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Why You Still Need A Travel Agent

Last year, a good friend took an international trip with a two-stop flight itinerary. Afterwards, he reflected on how beat up he felt when it was over: "Adding that third airport into the mix seemed to add a ton of extra travel this year; it was rough."

I asked how he booked the flights. He said that he'd used one of the big travel booking sites, and that the itinerary he purchased was the best combination of duration, flight times and price he could find. My response: "Next time, call my travel agent first. You'll feel a lot better when it's all over."

The following year, he did just that, and the agent came up with options that he could never have found himself using a single booking site -- specifically, a short and affordable Southwest flight that put him in an airport with countless options for direct flights to his final destination. What would have been another expensive, six-flight endurance test was replaced by a far less demanding trip.

Many travelers are discovering the following:

·  In offering more options and amenities, online travel sites have actually made it more confusing to figure out what they are selling, not less so.

·  The explosion of restrictions and fees -- many of which are not obvious to the casual travel buyer -- further muddies understanding of the bottom line on any itinerary.

·  The absence of a number of popular airlines from major booking engines -- the juggernaut Southwest being the most glaring -- eliminates what could well turn out to be a specific traveler's absolute best itinerary.

·  The big online travel sites got too smart for their own good; by tidying up and repackaging all the data each according to their own assumptions about travel purchasing, they show us what they think we want to see, but not always what we really want to see. That is, by becoming "online travel agents," rather than mere booking sites, they end up in competition with real travel agents, who can usually do the work better than computers can.

·  Despite being "smarter" and more comprehensive than ever, the typical travel booking experience has way too many dead ends. Whether it be the inability to get seats together, or disappearing fare sales, or the inability to lock in a fare for a short time, booking online is like being trapped inside a bad video game with countless trapdoors and false exits.

Choosing a Travel Agent
To deserve your loyalty and money, a travel agent must provide a service that is better, faster and more affordable than you can do yourself -- or naturally you would, in fact, do it yourself. When searching for a travel agent, I suggest asking the following questions:

·  What are the fees? This will help you figure out for which types of travel you might need help, and for which it will be worth the investment of time to do it yourself. See below for more on fees.

·  Is the agent comfortable working entirely by e-mail? Part of the point of having a travel agent book your trip is that you are freed up to do other things while the itinerary research is taking place. As such, you need a travel agent with whom you will not have to sit on the phone while she's researching your trip, or to have to make multiple phone calls to nail down the flights or hotel that you prefer. She should be able to do all of this by e-mail, with response times measured in minutes or hours, not days. My own travel agent has come to expect nearly instantaneous e-mail replies from me in return.


Choosing the Right Travel Agent

·  Is the travel agent open to suggestions from you, the customer? For example, if you go out and find a decent fare and flight combination, but for whatever reason want some of the services a travel agent can provide, does he check into the flight you suggested or simply ignore your input?

·  Is there a 24-hour solution line you can call if you get in a jam? For example, say you're flying on a Sunday night red-eye from west to east, and your flight is delayed or canceled. Is there someone you can call at 10:30 p.m. to try to get you on the best next flight, or at the very least into a convenient and affordable hotel? Note: Not all travel agents provide this service, so if you find one, consider yourself lucky.

Then as you go along, watch out for the following:

·  Does she always lead off with a very expensive itinerary? If this describes your agent, does she have a good reason, which might be the absence of upgradeable seats, aisle seats or a too-tight connection? If not, she's not really meeting our primary criteria of doing the job better, faster and more affordably than you can do it yourself.

Before I call my travel agent, I almost always check fares myself very quickly on the Web. This way I can figure out if there is a flight or hotel I can book easily myself. It also gives me an idea of the going price on the route. I briefly worked with an agent who always quoted me a very expensive fare, as if money were no object for someone who could afford to use a travel agent. The truth is that now and then I can't afford not to -- and I would appreciate it if my agent was on the same page.

·  Does the travel agent suggest truly awful itineraries? For example, I once tried to work with a travel agent who insisted on showing me international connections that required an overnight stay at the connecting airport. This would require me to collect my bags, clear customs, go to a hotel, get back to the airport, check in and check bags again, pass through security again, and then repeat the customs and bag collection again at my final destination airport.
When I objected, I was told "it's really not that bad." Multiple check-ins and customs lines are not that bad -- really? It sounded like the agent had never been to an airport -- or worse, assumed I had not, and thought he could get away with selling me a nightmare. If you are being shown too many ridiculously complicated itineraries, it's probably time to find a new agent, or book the trip yourself.


Many of us do not charge a fee because we earn our money from the travel providers - look for a good one, I'd like to recommend us, but even if you don't use us, shop wisely.


Remember two things:


First, if you book on your own on the web, you are on your own - there is no one to call when you have a problem.


Second, your best friend may not be a travel agent, BUT, a Travel Agent can be your best friend!

WHY FOLKS ARE RETURNING TO TRAVEL AGENTS

Families and Vacation Seekers who work with MELODYFARMS TRAVEL book their travel the old-fashioned way. They tell us where they want to go and what they need when they arrive, and leave it to us to make it happen.

Travel Agent’s business has been booming recently, in part because some people who've been booking their own trips on the Internet are returning to talking to Agents. Folks would just push their enter buttons on some of the websites and that is it – it’s final!!  There is no one to question, no one to ask for help, and when it comes to spending money, people are starting to turn back to Travel Agents because people care – a computer website does not!

For some travelers, do-it-yourself booking is losing its luster. A study by Forrester Research found that in the first three months of this year, 28% of leisure travelers in the U.S. who booked their trips online said they'd be interested in going to a good traditional travel agent. That's up from 23% in 2008. Another Forrester report finds that the number of leisure travelers who enjoyed using the Web to plan and book their vacations dropped to 46% last year, down from 53% in 2007.

The findings reflect a growing frustration with websites that fail to simplify an increasingly complicated travel process or to meet a vacationer's specific needs, some analysts and travelers argue.

"We believe it's a function of consumers' increasing desire to get the best value as well as the increasing amount of complexity associated with planning and booking a trip," says Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst for Forrester Research. "Planning and booking a vacation should be fun. Instead, most travel websites deliver a very clinical experience and a very intimidating experience, and one that is about as much fun as walking through quicksand. It's just not where it should be."

In addition to getting clients special rates, upgrades and perks, a traditional travel agent can help passengers avoid the headache of figuring out varying rates and restrictions on their own. Plus they can take action when a trip goes wrong, be it an oversold hotel or a natural disaster such as the volcanic eruption in Iceland that spewed an ash cloud that left thousands of fliers stranded throughout Europe in April.

"A lot of people are finding that travel has become more complicated than ever and that they need ... the assistance of professionals that are going to understand," says Paul Ruden, senior vice president for legal and industry affairs for the American Society of Travel Agents.

Websites are experiencing great business – but lack any personal interchange!

Travel websites are doing quite well. Online booking of leisure travel in the U.S. is projected to rise from $80 billion this year to $86.6 billion in 2011 and to $110.7 billion by 2014, with everything from tours to summer rentals becoming available for purchase on the Web, according to Forrester Research.

Harteveldt says there are numerous advantages to booking online. "It's open 24/7," he says. "You have access to an almost unlimited amount of information. If you have the time, if you know what you want, or even if you don't, you can explore to your heart's content. ... So it's not that the Internet is all bad."

However, he says, such sites may not match other Web-based areas of business in ease of use. "There's a lot of risk if you make a mistake," he says. "You could have purchased a non-refundable ticket and, depending on when you discover that mistake, you may be out money."

When do-it-yourself won't do

Traveler Ken Kushnir, 62, says he conducts many transactions online, but booking a vacation is no longer one of them.

He veered away from traditional travel agents for a short while, "but then after maneuvering around the Internet trying to get some stuff done, I figured it just wasn't worth it for any of our vacations or trips that were a little bit more complicated than just buzzing down to Los Angeles."

Kushnir, who lives in Healdsburg, Calif., and works in telecommunications, says that he has dealt with broken links, pages that don't load correctly and travel sites that don't accommodate specific needs, like bringing along a pet or making sure he gets a hotel room on the ground floor when he's had back problems.

Still, traditional travel agents have been disappearing. At the end of October, there were 15,087 travel agencies, including corporate travel departments and some online travel agencies, selling air travel through ARC, an airline-owned firm that provides financial services to the travel industry. That's down from 27,719 in December 2001.

"Certainly the Internet ability to book your airplane tickets and hotels contributed to it, but the economy certainly was a factor," Ruden says. And he says that an end to the commissions paid to travel agents by airlines in 2002 was a significant reason for many travel agents shutting their doors.

Travel agents have clout

Many travelers do prefer to book online.

"I enjoy doing the research, and unless the travel agent is top notch, they don't know a lot about the location, hotels, etc.," says Scott Hudson, who works in financial services and lives in Providence "I don't want to pay someone to read me a hotel description from a website."

Others switch back and forth, making their own reservations for shorter jaunts or business trips but using traditional travel agents for cruises or longer, more complicated journeys.

Two weeks ago, one travel agent got an e-mail from a client who was on her honeymoon in Costa Rica.

"They'd paid for the royal service with the butler, and when they got to the hotel it was oversold and they put them into a standard king room," she says. Burr immediately called the tour operator, and word eventually reached the hotel's manager.

"By the end of the evening they were in the top-of-the-line room, even more than what they paid for, and that would have never happened if they were on their own or booking on the web."

We recently published a story that was on CNN to which a honeymoon couple arrived in Jamaica to begin their new life only to find that the online booking engine made a mistake and they didn’t have a room.  The worst part was there were no rooms available at any of the decent resorts in the area – they have to stay in a real low class motel.  The real irony was that they arrived on a Saturday evening, having booked their honeymoon on Travelocity.  When they called Travelocity from the resort on Saturday evening, they were told that they had to call back Monday between 8 am – 5 pm to talk with customer service -  - -

If they would have booked with me, the mistake would probably not have happened, and I would have resolved it for them that evening.  So, folks, the end result is we are there for you if and when you might have a problem that needs a HUMAN to help fix it right then.

See Our New Family Fun Blog

Hello Family Travelers,
     We have a brand new FAMILY FUN Blog website that has recipes, crafts for children, family games, road trip games and much more.  We also just included a Vacation Travel Checklist to help you remember everything you need for your vacation planning.  Hope you will visit our new site, go to http://foryourfamily.wordpress.com. Hope to see you there!

Most Americans Would Consider Using Travel Agents

Despite a wealth of online resources, travel agents remain an important and valued resource for travel planning. That's according to a recent survey from global travel insurance and assistance provider Mondial Assistance USA, which is known in the industry for its Access America brand of travel insurance. The survey found that most Americans (70 percent) say they would consider using a travel agent to plan important trips and special vacations.

Nearly one-half of respondents (45 percent) say that they would consider using a travel agent for an unfamiliar or exotic destination, while a similar proportion (40 percent) would consider using a travel agent for a longer or more complicated itinerary (i.e. multiple destinations). Others say they would consider using a travel agent for finding a great deal or best price (38 percent), for tours (33 percent), in order to save time by not having to plan on their own trip (29 percent) or for some other reason (7 percent). Just three in ten (29 percent) say that they would not consider using a travel agent when planning a trip.

While just 6 percent of respondents say that they get most of their trip planning information from travel agents, that proportion is slightly higher than those who get that information through other means including TV or radio (4 percent), newspapers or magazines (4 percent) or direct mail and brochures (3 percent).

Almost two in 10 (17 perceWritten by George Dooley, Aug 3, 2010nt) say that using a travel agent for planning travel is more important than in the past, and another 8 percent say their importance has stayed the same. Interestingly, retired individuals are most likely (22 percent) to say that travel agents are now more important than ever, as are lower-income (household income less than $25,000 a year) Americans (22 percent).

Written by George Dooley, Aug 3, 2010

Best Hawaii Wedding Locations

Island weddings: Best spots for tying the knot in Hawaii

By JEANNE COOPER
SAN FRANSISCO CHRONICLE

Every season is wedding season in Hawai'i, thanks to its romantic venues, year-round warm weather and instant-honeymoon appeal. (And the same allure applies to same-sex commitment ceremonies in the islands, where legislation to allow civil unions was pending at press time.) For those who are "making it legal," a same-day marriage license costs just $60, with no blood tests or U.S. citizenship required.

While sandy settings remain popular -- so much so that most beaches now require permits for nuptials -- couples can choose from many other scenic sites, as independent wedding planners and hotel coordinators are happy to tell you. Here are five options that may be familiar to local lovers but not to the Mainland's marriage-minded, as well as some new twists on tying the knot in Hawai'i:

1. Shipshape ceremonies

The ordained captain of the 1,500-passenger Star of Honolulu performs legal weddings (and commitment cerimonies) on its 60-foot-high observation deck just before embarking on a sightseeing cruise from the Aloha Tower Marketplace. The basic captain's wedding package starts at $500 per couple, including a lei cake with souvenir server, reserved window seating, a toast and two glasses of sparkling wine, and commemorative photo, with cruise choices running from a lunch buffet with seasonal whale watching to three- , five- and seven-course dinner shows at sunset (the last with live jazz.) Private reception lounges are available for an additional fee if lots of guests are coming aboard.

Latest twist: Star of Honolulu's Rolls Royce Wedding includes the captain's wedding amenities, but adds a round-trip transfer from Waikiki hotels in a Rolls Royce and includes the two-hour sunset jazz cruise with seven-course French dinner and premium drinks. The package costs $1,655 per couple, with upgrades (bigger wedding cake, etc.) available.

2. Royal romance

Called the "Westminster Abbey of Hawai'i," Kawaiaha'o Church was the first church to be built in O'ahu, made of 1,000-pound coral slabs hand-quarried underwater and carried by canoes to shore. King Kamehameha III attended its opening services in 1842, an association with the Hawaiian monarchy that continues today: The royal pews are marked with kāhili (feather staffs), special Ali'i Sunday services honor eight royals on the Sundays closest to their birthdays, and 21 portraits of the ali'i hang on the sanctuary's upper walls.

Bridal parties who aren't church members may still walk in regal footsteps -- with a mandatory premarital counseling session, marriage license and approved minister -- by renting the historic sanctuary. The cost begins at $1,500, with decorations and minister's honorarium starting at $150 each and musicians at $75 per person; check the church's Wedding Center Web page for details.

Ultra-luxury twist: If exchanging vows in blue-blood surroundings is appealing, and your budget is well in the black, think pink. The rose-colored Royal Hawaiian Hotel, reopened in 2009 after a major makeover, offers distinctive wedding packages (also available as commitment ceremonies) in the royal coconut grove of Helumoa, a peaceful enclave off the now open-air lobby, and other picturesque sites. For the one-hour wedding packages, hosted in the coconut grove, the base price of $4,300 includes an officiant, a music duo, floral arch, bridal bouquet and groom's boutonniere, bottle of sparkling wine, two-tiered wedding cake, certificate and up to 50 chairs for guests, along with a wedding-day coordinator.

For those who'd also like a touch of Hollywood nobility on their big day, the "Pink Palace of the Pacific" recently announced new wedding packages created by event planner David Beahm, who designed the nuptials of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. The overnight packages, named for Hawaiian royalty, include chauffeur service from the airport, welcome leis, lomilomi massages at theAbhasa Spa, dinner at Azure or in a private cabana, a suite with breakfast in bed, wedding-day leis and bridal bouquet, and an hourlong photograph session, among other amenities; prices begin at $9,500 plus tax. (As with most hotel packages, wedding party members also receive discounts on room rates and spa treatments.)

3. Waterfall weddings

While Hawai'i has no cataract known as Bridalveil Falls, à la Yosemite, some cascades could earn the nickname as a photo backdrop. Wedding coordinators such as Merry Maui Weddings and Aloha Maui Gay Weddings can arrange nuptials at a private estate in Ha'ikū, on Maui's North Shore, where a waterfall tumbles dramatically down a steep cliff into the ocean. The approximate cost to use the unique cliffside perch begins at $1,650 for two hours, with additional fees to host a reception. For a location closer to the Valley Isle's resorts, photographer Vincent Salamander of Merry Maui Weddings also recommends the Tropical Gardens of Maui in 'Īao Valley. The intimate venue includes a koi pond with three-tiered waterfall, labeled botanical gardens and a Victorian-style wedding gazebo; the rental fee starts at $475, with a maximum of 20 guests.

On O'ahu, Captain Howie performs weddings and same-sex commitment ceremonies in Pukalani Falls Hawai'i Wedding Garden, his tropical oasis across from Waimānalo Beach; couples can get exchange vows in one location and shoot photos in the other. In addition to the natural-looking waterfall, the garden site includes a koi pond fed by two brooks and several parrots that will pose with the happy couple. The base rate, which includes consultation, an audio CD recording, conch shell blowing and toast with sparkling apple cider, starts at $225, with many other services available.

Rugged twist: Thanks to Ride the Rim Outfitters and Kona Weddings, adventurous couples can drive an ATV or ride in an open-air Kawasaki Mule to the rim of the Big Island's Waipi'o Valley, where a two-tiered, 60-foot waterfall flows into pools fringed by banana trees and wild ginger. After the ceremony, the wedding party can take a dip in the pools; the ride back includes magnificent views of other waterfalls across the 3-mile wide valley, which lies almost 2,000 feet below. The site fee is $1,500, with separate charges for other necessities arranged by Kona Weddings. Fastidious folks have the option of a van ride -- or just their wedding outfits, to keep them pristine -- to the waterfall.

A Must See: Hawaii's Volcanoes At Night

Taking a hike around the volcanoes at Hawaii are thrilling, but see them at night and it's even more spectacular.   For a unique way to see these awe-inspiring displays of nature, Hawaii Forest & Trail is offering a new Twilight Volcano Adventure— a full-day exploration of  Hawaii Volcanoes National Park that really comes into the best beauty at sunset where lava meets the sea on the coast of  Kalapana, Hawaii.

The new Twilight Volcano Adventure departs the Kona-Kohala Coast in a comfortable customized 12 passenger van and traverses the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa—two of the world's largest mountains which are inhabited by some of the rarest plants and animals on earth; a real thrill for the nature lovers.

Upon arrival at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii Forest & Trail's Interpretive Guide will lead nature lovers to the must-see spots and hidden treasures of this World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Preserve. The afternoon includes a short flashlight exploration through Kaumana Cave and an up-close view of the current billowing eruption at Halemaumau Crater, legendary home of the fire goddess Madame Pele.

As sunset approaches, the tour heads north to Kalapana to view the flow at twilight, when lava glows red against the blued backdrop of dusk. The journey concludes with a sit-down dinner in the rustic old plantation town of Pahoabefore returning to the Kona-Kohala Coast.  Tour itineraries may vary due to any unexpected  volcanic activity during the day.