misorano
-
Content Count
638 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by misorano
-
-
OK Here's another situation.
Our company refuses to accept credit card transactions from most of Africa.
Is this racist, or is OK because we've been burned several times in the past through credit card fraud?
-
Daver:
ANA may be saying to cease the practice, but they are the ones setting the conditions on tickets, and the one's invoicing HIS for the no shows.
If they tell the agent that they can sell a ticket, but they will be charged if the passenger fails to show up for the return flight (something the agent has no control over), how is the agent supposed to protect themself?
-
bp:
What I'm saying is that HIS was in a bind. No doubt they were losing money on a certain type of ticket after being invoiced by the airline for no shows on the return flights. They must have had the figures etc that showed the the largest percentages of these were non Japanese.
Based on these figures they decided not to sell these tickets to Non Japanese.
They based this decision on economics, not on race. They were losing money on a certain demographic and chose a course of action to cut their loses.
I think their motivation for this was not racism but $$. That being said there were better ways of going about it that would not have left them open to this criticism.
-
BP:
I know how you feel, but HIS in their stupidity made a policy decision based on how they thought they could get around a troubling issue. They could have handled the issue better.
All they had to do was get a contractual agreement in place with the customer (Japanese or Non) saying that if the return flight was not used, the customer would be charged the full fare.
If the conditions are there, it's up to the customer to accept or decline them. If they decline them they don't get the cheap fare.
I've had Japanese mates do the same thing, but I imagine that had the figures to back them up on the gajin Vs Japanese aspect of this.
I imagine it was a group of upper level suits, all 50+ yrs, who are totally insensitive to issues like this. Ignorance may not be an excuse, but these guys don't exactly think outside the box. It was probably the only option they could come up with.
-
Sunrise:
Like I say, there is no logic too it. The tickets are supposed to be sold as part of a package and packages generally are returning to the point of origin.
You are right though. It is up to the agent to be precise about it, but you are mostly dealing with unqualifed people, who have not been trained properly (hence the low wages I s'pose).
-
The discount air ticket business is too cut throat now. Most agents used to charge a 10% commission, but now it is down to 2-3,000yen per ticket.
You need to sell a whole lotta tickets to make any money. Which is why we got out of it.
Also the fare calcultations now are so difficult with Airport tax, insurance, fuels surcharges that if you make a small mistake you wipe out your margin and end up losing on the deal.
-
Sunrise:
The discount ticket industry in Japan is back in the dark ages. I agree it is stupid but this is not the agents fault as the airline sets these conditions.
The whole idea that a return ticket is cheaper than a one way ticket is illogical, but it happens.
-
Asakusa has a few good cheap ryokans.
-
I can't stand that guy either. Didn't realise it was a rug though.
-
Are you looking at storing files you've downloaded off the internet?
-
Agree with Spuddy and Mr W. This is a economic decision and not a racial one.
The way the system works is that the wholesellers get a rate from the airline, they then add their fee and give a net rate to the agents. The agent then adds their commission (which they are pretty much free to decide) adn resells it to the customer.
The cheapest discount tickets as supposed to be sold in conjuction with a hotel or a rental car as a package deal, but this is never enforced.
The cheapest tickets are the return fares where the wholelseller has purchased a block of seats from the airline and flogs them off to the agents. The problem here is that the blocks are return flights, and one of the conditions on the sale is that both the outbound and inbound leg as used. If not then the travel agent may be liable for the difference in airfare between the discount fare and the normal fare. When you think that the normal fare TOKYO - LA is about 150,000yen (off the top of my head), you can understand their reluctance to sell to people who may only use it one way.
What has obivously happened in the past is that a percentage of non Japanese have used them one way and the agency has had some strife. The big wigs at HIS would have sat down and had a pow wow and due to their limited foresight and intelligence decided that the only way to get around this problem would be to either sell at a surcharge or only allow non Japanese to book fares that do not have penalities of the return fare is not used.
There are ways around this if HIS had stopped to think about it. All they'd need would be a credit card guarantee (but MR W says they don't accept credit cards)and explain to the customer that their card would be debited for the full fare if they didn't use the return portion.
-
Trivial Irritations for today.
Anally retentive useless information
i.e.
1. The wild geese arrived from Siberia 3 days earlier than last year and 1 day later than average (who cares)
2. Todays weather was similar to mid may
3. The rainy season is offically over
4. Assists in Soccer
-
Actually I've noticed a bit more thought going into the gifts we've got this year.
None of the cans of orange juice, or coffee.
This year has been a lot of local delicacies, and high grade cakes/cookies.
Kyoto is always for for tsukemono.
-
BP:
Similar thing the other day when I called a hotel to check on a reservation for a Mr Kim. We were jabebring away in Japanese and all of a sudden she put Kim and Korea together and started spluttering on in Korean. I'm trying to explain to her in Japanese that I can't speak Korean, but she just keeps on going and going on.
In the end I had to give her and arigato gozaimasu and hang up.
-
Happy birthday 7-11
-
Are you using the Google toolbar?
-
Maybe with the food problems in NK the missles were aimed at the fish.
-
Wrong side of bed this morning was it?
-
People (ususally my wife) who interrupt me while I'm trying concentrate (Work, TV). Usually nothing more than a "what do you want for dinner?"
No matter how many times I explain about my limited brain function this continues.
And then the conversation goes like this:
Her: "What do you want for dinner?"
Me: "Anything is fine"
Her: "Don't say that"
Me: "OK then, How about Okonomiyaki?"
Her: "Okonomiyaki------" (Said in a dissaproving tone
Me: " Argh-------------------"
Way to post 500 times
-
You've got me there. Bit beyond my limited knowledge.
However it does seem a little strange that none of the missles flew far enough to cause concern to anyone but the Russians, who then effectivly block the UN from doing anything.
-
muika,
Agree with you there.
Mind you, What market are Morning Busume aimed at?
The sickos that read kiddy porn on the trains? -
If they'd waited for a seperation then surely it would have flown further and caused more of a stink.
Not saying it wasn't a failure, but you do have to take a lot of the western media with a grain of salt.
-
Missles didn't seem to enter into anyone else's territory. Can see how this is such a big deal.
I'm sure the US, GB, China, Japan,..... do it all the time.
Also the coverage of the "long dong" seems to be viewed as a failure. However they did get the thing in the air for 40 secs, and know how much shi_t would hit the fan if it flew over another country. Who's to say they didn't pull the plug.
Maybe some bad economic news coming out of the US in the next few days eh?
-
You bettcha!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Boycott HIS/#1 Travel !!!!!!
in General off-topic discussions
Posted
Daver:
When an agent books a ticket they get data that looks like this:
C9 D6 I6 Y0 B0 M0 H4 Q9 K9 L9 U0 T0
What this is the the various fare categories on the plane. Basically the go from expensive to inexpensive from left to right. But as you move from left to right the conditions get stricter. For example the Y is the full fare economy class seat. With this you can change flights, dates etc right up to the time of booking and get a full refund if you cancel. Once you get to the K and L brackets you are looking at heavily discounted fares with strict conditions.
What HIS is doing is saying that they will not sell the cheapest (above T) tickets to Non Japanese. They will sell them the more expensive tickets with more flexibility (i.e. if they do not show up for the return flight then there is no penalty).
They would sell the same ticket to a Japanese at the same price.
This works in reverse also. Many of the hotels we deal with, in an effort to attract the foreign visitor, have a inbound FIT rate that is usually cheaper than the standard Japanese rate. What they are doing is valuing the non Japanese guest higher that the Japanese guest. The reason being that the odds are a person coming from overseas will stay several nights rather than the 1 night average for Japanese.
Is this racist or just good business sense?