Travel Leaders MSP Travel Group

My employer uses MSP to organize corporate trips, etc, and booking of flights, hotels, etc, so I’m required to use them. They’re fast, but that’s about the only benefit — but I ended up having to fix my reservation with American Airlines since apparently their systems don’t recognize basic grammatical symbols — in this case, hyphens. My biggest gripe may be kind of odd, but it sparked a more in-​depth annoyance with MSP.
So my name has a hyphen in it. I like my hyphen. Jon-​Michael is neither Jon nor Michael. It’s one name. I’m obviously very touchy about my hyphen, and deal with endless attacks on people/​companies trying to axe it or put a space. It’s like… hyphens have only existed for, ever (alright, maybe an overstatement — but they’ve been around awhile).
So, MSP emails me a sample of my flight itinerary to New York for a company trip. Looks good — non-​stop, preferred airlines, and … wait … where is my hyphen! Someone has stolen my hyphen! So I email MSP’s travel rep … person (not sure what they’re called) … and explain the itinerary looks fine, but my name is now smushed together into one name. I wouldn’t care enough to fix it, but the last time this happened, the TSA actually held me at security for THREE FREAKIN’ HOURS until I got my airline to fix it. Yes, apparently the TSA cares about hyphens as much as I do.
I get a response saying all the airlines don’t accept hyphens and they can’t do anything about it. Uhh… I’ve lived with my hyphen for over two decades now, and I fly American primarily. I know for a fact that American has no issue putting in hyphens. I even log into
to verify. Sure enough. There’s the hyphen on three of my past flights, and on my profile.
So I email back, saying that answer is not going to fly (pun entirely intended), and explained my past issue with the lack of a hyphen on flights.
The response? «Not sure what to do now.»
Really?! REALLY?! That’s your answer?! Are you KIDDING me?! Alright, so now I’m just getting ticked. MSP rep calls American, and apparently it’s not American’s issue (Finally, the truth! The truth shall set you free!), but MSP’s booking system that is messing with the hyphen. So I just say, «Fine. Book the tickets and I’ll call American to update it — worse case, I’ll have a copy of this email with me to verify the issue.»
So I figure, hey, slight annoyance, but whatever. They sent me my confirmed flight info within 5 minutes after that. At least they’re fast.
But wait… it continues. They forgot to put in my AAdvantage member number. No problem — I can just update it on
. Point. Click. Error — wait, error?! The heck?! I am NOT losing out on a cross country flight and the miles it will get me. Oh heck no!
Well, since MSP didn’t add my AAdvantage number then, and because of the space between Jon and Michael, I have to sit on the phone with American AGAIN to have them manually add it.
Definitely not looking forward to this process again for my next business trips.
All in all… I’m not impressed with MSP.