With the addition of the internet, people nowadays can book their flights and hotel packages online. This lets you get past having to pay a Travel Agent for their services (or artificially raising the price).
Here’s something I learned, and I’ll share it with you.
We were looking at booking a trip to Las Vegas from British Columbia, Canada. We were thinking of booking a package with Westjet as the carrier.
On a whim, while passing through the mall, we saw a travel agent that did not seem busy. (They are really not being given the business that they should).
We stopped in, and talked to someone. After logging into their specialized agent system, which was somewhat of a website backdoor into various airlines, she quickly gave us a quote that was about $s250 less than if we booked it ourselves.
“How can that be?” we asked.
Well she said, you have to be careful on the price breakdown that the retail travel websites give you. Everyone looks at the airfare price, and then quickly move through the ordering process, not reading the fine print. By the time you are done, there are all sorts of extra surcharges, levies, penalties, reservation fees, etc, that get tacked on to inflate the price.
When you book through us, we avoid a lot of those common pitfalls.
She quickly pointed out.. “Look here. See this, if I go through the website, it automatically adds on priority boarding surcharge of $20 and it didn’t even give me that as an option. It just added it on its own. Now look here, you said you were only going to bring 1 bag, but they’ve added a charge for 2. You didn’t want cancellation protection, but again, they’ve automatically added it”
She then went on to explain how the taxes are much lower by flying out of Bellingham, Washington USA, than in British Columbia. You can save yourself another $150 just by driving to the other airport across the border.
She then went on to say “if you book it yourselves, and the airline carrier goes out of business or cancels the flight (and it does happen in the USA because airlines are having financial issues), you would not be protected. However, if you book through our travel agency, you are completely covered in the event of a complication like that”..
She added a lot of insight to the while thing, and it wasn’t just a sales picture. We actually saw the savings in our travel itinerary if we went through the travel agent.
We thanked her, and took a business card. We signed nothing, paid nothing, and were under no obligation. It was a very calm, informative experience.
Understand that while you may only book yourself a couple trips a year…
These people do it 9 to 5, five days a week, every week. They know where the deals are..
The airlines, the holiday package websites, are all made in such a way, to secure the most reservations while tricking the customer into spending the most..
Don’t be fooled, and don’t cheat yourself. At the very minimum, speak to your local travel agent before you hit the “charge my credit card” button on the website when booking your next vacation.
Good luck.
