A. D. M. Those are three letters you definitely don’t want to see in sequence as a Travel Agent, as they mean a nasty letter from an airline and quite possibly a hefty neg next to your name – ouch!
In case you’re still living in that blissful stage of being a Travel Agent, that stage when it’s totally about necking back a few frosty brews or wines at an industry event night, making bookings left, right and centre, and, of course, having tons of fun along the way (is not being a Travel Agent totally awesome?), then let’s get a tad serious for a moment.
An ADM, an acronym for Agency Debit Memos, is an adjustment – read bill – issued by an airline when you have failed to correctly abide by an airline’s airfare rules, and are financially penalised as a result.
These days, thanks to our GDS systems correctly quoting fares automatically, ADMs are not as common as they once were.
But back in the day, when Travel Agents had to manually construct an airfare by working through fare sheets, it was possible to make a mistake and violate the booking rules of an airfare. And when you did, you’d receive a nasty little ADM in the mail or via the fax.
However, rarely were they ever as funny as this one from Vietnam Airlines below:
This was sent to a Travel Agency in San Francisco back in 1998, and as you can read for yourself, English wasn’t Manh Tuan Nguyen’s mother tongue… No judgement though, as I can’s speak Vietnamese to save myself!
(Believe me, I tried.)
But nevertheless, here are three things I learnt about the English language from this ADM:
- You can’t give someone a better compliment than just wishing them your “best compliment.”
- It’s possible for an emotion, for example, happiness, to transition into suspension when people don’t pay their way.
- And lastly, what better way to get someone to pay you than by imploring them to act on their reputation.
Finally, I love the hand written note at the bottom of the ADM, reading: “This is the most personal and amusing debit memo I have ever received.”
Yeah, I don’t think Vietnam Airlines was seeing the humour in it at the time!