Hello everyone.

First of all I need to mention that I am a travel agent from International Travel Network, based in San Bruno, CA and not in India or Russia as some people did mention before, with a shade of racial intolerance.

I registered here today because I had a client who pointed me out this place and told me he read a lot of negative reviews about the agency and he has doubts about purchasing his tickets with us, even though the price is considerably lower than any market price. In my experience working for ITN, over 2 years now, I am used to hear all kinds of accusations and being pointed out different forums where people write a lot of bad reviews. This is obviously natural, since we live in a society where pleasing every single client is simply impossible even though the tendency is such.

I want to go through some main points mentioned here, and especially the negative ones, hoping I will clarify the situation a little bit for some people and help understand how the company works.

I would like to start from the experience of searching the flight you need, since a lot of complaints are about the difference between the advertised fare and the actual one being quoted by the travel agent you call. Now everyone will have to agree that advertising has the main role of selling the product and pinpointing the advantages of a product on the market. I will be honest and say:yes, the price that will be quoted to you will be higher than the one you obtain while completing a search, and I will not start explaining what exactly is added to the price in terms of taxes, fees and fuel surcharges but I will reach out for an example. There are 10 travel agencies, 9 of them will show extremely low prices in their advertising , the 10th will put up the prices exactly as they are. A potential customer is looking for a flight and sees those 9 companies that have low fares and sees the 10th that has prices a lot higher in comparison to the first 9. Tell me please what are the chances the ticket will be purchased at the 10th agency, since the customer will try calling the first 9, even though they will have same prices. This example illustrates the reality on the travel market and all the travel agencies have to play by the same rules. And though this advertising of the lowest fare existing might somehow mislead a "fist timer", an experienced traveler knows that he has all the web resources at his disposal to check prices, compare prices and purchase the best deal out-there. So there is no need to complain so much about the higher prices quoted from our agents since our mission, ultimately, is to sell you our product, to sell the flight that will meet your travel needs and will be the best offer on the market and if in the end it is not, there is nothing to lose besides 5 minutes of your time being on the phone with a travel agent.

Now what concerns people who complained about "unprofessional" travel agents that they encounter, it is absolutely natural that in a huge corporation there will be people that might not meet your requirements of an ideal travel agent even though they all passed highly qualified trainings and met all the requirements to get a job within our company. So if you didn't like a travel agent you got the chance to deal with, it is not a reason to say the company is a "scam" or the "customer service is the worst ever". I don't think if one day you are purchasing a camera at a Best Buy and the vendor will not smile at you, you tell that Best Buy has the worst service ever and you will never consider them for any of your next purchases, since individual cases can not be qualified as a general truth. The same works with prices, if we are not providing you the best price for a flight to Paris it doesn't mean that next time you are flying somewhere else, to Beijing for example, you don't have to try again. The market offers us, consumers, the ultimate choice and we have to use it. When I buy something I always research more than one places and if this time I bought a camera from Fry's next time I will still check Best Buy. So the choice is yours and dis-consideration for the simple fact that you had 1 experience with an agency that you qualify as unsuccessful might take away from you an opportunity.


Now lets talk about rules and restrictions and situations where you payed extra to exchange tickets or cancel your trip. The easiest way is to give an example of the most common situations. We provide Discounted Business Tickets, to all destinations and we are really competitive with that. I will not explain how consolidators work and why exactly they have better deals than the airline itself since someone mentioned earlier the whole process, but i will try to concentrate on the example of changing dates and paying penalties. First you are purchasing a discounted airfare, lets take a business class to Dubai, while on DELTA.com, it may cost up to 6000$ you are purchasing it for 4500$ from us, you definitely feel the savings on this one. And when people start complains about paying penalties for changing the flight dates the don't think about the fact that any discounted business ticket has restrictions, which by the way, are ALWAYS mentioned by the travel agent you are dealing with. At this point you have an alternative, if your dates are not set in stone, if you are not sure about the schedule you might either wait, and end up paying more for the flight due to seat availability or purchasing a PUBLISHED, exchangeable airfare from the official website of the carrier. You payed 6000$ but you can change the dates easily without penalties. The other case is when you have all your meetings set up, and you know with a very high degree of certainty the dates you must travel therefor why overpay if you can fly discounted and save big time, admitting the small risk that you might in the end need to switch to different dates and pay 250-1000 $ for an exchange (because fare rules vary greatly, I cannot quote a single penalty amount valid for all exchanges). That is why you must place yourself in one of these categories first and afterwords make the travel arrangements.



I will be glad to answer any other questions or engage in a conversation with anyone who wants to discuss some issues he/she had with our company. Also I am available 10AM-4PM Pacific time at our office 877 598 6599 or my cell 415 230 0046


A.J.

A.S.T.A American Society of Travel Agents

"Flight is the only truly new sensation that mankind achieved in modern history"