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I recently spent some time in Ireland, attending the World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) and seeing a few of the sights. Was it worthwhile? Unquestionably. The conference was a big deal in Dublin, with signs all over town welcoming the delegates. For the most part, we were lucky with the weather, I went to some great conference sessions and library visits, met some interesting people, did some sightseeing. More on all that in a forthcoming blog post.
That said, there are definitely some challenges involved in travelling anywhere, but especially internationally, during a pandemic.
WLIC is the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) and is held in a different city every year. Up to this year, I'd been to two WLICs: one in Quebec City in 2008 and one in Lyon, France, in 2014. This year's Dublin WLIC was originally supposed to take place in 2020 but when planning was already well underway, registrations accepted, flights and hotels booked... COVID intervened and proved to be rather more than the temporary snag that some of the organizers had initially expected. Of course, the conference was cancelled. But in short order, conference organizers at IFLA and their members in Dublin were actively planning for WLIC2022.
The official airline for WLIC Dublin was Aer Lingus. It's not an airline I would use again. Let me explain.
I booked a flight back in 2020, at a preferential conference rate. When air travel came to a screeching halt with COVID, the airline offered me a voucher for the full amount I'd paid, to be valid for 5 years from the date services resumed. There was at least a strong hint that if I agreed to a voucher as opposed to holding out for a cash refund, it would be a very quick, easy process and I would have my voucher in hand within a couple of weeks or months. I knew that I wouldn't be travelling for a while but I also knew I still wanted to go to Dublin for the 2022 conference. All in all, it seemed like a reasonable offer. So I accepted it.
Then I waited. The Aer Lingus site kept boasting during 2020 that 50%, then 75%, then 95% of vouchers had been issue. So where was mine? I followed up several times by e-mail and was met by a wall of silence.
The months went by. 2021 came and went. I guess I didn't seriously panic until early bird registration for the 2022 conference opened and there was still no sign of my voucher. I phoned the toll-free number on their site and waited endlessly on hold. I completed forms on the Aer Lingus site. I did eventually get an e-mailed reply and it was all pretty unbelievable.
Aer Lingus Agent claimed they could only issue vouchers in Euros, UK pounds or US dollars. This directly contradicted information on the Aer Lingus site indicating that all vouchers would be issued in the same currency in which the original booking was made. I briefly browsed the flight schedules to see if I could figure out how to book a return flight from a Canadian destination and pay (or even just see the prices) in anything other than Canadian dollars. I replied to Aer Lingus Agent's e-mail explaining my dilemma but any hopes of a prompt reply were soon dashed.
So what to do? Well, Aer Lingus was supposed to be THE official conference airline, right? And I was already registered for the conference. So I sent off a plaintive e-mail to the conference organizers, asking: Do you have a contact person at Aer Lingus who could help me with my voucher/booking problems?
And honestly, I cannot praise those folks highly enough! Almost instantaneously (even allowing for the 5-hour time difference between Ottawa and Dublin), they gave me contact details for an Aer Lingus person who could help. At first, she suggested maybe I could identify the specific flights I wanted and she would book them on my behalf. This I did, but over the course of the day, I think she decided that her suggestion was not really that practical after all. She said she would arrange for a refund to my credit card of the full amount I had paid (back in 2020) and it would be processed within 3 to 5 business days.
Sure enough, I saw the refund in my online banking 3 days later. Wow.
I must admit, however, that my gratitude did not extend to using the money to re-book with Aer Lingus. Instead, I looked at flights on the two major Canadian airlines I'm familiar with, Air Canada and Westjet.
In my next instalment, I'll let you know what happened next.
That said, there are definitely some challenges involved in travelling anywhere, but especially internationally, during a pandemic.
WLIC is the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) and is held in a different city every year. Up to this year, I'd been to two WLICs: one in Quebec City in 2008 and one in Lyon, France, in 2014. This year's Dublin WLIC was originally supposed to take place in 2020 but when planning was already well underway, registrations accepted, flights and hotels booked... COVID intervened and proved to be rather more than the temporary snag that some of the organizers had initially expected. Of course, the conference was cancelled. But in short order, conference organizers at IFLA and their members in Dublin were actively planning for WLIC2022.
The official airline for WLIC Dublin was Aer Lingus. It's not an airline I would use again. Let me explain.
I booked a flight back in 2020, at a preferential conference rate. When air travel came to a screeching halt with COVID, the airline offered me a voucher for the full amount I'd paid, to be valid for 5 years from the date services resumed. There was at least a strong hint that if I agreed to a voucher as opposed to holding out for a cash refund, it would be a very quick, easy process and I would have my voucher in hand within a couple of weeks or months. I knew that I wouldn't be travelling for a while but I also knew I still wanted to go to Dublin for the 2022 conference. All in all, it seemed like a reasonable offer. So I accepted it.
Then I waited. The Aer Lingus site kept boasting during 2020 that 50%, then 75%, then 95% of vouchers had been issue. So where was mine? I followed up several times by e-mail and was met by a wall of silence.
The months went by. 2021 came and went. I guess I didn't seriously panic until early bird registration for the 2022 conference opened and there was still no sign of my voucher. I phoned the toll-free number on their site and waited endlessly on hold. I completed forms on the Aer Lingus site. I did eventually get an e-mailed reply and it was all pretty unbelievable.
Aer Lingus Agent claimed they could only issue vouchers in Euros, UK pounds or US dollars. This directly contradicted information on the Aer Lingus site indicating that all vouchers would be issued in the same currency in which the original booking was made. I briefly browsed the flight schedules to see if I could figure out how to book a return flight from a Canadian destination and pay (or even just see the prices) in anything other than Canadian dollars. I replied to Aer Lingus Agent's e-mail explaining my dilemma but any hopes of a prompt reply were soon dashed.
So what to do? Well, Aer Lingus was supposed to be THE official conference airline, right? And I was already registered for the conference. So I sent off a plaintive e-mail to the conference organizers, asking: Do you have a contact person at Aer Lingus who could help me with my voucher/booking problems?
And honestly, I cannot praise those folks highly enough! Almost instantaneously (even allowing for the 5-hour time difference between Ottawa and Dublin), they gave me contact details for an Aer Lingus person who could help. At first, she suggested maybe I could identify the specific flights I wanted and she would book them on my behalf. This I did, but over the course of the day, I think she decided that her suggestion was not really that practical after all. She said she would arrange for a refund to my credit card of the full amount I had paid (back in 2020) and it would be processed within 3 to 5 business days.
Sure enough, I saw the refund in my online banking 3 days later. Wow.
I must admit, however, that my gratitude did not extend to using the money to re-book with Aer Lingus. Instead, I looked at flights on the two major Canadian airlines I'm familiar with, Air Canada and Westjet.
In my next instalment, I'll let you know what happened next.
