May 12, 2004
Travel agents vs. the net / plane tickets
I just read an interesting article about a Canadian travel agent who was losing market share because his customers were turning to the internet. He has strated winning back customers with a web site of his own. I suppose this isn't just an issue for Canadian travel agents. The article mentions that nearly half e-commerce spending in the US and Canada is on travel. Here in Korea, I know I always search online (or my wife does) and when we find cheap plane tickets advertised or whatever we call up that agent. But that agent would never have gotten our business without their web site.
Speaking of plane tickets, I'm flying JAL again when I go visit my family this summer (I work in Korea; they live in America). Korean Air is the only airline flying direct from Korea to New York, and their service is excellent. But they are a bit pricey. We've also fflown JAL and Northwest. Prices are similar, but JAL's flight attendants are ten times better than Northwest's. I mean I only flew Northwest once, but never again.
Posted by James Trotta at May 12, 2004 4:35 PM
I have had a lot of troubles recently booking on line.Have been double booked, given bad rooms , overcharged to cancel or change dates,charge you full price for all nites if you dont cancel within 30 days or so of stay [sometimes cancellation has to be before you make reservations to not be billed ie: I made reservations on 6-23-06 and not to pay fully I had to cancel by 6-03-06.] charged $850.00 to book a car from airport and discovered same car, same agency 15 miles away for $350.00. And the grand finally, asked if I wanted to be billed later found out that " Bill Me Later" was an 18% credit card company that double booked and double billed..Nothing resolved yet but car deal..Motels told me that they have finally caught on and 40% have their own web site. They are tired of giveing Travelocity etc. a discount rate,haveing to pay a commission to them when a room is booked,haveing the 3rd party rip off their guest by charging to cancel or change a reservation etc. etc....The new booking rule for me is to 1]check the property out on line and get best price 2]call the property and ask for best rate and if its better than on line ,take it, if worse ask if they will match on line rate [they will save commission and you will save hastle and fees for cancel,change]..Also beware , choicehotel.com is a great ,litigimate site but choice.com is almost a fraud site and you can wind up on the latter pretty easy
Posted by: marshall at July 16, 2006 5:19 AM