TravelBuzz! - Travel Agent Woes

Help! How do I find a good travel agent?

I normally go overseas at least once a year and a few trips domestically. (I am in Australia). Mostly I see specials and jump on those. If it's not complicated, I do it myself.

This year I have a slightly complicated airfare. I am not a time waster and I know where I want to go and I am flexible. I though that I would try and find a good local travel agent to help. I went driving today. I have seen four agents and I am not impressed.

#1 Walked in, owner chatting to somebody about his car. I wait and wait, eventually somebody comes in, doesn't say a word and stares at my hand where I am holding my mobile phone and wallet. (Presumably she thought I was delivering something). I say "Hi" and explain that I am looking for an airfare. She is appalled at my required itinerary and starts typing away trying to work something out. Boss gets off the phone and she asks for help. He does, goes away and phones. Much time passes and eventually boss comes back and helps her again. Eventually after 1/2 hour I say I have to go and they can ring me. :rolleyes:

#2 I walk in and place is empty. I wait for a couple of minutes and some guy comes through chewing with his mouth open, looking cross and says "yes?" in an unfriendly manner. I leave.

#3 In an enthnic area of town, I go in and the lady asks quite politely if I need help. She doesn't understand the word Johannesburg and can't understand what I am saying. She says I must fax her and besides, the computer is down.

#4 Not exactly friendly but at least they said "Hello". It seems he wants me to only fly QF or BA as it fits in nicely (and is the most expensive).

I might add that while I am not dressed in the height of fashion, I look respectable. I am shaven, wearing black cargo type pants and a nice shirt with black shoes. I don't look like a delivery person or a derelict.

I don't care which way around and what order this would be in, but these are the cities I want to visit. Starting in MEL, JNB, LON, AMS, BER, ROM, Venice. 1 Business class and 1 economy.

I don't know if I am expecting too much, but if I go and spend many thousands of dollars somewhere, I expect at least to be greeted cordially and for the specialist to know what they are talking about.

I am curious to see if anybody will get back to me. I am still waiting for JET.......... Travel to get back to me from four years ago when four of us travelled to Europe. Business must be good.

This is probably better suited for TravelBuzz and I'll move it there.

peteropny - co-moderator

Help! How do I find a good travel agent?



AFG - Hi and welcome again to Flyertalk.

I am based in Melbourne and used to live in London - and travelled twice a year between the two (part of the reason for my rather bad FT handle!)

Anyways - I have an agent in Mel who is very good, but the downside to this being that you can never get hold of him - and he was often unaware of some of the really good specials.

Simple enough - I would check sites like bestflights.com.au and travel.com.au and would select the fare, e-mail him and then chase up to see if he had made the booking (more often than not he hadn't - but he always seemed to do it before the fare was withdrawn).

The advantages of booking through him was:

(a) he would match or better the fare from the above two companies. This DIDN'T require me to bring in a quote - becuae he could clearly see them in his system. All you have to do is say 'Malaysian Airlines - biz class for $xxxx - he would find it and off you go.

(b) even if he was only able to match the fare (which was rare - he usually bettered it) - you had the advantage of late payment. None of this 'six weeks prior to departure' rubbish. So changes or cancellations were possible right up to the last minute.

My sister made the mistake f booking MEL-LAX through a large travel company - $2699 for travel in Jan. Two weeks before departure the price dropped to $1499. No changes or refund for her through the large company - but of course if she had gone through my agent she would have saved (and she had two tickets).

The caveat - I, as the passenger, need to be aware of the rules. If a fare is only for sale to 30 April (for example), I make sure I have the money to him by 29 April.

On the multi-leg itineraries it was often difficult to make contact with my agent from London (due to the time differences) to check availability. So I simply called the airline directly, made the booking in the relevant classes (including subsets for economy), and got them to put a note in the booking for my agent to take it over. I would get the booking ref and e-mail to him.

I can perhaps see why your itinerary for your trip would cause a bit of problem - mainly by the number of european legs - I'm not sure if any ticket can be bought with this many segments in Europe (even on a RTW which is normally limited to four coupons, or six if you pay extra).

A good alternative might be to get the 'best fit' RTW, then buy separate secors via the internet for the additional sectors you need. For example, ex LHR - you could do a round trip to Rome for as little as GBP99 on BA, or GBP269 on BA using their discount club fares (perhaps not worth the difference for two hours).

If you eed any help, please let me know.
Regards

WG

AFG

I can recommend the following TA:

Mario Colonnelli
Flinders Lane FC
Senior Consultant
112 Flinders Lane
Melbourne VIC 3000
Ph. 03 9654 3733
Fax 03 9654 7392
Email: mario_colonnelli.vic@flightcentre.com

Tell him Alec Tarshis sent you - he has always been most helpful for me and my family - although I now book my tickets from BKK, I still use him for booking my parents' flight over here to LA to visit. Usually all done by email.

Hope it works out.

You can get around the sector problems that LHR/MEL/Europe FF refers to by doing a Star Alliance Round The World. All the cities mentioned are served by Star Alliance (*A).

For more information, see the *A forum (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=413).