Booking Online or Booking Offline?
Just this week I booked a great package holiday to Thailand. A great, highly rated, boutique hotel with flights from Dublin (with only one change and a super connection) and private transfers. The total price to the client was under £800 per person. The client needing to find out more details on the flights went online and discovered that the airfare alone on this airline’s website was over €1,000 and this is before adding hotel and transfers!
This is because a Travel Counsellor like me has access to airfares which are not published, or sold online and are only for the benefit of packaging a holiday. I should also add that the package is ATOL protected and fully financially protected by the Travel Counsellors Trust, the airfare bought alone is not.
I also regularly hear of people who get into difficulty whilst abroad, due to illness, accidents or weather affected issues. Those who book themselves independently are left to their own devices to solve, as legally I can only get involved with bookings that I have made due to data protection. When these issues happen to my clients, I can deal directly with the travel suppliers, change arrangements and more importantly be that person at the other end of the phone to offer reassurance, help and advice. All this support is of course provided free of charge – I care about my clients. Many people think that none of these issues will ever happen to them – until it does!
Now some trips are certainly easy to book online, a short flight for example. However, I see some really complicated bookings made where if one component fails the rest of trip collapses like a ‘house of cards’ costing the client huge amounts of money that could have been avoided. Many people think that by using Google they can get all the answers, just remember many airlines and operators pay Google to get the best position on their searches and those companies are not necessarily the cheapest or the best. If you think that you are qualified to put together a complicated long-haul trip then you should know the rules and conditions of a Cat35 ITX airfare. If you don’t then you should use a professional.
So, in closing, sometimes it is better to book online and sometimes it is better to use a professional, not only for peace of mind but also price and protection. The best way to find out is to give me a call, my advice is free. I also create amazing holidays, often using suppliers and tour operators that you will have never heard of, I use them because they are the best.