Five Things Travel Agents Can Do That You Can’t

You may have mastered the art of searching for travel deals and packages online. You may enjoy doing research on your own before booking your trip. You may even enjoy reading the unlimited list of reviews before drawing your own conclusion. However, as good as you are at doing these things, there are just some very important things that a trained travel expert can do, that regular consumers just can’t.

1. How To Properly Rate Hotels

Review sites are mostly made up of biased or fake reviews submitted by the hotel staff or a client that is a huge fanatic of the hotel, or one that is extremely pissed off due to not getting compensated for an isolated incident so they are now extremely unhappy. The fancy wording on the booking websites or the enhanced or outdated images normally does not give a 100% accurate representation of what you are truly getting. If you want to know the truth about what a hotel’s experience is truly like, you need to speak to a travel agent who has either sold that property several times and or has visited the hotel on site inspection trip. The objective of all online booking website is to have you make a booking. The objective of the travel agent is to win you over as a long-term client. Due to this, their first priority is to create the best possible experience for you. So when you need an authentic review about a hotel, ask a travel expert.

2. How To Create A Personalized Itinerary

When you search for travel packages online, most websites only give you the option to search by location, product name, star rating or a combination of all. What they forgot to ask you is what type of experience are you looking for? What’s your preference in food, weather, ambiance. Do you have special needs around accessibility or diet, what are the things that are most important to you? These are all the things that your Travel Agent will ask you before they start suggesting where you should spend your money and vacation time.

3. How To Prepare You For The Unknown

Your online booking site forgot to warn you that your hotel of choice will be undergoing renovations during the time of your stay. Or, that the travel dates you have selected are in the middle of the rainy season and it is very likely that you will have 7 days of very little sunshine. You got excited about the beautiful beach cabanas you saw in the picture, only to later find out that those are reserved for only those who have bought the $30,000 time-share package. A travel agent will take the time to find out and provide you with this information if it is something that they do not already know.

4. How To Create Availability

Not because you have searched every single major booking engine online, or even call the hotel directly and they told you that the hotel is completely sold out, this does not always mean that there are no possibilities of you getting a room. A travel agent knows that sometimes a private vendor may have blocked a portion of rooms on a contract, and all they have to do is contact that vendor. A travel agent may also have a strong relationship with a hotel and may get the hotel to “Create Availability” for their special client.

5. How To Get You Out Of Problems

Have you ever lost your luggage, missed your connecting flight and show up at the hotel a day late only to find out that your reservation is cancelled due to the “no-show” factor? Have you ever had an emergency situation occur that has forced you to have to cut your vacation short and you need to change your flight date going home? If you booked your trip online on your own, well… you are stuck dealing with these issues on your own, causing you more stress and headache. If you used a travel agent, these are the times when the value of a travel expert is immeasurable. Not only will they go on the phone lines and try to fix the problem for you, they will leverage relationships to call in special favors to get things done that to you seemed impossible.