Me: 1, Travel Agent: Nil
A couple of weekends ago, Gypsy boy decided we should take the rough itinerary I'd planned for our pending trip to Europe, to a travel agent. This was to see if they could make recommendations, book hotels and travel between cities with their travel agent contacts, experience with the region and expertise.
We were so impressed with our travel agent's professionalism and obvious first hand knowledge of travel within Europe. We walked away wondering why we hadn't visited sooner! Due to the large and meaty itinerary we gave her to work with, she promised to get back to us within 3-4 days and we were more than happy with the timeframe.
At the same time, I have continued to work with researching the attractions of each city, rail networks, hotel rates and locations, plus ways to get between cities. My contact with hotels that I'd shortlisted showed that many were starting to book out, so when we hadn't heard back from our travel agent I followed up with emails and phone messages but to no avail.
8 days after our visit, we received the quotation from the travel agent with an airfare, recommended hotels and their rates, plus a quote for a rail pass. Firstly, the airfares were 1000dhs more expensive to the online fare we have found. Secondly, and most to my horror, upon researching the hotels she'd recommended I found they had some of the worst traveller reviews I'd ever come across and they were more expensive than the ones I had on my list! Thirdly, I'd managed to find some cheap airfares between our longest journeys within Europe so buying individual train tickets for the shorter journeys will cost us 546Euros less!
Enough ranting for now, I have more bookings to make!
2 comments:
Yeah! I'm glad that you decided to go ahead with your own itinerary, and great that you've taken it to an agent as well - Even just for the peace of mind that you're getting a great deal.
It really seems to me that there is a terrible lack of professional advise for holiday planning – except for run of the mill packages. Such a shame really…
P.s. Is GypsyDog looking forward to his holiday to Pet Hotel while you’re both away?
Heya Matty!
How was Brisvegas? ;-)
Yep, I'm really glad too that we decided to do it this way. It's taken so much time and planning but I've really enjoyed it now we're almost there with having everything sussed...
Gypsy Dog will miss us terribly and wants to come along to meet some Parisian bitches but that ain't gonna happen. Hee hee!
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