Found this oldie but goodie I wrote in 2006. Same principle applies today in 2011:
A couple of years ago, my girlfriends and I got together to explore the idea of taking a trip. We choose a month long Southern Africa safari to be our trip of a lifetime. We did a lot of research, we visited lots of travel agencies (as I fully admit, I know Disney, I do not know Africa - so we needed to see an expert in that field), we gathered lots of information and knew exactly what we wanted, where we wanted to go and when. We started to put away money, figuring we would end up spending in the ballpark of more than five thousand dollars.
Then we approached travel agencies to see what sort of package they could put together for us (flight, safari, pre and post accommodations, transfers) and we were looking for the best prices. There was 6 of us at the time and we were hoping for some sort of group discount. Well, we found one. We found an agent so anxious for our sale, he came in close to $200 cheaper for the safari and then subsequently $200 cheaper for our flight each than any other agency. Let me tell you how this was too good to be true.
Three of the girls ended up having to withdraw due to pregnancy, loss of job and job commitments. The rest of us were still able to keep the initial group discount, but technically have paid for it 10 times over with the lack of service we've received. Two weeks from today, I'll be on that plane to Cape Town, South Africa and I just got my confirmation number from our travel agency a little while ago. I also just filled out the booking form from the supplier so they can release our travel documents to us. We leave in 2 weeks, did I mention that... booking form today... right...
Our initial deposit was made in February. According to the brochures we had received, a deposit of 10% of the safari was required to hold our booking, the rest due 45 days prior to departure. Our travel agent told us we needed to put down $400 on the safari and would only accept a personal cheque unless we wanted to pay a 3.5% service charge for using a credit card. Now, I know from my experiences in selling travel, any agency that asks for a personal cheque or will add a service charge for swiping a credit card is up to no good. So I raise my concerns with the travel agent. He retorted that I'm dealing with Africa now, the rules are different, then proceeded to have me make out the cheque to his agency (which by the way is not in Africa and safari alone is not costing us $4,000...)
I then emailed our travel agent numerous valid questions. Ones I thought were really easy for him like - do we need Visa's for the countries we are visiting or will passports suffice? When should we book our flight? How do our round trip ground transfers to the airport and our initial accommodations work? What sorts of trip insurance do you sell? I got quite the email - he advised to me to buy a Lonely Planet guide book for our destinations, visit the Department of Foreign Affairs web site and that I could purchase travel insurance through him at a discounted rate of $400.00 (By the way - I didn't fall for that). I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was really busy that day and went and spent the time over the next few days gathering the information myself (in my own spare time!).
A couple weeks later, we faced a very unfortunate reality - we had to change our trip dates due to a work commitment with one my girlfriends. While the supplier of the safari waived the $100.00 trip change fee because there was actually a waiting list now at this point for the safari we were booked onto, the travel agent still wanted to charge us the $100 for his time because we were a bother. He also demanded we book our flights that day too or else we wouldn't be able to pay the price he had quoted us. We said sure, we'll book our flights then, so then he told us to be at his office by 5 p.m. that day with our cheque. For anyone with a day job, you know how impossible that is and we were a tad miffed about his "personal" change fee...
I ended up in his office first thing the next morning to pay for our flights. I had my cheque and the cheques belonging to my 2 girlfriends. Again, he wanted the cheque made out to the agency, but now he threw another hitch into the equation... he couldn't get us on the same flights for the same price anymore, but he found other ones that would do. While he read back the flight itinerary, I realized that the flight was arriving in Cape Town mere minutes before our safari was to commence... I immediately jumped on that detail and said no way. What if we were delayed? He then fiddled around for about 20 minutes and came back with another flight that arrives with 5 hours to spare and it was our "last option, take it or leave it", so I took it. What did we get? A red eye flight to London, England, a 8 hour stop over and then another red eye to Cape Town. Great. What our travel agent neglected to remove from our reservation was our pre-safari accommodation at a bed and breakfast. More to come on that...
In August, one of my girlfriends received an urgent call from our travel agent. The final payment was due the next day, please bring our cheques for xxx amount. I picked up the phone and called the travel agent reciting the 45 days prior to departure date from the brochure. He said he'd call me back (but didn't) and then sent a group email saying we could extend the final payment date to September 1st, but no later. I wrote back asking for confirmation numbers and an invoice for what we had booked as he had yet to provide it. Still did not get them...
I went to his office on September 1st with my cheque and the cheques belonging to my 2 girlfriends for xxx amount. Before I would hand over the cheques however, I demanded our confirmation numbers and an invoice on paper as well as cancellation and change policies as it pertains to the airline. After much protest on his part and a lot of furious clicks on his keyboard until I swung his computer monitor around to face me, he handed over our invoice from his printer. We were being charged for our pre-safari accommodation at a bed and breakfast still that we were not going to be needing, I made him remove that. Although roundtrip transfers to the airport and meeting spot were $64 each, he was charging us $100.00. Did I mention he also wanted the cheques made out to his agency?
At this point, we had to have new cheques written as the ones we had filled out were now incorrect. I told him that I had to go to work and someone else would have to go out of their way now to bring him cheques. I got into the office and immediately "googled" the supplier company he had booked our safari, transfers and accommodations through to see how messed up our reservation was. When I explained the problems with our travel agent to them, they were more than willing to assist me and low and behold everything in their computer reservation system was how it was supposed to be. I asked if it was possible to communicate with them only from now on.
Tuesday morning, there was an "urgent" email from the travel agent. He had "attached" a form for us that had to be faxed back to the supplier ASAP. I wrote back to him ASAP to tell him there was nothing attached to the email and try again. Nothing the rest of Tuesday. Yesterday I try to call him, no answer, so I called the supplier again. They informed me we never filled out booking forms - which should have been done at booking and this would explain why we had not seen any travel documents by now. They emailed me the booking forms and now they are back in their hands... in the end, we slide just under the five thousand dollar mark each for this trip but man, what I wouldn't have given now at this point to have paid the extra couple hundred dollars and have the trip taken care of by a competent travel agent who wouldn't try to rip us off. The moral of this story - cheapest is not always best.
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