have problems with their MD-80 fleet. The issue this time is similar to what happened a few weeks back — wiring along the wing hasn’t been inspected properly and needs to be checked. For some reason, inspections weren’t up to snuff last week though, which is why the carrier is grounding much of their fleet again.

American expects to finish the inspections shortly, but at the time of writing most of their MD-80 fleet (and their respective passengers) are still on the ground. Keep an eye on your itinerary if one of these aircraft is involved in the next few days.

Venezuela: Simpsons unsuitable for children, replaced with… Baywatch???

by Anna Brones on

The Simpsons is such a TV-institution that it is pretty much enjoyed all around the world. If you think Homer is amusing in English, just try him in Danish. But not everyone finds the classic dysfunctional family humorous. In Venezuela the TV show has been dropped from morning television because it was deemed unsuitable for children.

The BBC reports that Venezuela’s TV regulator finds that the show sends “messages that go against the whole education of boys, girls and adolescents.” Which show does a better job of sending positive messages to children? The bikini-clad, silicon-stuffed ladies of Baywatch apparently. That is exactly the show that Caracas TV station Televen decided to replace the mid-morning Simpsons slot with.

The Simpsons might make it back onto Venezuelan TV, just later in the evening. That way children can have their morning cereal with suitable half-naked American women instead of the unsuitable deadbeat, donut-eating father who says “doh” a lot. We wouldn’t want children growing up with a bad example now would we?

Laos’ Highway 3 to be paved

by Catherine Bodry on

I know I’m supposed to be happy that the jungle-clad, muddy trail that serves as a major road through Laos is being paved. It’s good for Laos citizens, and it will cut driving time between northern Thailand and southern China to less than a day. Plus, I totally condemned writer Denis D. Gray for lamenting the changes that mass tourism has brought to SE Asia.

But I’m not as excited as perhaps I should be. My experience riding along that windy, dirty orange road is one I recount often when I’m talking about my travels. Standing around pathetic green-twig fires and sleeping overnight in the jungle because the bus was stuck in the mud is the type of traveling authenticity you can’t cultivate or buy on a tour.

Is it selfish of me to wish that some roads could remain unpaved, and that some travel remains slow? Probably. But I guess I have to suck it up and be happy for people whose ways of living will arguable improve.

From the New Europe: Self-tapping pub promotes drinking games (and drinking)

by Iva Skoch on

The world is definitely about to get fully automated any day now. Just yesterday, I blogged about a German restaurant that’s based solely on automated service: no waiters, no tipping.

Today, I have a new culinary efficiency concept for you: the self-tapping pub. Leave it up to the Czechs–the world’s biggest beer consumers per capita–to invent a pub, where you don’t even need a waiter to get your beer. What waste of time!

The customers at “The Pub“, as the automated pub is actually called, can tap Pilsner Urquell beer from brewer Plze??ský Prazdroj at their tables, and a computer device on the tap keeps track of the standings of all tables in beer drinking. The scores are then projected onto a screen in the bar, Czech Business Weekly reports. The system enables customers to keep track of the beer drinking scores of all tables not only in the bar they are in, but also in all bars of the same chain across the Czech Republic. So far, they have branches in Prague, Pilsen, Hradec Kralove, Brno, Liberec, Karlovy Vary and Tabor.

The bars have Web cameras so that customers can see their competitors in different bars in the chain. They can also select which bar they would like to be in a beer drinking contest with and can send short messages via small screens on the tap. Needles to say, being able to see how much everyone else is drinking only promotes the competitive spirit among the pub guests. And that, I guess, is the idea.

The concept, started by two 24-year-old Czech men three years ago, has been been a smashing success in the Czech Republic. The chain might apparently soon be expanding to Poland, Russia and Italy.