It’s becoming so popular to jump onto the internet and surf for the best prices for destinations and discounts these days. Media advertising also gives a lot of great deals when you book on line. But there are some pit falls that you need to be aware of before you book that RTW with some unknown online company.
Over the years we have done both booking online and using the old fashioned travel agent. To be honest both have advantages, but as an ex Travel Agent and with Elena spending almost 10 years dealing in corporate travel we feel we are more than qualified to discuss the subject.
There are some people who have no idea how to organize a trip and for them the Trusty Travel Agent is a life saver. If it’s a quick getaway for a few days the it’s most likely that a Travel Agent will have a “Package Deal” that will interest you. Favorite request from our clients in New Zealand was ” I need to get away for 7 days.. somewhere warm..” Afghanistan, anyone?
Travel Agents offer security in the knowledge that if something goes wrong, you gave a qualified point of contact to bail you out. I want to share a story about a great friend of mine’s trip to the USA a couple of years ago. Danny has a large family of which he is the only one living here in Australia. So when the family planned a reunion Danny, his 3 boys and lovely wife wanted to book a big 1 month trip. Danny was looking on line and checking the prices he managed to get a great online deal and so he went with that option.
All was good until Danny desperately needed to get back to Australia for business reasons. I got a phone call in the middle of the night (I hate time zones) asking if Elena could look at Danny’ s flight details because the airline wanted to charge $800AUD for a change of date to his ticket. Because he bought the ticket online through Qantas Elena was not able to see the booking in her system (just the way booking is done). But Elena with a couple of quick phone calls to Qantas was able to get the amount down to $160.
The lesson here for Danny was that if he had booked a different class of ticket the date change would have cost him even less. Sometimes it cost’s nothing as it’s just an Agents processing fee of $20-$40 to be paid. A travel agent can give you all this information when you book.
If you’re booking on line just be careful, you have no safety net should something go wrong.
Oh, one last thing…. Never ever travel without Travel Insurance.
Here’s two scenario’s that happened to us
Lost Bag – Ireland – 2007
