April 2, 2008
Choosing a travel agent: Christoper Elliott's advice and my experience
About a week ago, I decided I needed a travel agent. This was something of a departure for me since I like planning things myself. I mean I started this blog to write about all the travel plans I was dreaming up and saving for when I had time and money to do something with them.
It seems that many people are like me, whenever I link to an article about travel agents we get comments about how unnecessary they are:
Travel agents & service
Travel agents & niches (no comments yet)
Travel agents by 2020
It's not that I never used travel agents by the way. I used to recommend researching plane fares online and then calling an agent or two to see if they could beat the online prices. They often could beat or match the prices in my experience.
Anyway, my experience so far seems to match some of what Christopher Elliott says in this article. He recommends travel agents and talks about how to choose one. After all you probably want to avoid most people who are just in it for the commission or those who recently bought into the "card mill" business / scam (depending on who you listen to)!
For example NCL has two different Alaskan cruises, Sawyer's Glacier and Inside Passage. I had no idea which one would be better. I could have spent some time researching it online but instead I asked the travel agent and got this response:
I did look at both cruises, and although the one on 7/5 is less expensive, I actually recommend the one on the 6th. The difference is the Glacier visit. On the 5th, they visit Sawyer Glacier, which is a very stable glacier, and calving there is not something that generally occurs. On the 6th, the visit is to Glacier Bay, which due to its instability, is the Glacier to see, as it has the best chance of calving during your visit. And lets be honest, looking at ice that just sits there isn't all that thrilling, after all. The last time I was in Glacier Bay, the calving started on the port side of the ship, and continued around the Bay till it just reached the starboard side. Magnificent!She was also able to explain how my NCL coupons work - had I talked to her before calling the credit card company I would certainly have spent 500 points for a $500 discount rather than 400 points for a 2 person 2 category upgrade. Apparently a two "category" is like cheapest balcony to second cheapest balcony to third cheapest balcony. To me all balconies are in the same category (the balcony category). In the end we end up saving about $200 and spending 400 points instead of $500 and spending 500 points. I could blame Bank of America for not explaining the rewards well. Or I could blame myself for trying to apply my own brand of logic to a cruise line out there to make as much money as possible. Or I could just add it to my list of mistakes to learn something from and next time I need to deal with travel rewards talk to a travel agent first...
Now Christopher Elliott does say that the best test of a travel agent comes from troublesome situations so I hope I never really find out how good she is...
By the way, you may have noticed that I skipped posting on April 1st. I don't like that "fool's day" stuff so I just avoid human interaction (even online) as much as possible that day...
Posted by James Trotta at April 2, 2008 12:56 AM | TrackBack