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Post by mary on Oct 15, 2014 13:55:55 GMT
Just a general question ~ When you book a tour, do you use a local travel agent, directly through the company, or do you use an online company to book?
I use a local travel agent as I like her overall service that she provides me.
I recommended Trafalgar to a friend who went with me to a local Travel Expo recently. She booked her first trip with Trafalgar this week through Vacations To Go and told me it was $100 less than through my local travel agent (she has used the same travel agent in the past, but only for one cruise). I'm wondering how Vacations To Go could offer a TT for less or if it's just an incentive they promote to book with them. I didn't even know they booked tours until I checked their website, I thought they were strictly cruises.
When I'm spending a lot of money for a tour, I like knowing someone local is handling the details vs. someone over the phone; yet, I don't want to pay more.
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Post by tiffany on Oct 15, 2014 14:39:55 GMT
Hi Mary, I always book through a travel agent because if there’s a problem with the booking (which has happened to me in the past) I like that I can call or email my travel agent for help. I know I pay a little bit more by using my travel agent, however, it’s worth it to me to know that she’s there if I need her. Also, I can collect Air Miles with my travel agent, and use them towards my travels, so that offsets the cost of using a travel agent. I do know that Cosco Travel in the States offers discounted prices on Trafalgar tours if you book with them, but Cosco in Canada doesn’t.
I’ve never been to a travel expo, and I don’t even know if we have them here in Canada, but some friends of mine from Australia went to one a few weeks ago, and were able to get a huge discount off of their tour of Italy and Sicily next year just for attending. He still used a travel agent to book the trip though.
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Post by chech on Oct 16, 2014 1:41:27 GMT
Same here. I prefer the travel agent. Even if they cost $100 more, the comfort of knowing I can call them 24/7 if something comes up is well worth it. When I was in China, I needed to change my Toronto-St. John's flight to the next day and get a hotel in Toronto. I emailed them and with a little back and forth, they had it all taken care of within 30 minutes. And after my first few tours, they started paying for my insurance. Saved me thousands. For the Panama trip, I paid for my insurance but they got me a flight at a special rate $1000 less than anywhere I could find it online.  |
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Post by Oz-T on Oct 16, 2014 2:02:52 GMT
In Australia, Trafalgar does not operate as a retailer so we have to book tours via a travel agent. It's the same price as the brochures and they don't discount anything. The TA does perform a useful function here because they take on the responsibility to align flights and accommodation with the tour dates. Like Chech, I find that level of accountability is worth having.
I also usually get better flight and travel insurance deals through the TA so I use them for the tour booking, flights and insurance. Last June I also got a good deal from the TA for car rentals in Europe. Where the TA fails me is in two areas:
Hotels - I almost always find the best deals online and my TA can never match these.
Rail - If I choose to use Eurail I do that bit myself. The prices are the same or cheaper than the TA can get and I like to be directly involved without an intermediary.
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Post by Tulips on Nov 1, 2014 10:51:15 GMT
I use a travel agent as well for big trips. Except for my upcoming a London a Jaunt. As thus us hit a tour and booking the package was simple, I just did it myself.
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Post by sherrie74 on Nov 1, 2014 16:43:38 GMT
I have now been using a company called Discount Coach Tours discountcoachtours.ca/ as they give you an additional 10% off your bottom price. Ex ... any discounts you get from the tour company for returning customer or any other discounts available ... you get a discount from DCT's. We also got a $50 voucher for any optional tour we took. You can either call them or go through internet, and your documents will be mailed to your from the tour operator or pick them up at nearest office of the tour operator. Before we used them the first time we called Trafalgar to inquire how they felt about them, and were told DCT's were now exceeding many other major travel agencies in referring business to them. We found them very knowledgeable and helpful. One person who we dealt with called me to say he had talked to someone just back from trip we were taking and loved it and just wanted me to know what he had heard. Definitely above and beyond. When you are talking about a tour which is going to cost a few thousand dollars .. saving another few hundred could be part of your spending money on the tour .. win win. |
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Post by Oz-T on Nov 1, 2014 22:52:38 GMT
That's a great tip, Sherrie.  So this company packages a variety of coach and river tour companies (Trafalgar, Globus, Cosmos, Contiki, Avalon, Uniworld etc). It sounds like it's well worth looking at, although it's more directed at Canadian customers. |
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Jen
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Post by Jen on Nov 1, 2014 23:03:40 GMT
For Australian members: I've used an online company called Global Journeys (globaljourneys.com.au). They offer a discount on the price as well as the Trafalgar/Insight discounts for repeat customers, second tour etc. They were very responsive to my emails and overall were very good to deal with.
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Post by californian on Nov 2, 2014 0:31:51 GMT
In the US, members of Costco (big box store) get 10% discount and 5% on airlines, in top of the other Trafalgar discounts, so it amounts to almost 23-24% with early payment. But it's only for Trafalgar coach tours, and not for insight for example. I am considering similar tours with both companies, I like Insight's much better, but I am going to miss not having the extra 10%, if I pick Insight, (plus the single suppl is much more as well)
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Post by chech on Nov 2, 2014 14:41:00 GMT
Travel agent all the way. My TAs have saved me thousands by covering my insurance for many of my trips. On the Panama, they gave me the TA rate on my flight and saved me $1000 off what the AC website or TT offered. That, on top of the 5% savings from TT, is like 25% off this tour. I like having them as a contact in case something goes wrong. I have their 24/7 phone number. And there's nothing more fun than walking into their office with a dart and asking to see a map of the world.  |
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Post by sherrie74 on Nov 2, 2014 14:55:40 GMT
That's a great tip, Sherrie. So this company packages a variety of coach and river tour companies (Trafalgar, Globus, Cosmos, Contiki, Avalon, Uniworld etc). It sounds like it's well worth looking at, although it's more directed at Canadian customers. Yes, only for Canadians. I meant to put that in original post but thought of it after and I didnt see an "edit" button anywhere. Also with some TA's it takes over a week or more to actually get your confirmations that trip is booked but we were surprised that we had the confirmation within a few hours in our email. They were right on the ball advising us a few days prior to when the final pymt was due also. As above poster said ... if all things fall into place and you save close to 25% in total .... perfect. I know their office is in Ancaster, near Hamilton, but we get the feeling that the agents "may" be taking calls from home as there is never any rush in talking, they are more than willing to discuss other destinations and opinions on which is a better trip etc. My friend called the other day as she really wants to do a trip I am not interested in and they talked for over 30 minutes on the differences of 3 companies and which was a better bang for buck trip. Only thing else to mention which I am sure others have mentioned in other posts is to try to book flights yourself as most TA's are charging a fee for doing it now. Happy travels all!! |
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Post by chech on Nov 2, 2014 16:18:12 GMT
Hey Sherrie, You can find the edit key across from your name at the top of the post...next to 'quote.'  I'm in Canada and I've never had to wait for confirmation of a booking through my TA unless TT has a tour listed as Request and in that case, everyone waits (especially if it's for a tour run by a sub...they have to contact them). In the case of a Request, I wait no more than 24-48 hours. If one is booking with a TA in which it takes a week for any kind of confirmation, I'd say they should definitely find a new agent. If they're in Newfoundland...I can refer them to a couple of great gals. LOL I like to sit in the office with the agent as she makes all the arrangements with TT so that I can keep interrupting her to add information. Yeah...she loves me. LOL |
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Post by chech on Nov 2, 2014 16:25:37 GMT
P.S. I love your avatar! |
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joyb
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Post by joyb on Nov 2, 2014 16:28:07 GMT
I use a travel agent as well booking through Alberta Motor Association. Just booked my next trip a couple of weeks ago and decided to go with Insight....Focus on Ireland. I was quite surprised to not only get the 10% early booking discount but also the additional 5%! It's my first trip with Insight but my travel agent said that I qualify for the 5% also as I had booked with their sister company, Trafalgar in the past. Quite happy with that and looking forward to trying out Insight tours.
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Post by chech on Nov 2, 2014 16:43:34 GMT
Yup, that's typical. I've gotten the 5% regardless of which one I booked with. The biggest difference you'll find with Insight is the legroom and smaller group. Maybe more meals included. |
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Post by californian on Nov 2, 2014 21:01:16 GMT
I wouldn't know about the meals, but on the tour I am looking now it states that the value of the otherwise optionals that are included with Insight amount to over 470 U$D, which is very good. Chech, did you find that there were fewer optionals than in TT?
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Post by chech on Nov 2, 2014 21:23:27 GMT
On the four Insight tours I did, there weren't a lot of optionals offered. Thinking back...the Blue Lagoon is the only one in Iceland. No optionals in Israel or Jordan....and two in Utah. More evening meals were included than I'm used to with TT. In fact, I found the evening meals were a bit much. In Iceland, they took up the whole evening. No time to go out and walk around, shop, explore....I regretted not skipping one of the meals in one of the larger towns. No Be My Guest experiences with my Insight tours...not sure if they offer them - that something I like with TT. The legroom also doesn't apply to all Insight tours. Israel and Jordan don't offer it for sure. Utah did - in spades and Iceland was a regular bus but half empty. |
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Post by karter on Nov 7, 2014 6:20:03 GMT
We always use a Travel Agent. They are worth any extra you may have to pay as we found out last year when our European River Cruise was cancelled due to flooding.
Andrew made all the new arrangements requred which included getting us from Vienna to Brussells and then to Bruge to board our new cruise as well as arranging hotel nights and transfers etc.
If we had to organise all that in a country where we were already having diffucilties getting people to understand what we wanted it would have been a a nightmare.
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Post by tiffany on Nov 7, 2014 12:41:38 GMT
I have now been using a company called Discount Coach Tours discountcoachtours.ca/ as they give you an additional 10% off your bottom price. Ex ... any discounts you get from the tour company for returning customer or any other discounts available ... you get a discount from DCT's. We also got a $50 voucher for any optional tour we took. You can either call them or go through internet, and your documents will be mailed to your from the tour operator or pick them up at nearest office of the tour operator. Before we used them the first time we called Trafalgar to inquire how they felt about them, and were told DCT's were now exceeding many other major travel agencies in referring business to them. We found them very knowledgeable and helpful. One person who we dealt with called me to say he had talked to someone just back from trip we were taking and loved it and just wanted me to know what he had heard. Definitely above and beyond. When you are talking about a tour which is going to cost a few thousand dollars .. saving another few hundred could be part of your spending money on the tour .. win win. Good to know Sherrie. Although I am very happy with the Travel agent, and she pulls strings for me when she can, she doesn’t give me an additional 10% off the tours I book. Unfortunately, the early payment discount and return customer discount don’t apply to my next tour, which is of Greece, so it would be nice to get 10% off from the travel agent. |
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