Book travel-agency visits — package, collect, last-minute

They want to come in. You are still on the airline.

Someone rings to put a visit on the calendar. You are on hold with the airline, or halfway through a quote at the counter. You cannot write and finish that other job at the same time.

The caller does not want a night in a room. They want twenty minutes to build a week in Crete, or five minutes to collect tickets before the afternoon boat, or to come in today and pay for Friday. Those are three different things to write down. An assistant that opens with “what time would you like?” has already chosen the wrong hour.

A package visit needs departure city, dates, rooms, board, and the ages of children. A ticket collect needs a booking that already exists and an hour you actually keep for the counter. A last-minute come-in needs a person who can open the live system the same day. Mix them and you have a couple sitting through a quote in the hour the boats leave, or a last-minute cash payment on the person who only builds packages, or two names on one chair.

This is the booking work in a small Greek travel office. It is a chair, a screen, and the person who can finish that job.

Package, collect, or last-minute — then the facts

That is the order. Nothing goes into the calendar until the assistant knows which of the three it is. Time of day is not the first question.

A package visit. Departure city, dates, how many rooms, board — room only, breakfast, half board, all inclusive — and the ages of children. A week in Crete from Thessaloniki is not a week from Athens. Two adults and a child of six is not two adults. Then the calendar. Not a yes before the hour is free. Not a price before a published figure you typed in and marked live. If they want half board and you only quote room-only until someone builds it, that is what the visit is for.

A ticket collect. They already have a booking, or they think they do. They want to know if the tickets are at the desk and whether they can pick them up before the afternoon boat. This is not a package. A free chair at four does not mean the tickets are printed. Short answers only: yes until a time you set; not now, come later; or yes for a ferry collect, no for a package that still needs building.

Last-minute come-in. Either of the above, plus today or tomorrow. They want to sit down and pay. They will not hold. They will not leave a name on voicemail. Take the names and the date. Offer a time the same day only if the person who can issue that ticket is free. Treat that call as next month and they are already speaking to the office next door.

A single call can hold two of these. “A week in Rhodes, and can we collect Friday’s tickets this afternoon?” is a package visit and a collect. “We booked last week, can we come in now and add a cabin?” is a change plus a come-in, even if they also ask the fare. Hear both. Write both. Confirm neither until the right screen has spoken.

Write the first question the way you would for a new person at the desk. One sentence. Package, collect, or last-minute. Skip it and the wrong hour goes in.

A package visit is not a collect

Forty minutes for two adults and a child is not five minutes to hand over a printed ticket. A third person who was not on the first call is not the same quote. Half board is not room only. The assistant takes the facts in that order, then looks at the calendar you already use.

It offers a time only if that calendar shows the person who builds packages is free, for an hour long enough for the job, at that moment. If that person is on the airline, or at lunch, or already with a couple, the calendar says so. The assistant does not fill the gap with a yes. It takes the dates and a number and stops.

Do not give it a hopeful sentence. “Afternoons are usually quiet” will be read out. If a chair is not free until you have looked, do not leave a sentence that sounds as if it is.

A hold on a cabin is a rule you already have, or it is nothing. Some offices will look and ring back. Some will not hold without a payment. The assistant follows what you wrote. It does not invent a hold to keep the caller on the line.

Two rooms for one family are two quotes, or one visit with two rooms, depending on how you work. Connecting rooms in a hotel you have not opened are a wish, not a type. If you have not checked the operator, the assistant does not promise a door between the beds.

A walk-in who rings from the pavement and a guest who already paid are not the same person. The first needs a free chair and a live system. The second needs the booking that is already there. Ask which they are before anyone talks about writing a new visit.

The hours you keep for the counter

Late morning, the hour before the afternoon boats, is often kept for people who already have a ticket. Long package visits do not belong in it. Write the window down or the assistant will fill it.

If someone wants twenty minutes on a package in the collect hour, move them. Mark those hours the way lunch is marked. The honest answers are short. Yes until a time you set. Not now, come at four. Yes for a ferry collect, no for a quote that still needs building.

A last-minute caller who can come in today still needs a person who can open the ferry screen. If only one of you issues tickets, a same-day collect can only go on that person’s hours. The assistant honours a list it can see. If the list is empty, it offers times nobody can take.

Do not let a collect become a package because the package questions are the ones it knows. “Can I pick up tickets at two?” is not “can you build a week in Crete?”. Answer the question they asked.

Who can actually take that visit

In a two-person office you are on the airline, or in the ferry system, or at the counter with a couple going through a quote. The person who would have written the visit is the person whose other call cannot be dropped.

Say who does what. One of you works the ferry screen. The other builds packages. If only one person can issue a ticket, a same-day come-in can only go on that person’s hours.

Write who is in, who does ferries, who does packages, who is at lunch. The assistant honours a list it can see. If the list is empty, it offers times nobody can take.

Ferry plus hotel is two checks, in the order you write once. A visit that needs both people is not a single chair at four. Hear that before anyone writes the hour.

Saturday morning is its own roster. If nobody who can issue a ticket is in, the assistant must not offer Saturday. An empty Saturday list becomes a couple at a locked door with cash.

Names as on the passport before they sit down

One letter off the passport and they will not board. The assistant asks for the names as they appear on the document, reads them back, and spells what it is unsure of. It does that before it offers a time, not after they have sat down and the quote is half built.

Ages of children belong in the same pass. A child of six is not a child of twelve on most operators. Two adults and “a child” is not enough to start the quote. Take the age. If they do not have it, take a callback. Do not invent an age to make the visit look ready.

If it cannot hear the spelling — windy street, a name it does not know — it asks again. Guessing Kostas for Costas is how they miss the boat. The visit can wait five seconds. The boarding list cannot.

A third person who will pay, or a cousin who is booking for parents, is a name and a number, and a note about who the confirmation should go to. Do not lose the kind of visit you already have.

Moving a visit is one change

Find the visit. Free the old hour. Write the new one. Then text. That is one change, in that order.

Split it — cancel first, then hunt — and their own hour is still blocking the afternoon they are asking for. The calendar says you are full, because it is looking at them. If the new time is gone, they have lost the old one too.

The new hour still has to exist on the right person. Two people moving from a collect to a package visit are not moving the same job. The assistant asks what changed, then looks at the calendar, then offers. If the package person is not free, the collect stays until they agree to let it go.

A cabin they asked you to hold, or a package that already lives with an operator, is not something the assistant moves on the phone. Date changes, “can we leave a day later”, a name that does not match the passport — those are requests. You or the operator decide. The assistant takes the reference and the new dates and stops.

Test a move on a real name before it runs on the calendar you use. Pick a visit that is already in. Ask to shift it by one hour. Watch whether their own chair blocks them. If it does, fix the order.

A cancel has to go back on the calendar

People ring in the morning to say they are not coming this afternoon. On a small office that is often a chair you can still fill, if the calendar shows it as free before the next last-minute call.

A cancel that sits in a notebook, or in a transcript for the evening, is an hour the next caller is told you do not have. They ring the next office on the street. At six you have an empty chair and a full book on paper.

The assistant writes the cancel into the same calendar it writes visits into, the same hour. Then the next person who asks for that afternoon can be offered it. A cancel after the last boat is still worth taking — you would rather know than set a chair — but it is not a refill you should promise.

Say the cancel rule when the visit is written, if you have one. Many small offices do not take a deposit on a quote visit and do not chase a no-show. Do not let the assistant describe a charge you will not make. A rule you do not enforce is a sentence that will be read back to you at the counter, in a language you do not speak well, with the passports on the desk.

What the confirmation may say

The text goes out after the visit is in the calendar. Day, time, kind of visit, names as taken. The language of the call. A caller who rang in German gets the text in German. You do not set a language per chair. The assistant works in 70+ languages and follows the one they started in.

A fare that is still a request does not belong in that text as if a price were agreed. “We have noted Friday’s boat, cabin preferred” is honest. “See you at four, the cabin is yours” is not, not until someone has opened the screen.

A collect reminder can go in a second text once the tickets are actually at the desk — come before this time, bring the passports. Do not send “tickets ready” for a booking that was never issued.

If the calendar cannot be reached, there is no text. A callback is not a confirmation. The desk finishes it.

Questions that are not visits

Not every call is something to write into the calendar. Whether you sell ferry tickets, where to park, whether the office is a walk from the port, opening hours on Saturday — those answers live in what you typed in. The assistant may repeat them. It may not invent a transfer you do not run, a Saturday you are closed, or a fare you have not marked live.

“Can we come at eleven?” on a day they already have a visit is an early arrival, not a new visit. The honest answers are the ones you already give at the desk: yes, or not before three, or come later, the collect hour is full. Do not let that call become a second reservation.

A complaint about last week’s transfer, or a hotel that was not what they booked, is a note. It is not a new visit and not a free night. Take the name. Take the booking reference. Take what they said. Put it in front of you.

A visa, a PCR test, a child’s document, Turkey, Egypt, insurance — those are notes. They are never advice. The assistant can repeat a line you wrote. It cannot decide a stamp.

How CITT handles it

1. Package, collect, or last-minute first. Then the facts that belong to that visit. Time of day is not the opening question.
2. It reads the calendar you already use before it says an hour is free, and writes the visit into that same calendar.
3. A package and a ferry are two checks, against the people who actually work those screens. No invented cabin.
4. Collect hours stay collect hours, the way you marked them. No twenty-minute quote in the hour before the boats.
5. A move is one change on a visit that started with you. An operator booking is a request.
6. A cancel goes back on the calendar the same hour, so the next caller can be offered that chair.
7. Several calls are answered at once. A July burst is not a stack of busy tones against the airline.
8. It texts after the visit is written, in the language of the call — 70+ languages — and only for what was actually confirmed.
9. What the call cannot finish becomes a tagged note — an unpublished fare, a cabin nobody has checked, a collect you do not offer, a name that will not match a passport.

What it will not do

It will not invent a free cabin. If nobody has opened the system, the caller gets a request taken, not a yes.

It will not invent a fare, a hold, or a Saturday you are not in.

It will not drop a package visit into the collect hour. It will not offer a same-day come-in on the person who cannot issue that ticket.

It will not send a confirmation for a visit that is not in the calendar. It will not put a hopeful fare sentence in that text.

It will not treat two adults and a child of six as two adults, or Thessaloniki as Athens, to make the visit look ready.

It will not decide a change, a refund, or a name correction. It takes the booking reference. A human opens the operator screen.

It will not give visa, entry, or insurance advice.

What these calls sound like

The kind of visit first. Then the facts. Then the calendar. Then only the sentence that is true — the hour is written, the cabin is a request, the collect window is the one you use.

There is no “I’m sure we have a cabin on Friday” when the screen is closed. There is no “come at eleven” when that hour is for people already at the door. There is no text for a chair the calendar did not show.

If the assistant is friendly and still writes the last hour twice, two couples meet at the desk. Put the person who rang about Crete on an hour the package person actually has, and keep Friday’s boat on its own line.

What you set up first

Put the assistant on the number on the window with a forward-on-no-answer rule, so a free person at the counter still takes the call. Then:

1. The first split. Package visit, ticket collect, last-minute come-in. One sentence, the way you would say it to a new person at the desk.
2. The calendar you already use. Who builds packages, who works the ferry screen, who can issue a ticket. A visit is written only when that person is free.
3. Collect hours. Yes or no. Until when. What may not land in them.
4. The questions for dates, headcount, ages of children, and names as on the passport. Before a time is offered.
5. Published items it may repeat, and nothing else. No “from” fare in the notes.
6. How a move and a cancel are written back into the same calendar, including the line that an operator booking is a request.
7. Opening hours, Saturday, parking, how to find the door. Facts it may say. Not bookings.
8. One line that forbids a cabin, a fare, a visa answer, or a free night from the phone.

Then read the first fifty visits yourself. Kind of visit, hour, whether a cabin was promised, whether a collect landed in a package slot. You are looking for the work nobody entered: the child of six, the second sailing, the Saturday nobody is in, the fare that was read out.

Rates for the service live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.