Going to California? Bring your passport
It seems like the folks we depend on when we travel could use a good lesson in geography, or at least it seems they would benefit from buying a good map.
Occasionally, headlines announce that a plane landed on the wrong runway or at the wrong airport. However, the geographical confusion is now creeping into customer service, tax manuals and airline rules and regulations.
Exhibit one — cell phone giant Alltel.
During a simple call to find out if roaming charges would be incurred when traveling in San Francisco, their agent informed me:
“Sir, you have the National Freedom plan. To avoid roaming charges, you’d have to stay within the United States of America. If you wanted to avoid roaming charges when traveling to California, you’d need to sign up for an international calling plan.”
Exhibit two — airline taxes.
I was reading the
The manual describes a staggering array of taxes that airlines must levy on customers, and how tax information should be formatted on tickets so the right money can get to the right arm of the government. Minutia few probably want to know about in any sort of detail.
There’s a U.S. International Departure Tax — self explanatory. Then there’s the U.S. International Arrival Tax — ditto.
Here’s the kicker: What the heck is the “Alaska/Hawaii International Facilities Tax?” There seems to be a contradiction here? Alaska and Hawaii are not international. Last time I looked at my map, they, like California in the Alltel example, were part of the U.S. of A.
The tax language continues digging its own hole even deeper. “The Alaska/Hawaii International Facilities Tax applies to Domestic Segments…” I give up. I’m just going to stop trying to make sense of this, and I won’t bore you with something called buffer zones (areas close to the U.S.-Canadian and U.S.-Mexican borders that get treated a little bit differently than the rest of those countries for the purpose of airline ticket taxation). Sorry! I promised I wasn’t going to bore you with buffer zones.
Exhibit three — the airlines.
US Airways has been maligned quite a bit in the last week for the slew of fees it unleashed for everything from a Coke to checking a bag. Look at the fine print describing the new “award processing fee” for its Dividend Miles program. It notes that a fee of $25 will be charged for domestic award tickets, $35 for Mexico/Caribbean and $50 for Hawaii/International. Geographically confused, I called, and asked the agent why the fee was so high for Hawaii versus “domestic” or even Caribbean awards. I was informed, “because flights to Hawaii go over the water.”
Psst. So do flights to San Juan and LaGuardia.
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6 Responses to “Going to California? Bring your passport”
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Well, my dad’s girlfriend thought she needed a passport traveling from New York to Pennsylvania…
I had a similar problem with Comcast and their phone plan. I asked they had a calling plan for “New England” and I was told I needed an international calling plan to call England. I said; ” I don’t want to call England, I want to call the states that make up New England in the northeastern part of the USA. You know, MA, RI CT, VT, NH and ME.” These customer service agents really don’t have a clue sometimes!
Nothing surprises me after some of the questions I was asked after moving from Alaska to the south. I was used to the questions about my passport and how was customs, but I was simply floored when someone asked if I spoke English.
Re Comcast….they outsource to Canada (which I disagree with) but that is likely why they were clueless about “New England”. Since it is not a “place” other than here…..
The Alltel comment doesn’t surprise me. They used to not know much about Canada either. With the Verizon deal, at least, Alltel mobile will be gone. Maybe their landline outfit will or has sold themselves to someone too…
Recently, a US mainland based travel agency quoted us a higher cruise ticketing fee because in the agent’s words “we have to fill out customs forms to send stuff to Hawaii”
And of course, we love tourists that ask “How long is the flight to the U.S.?”