Travel Interrupted: How the pandemic upended one CAA Member's dream trip (and how a CAA Travel Agent saved her)

In 2021, CAA Travel celebrated 60 years in the business. CAA Travel Consultants have booked hundreds of thousands of trips to all corners of the globe, for CAA Members and non-members alike. From small pleasures to big adventures, our clients always return brimming with stories to share – like CAA Member, Jacquie Wiesner. Here’s the story of how CAA Travel Consultant at CAA Sudbury helped Jacquie and her husband Ben curtail their European getaway to get home just in time as the pandemic emerged.

“When are you people getting home?” the text message read.

It had the relaxed tone of informality common between friends, which after two years of planning trips together Jacquie Wiesner and her CAA Travel Consultant had become. It was February 2020 and Jacquie and her husband were at long last enjoying their post-retirement trip – a six-week European getaway that took them to Nice, France for several weeks before capping-off in Milan, Italy.

Jacquie had booked the trip on her own. She had worked with her CAA Travel Consultant a few times (a trip to Mexico in 2018 and another to Greece in 2019), but she wanted to use other loyalty points and decided to book by herself. So, she was slightly surprised when she got the text from her consultant, especially when she mentioned a new virus spreading in Italy.

“We were enjoying ourselves on holiday and weren’t paying that much attention to the news,” she explains. “I had posted a bunch of holiday pics on Facebook, but none of my friends back home mentioned anything to worry about. Back in February (2020), it just wasn’t on anyone’s radar.”

But when Jacquie received the text from her travel consultant, she immediately picked up on the urgency of the situation when, after sharing her plans to go to Milan, her travel consultant texted back two simple words - “I wouldn’t.”

She knew then that her plans were going to need to change, and fast – and was grateful that a CAA Travel Consultant had not only reached out to alert her, but gave her information and assistance when she needed it most. In the days to follow, her consultant proved an invaluable resource to the Wiesners, helping them change their flights to return to Canada, just as Italy started to go into lockdown.

“I hadn’t even booked the trip initially with her, yet she was thinking of me being in the region and worried for our safety,” Jacquie says. “I appreciated her worldview and professional expertise. They’re not something the average person who isn’t in the travel business has.”

As for why she reached out, the CAA Travel Consultant says she was just doing her job. “When you have a client, it becomes a relationship. I’ve been in the business for 23 years, and I can tell you that success comes from building trust.”

By that measure, it’s clear to Jacquie that the travel consultant has been a success in her life’s work. “She isn’t just a travel agent. She’s a friend, she’s a family member - because she cares,” says Jacquie. “The fact that she cares is the reason we made it home in time when we did. Otherwise, we’d have gotten stuck in Milan… and I’d probably be fluent in Italian by now!”

Need help planning your trip? Book an appointment with a CAA Travel Consultant to start planning.