Walk into any retail travel agency in Australia and you’ll find a wall full of advertising, stacks of brochures and a list of airfare prices to major cities…
…so when you sit down, you might point towards the window and ask when that fare is available; you might ask for a brochure on Hawaii; or you might ask about the 15% off Insight tours offer.
They might be the wrong questions for you to ask.
Why? Because we literally offer millions of products, so our window would have to be the size of North Dakota to display all of them. So try and think of us less like a McDonalds and more like an architect – an architect to your dream holiday.
So here are a few things that we can do for our clients that not everyone knows about.
1. We can help you use your frequent flyer points
Booking your own complex flight itineraries with a credit card can be hard enough, but trying to negotiate the rules and intricacies of different frequent flyer programs can turn even the calmest people into raving lunatics within minutes.
I can’t even count the amount of customers I’ve heard booking flights themselves in the wrong booking class and then finding out they couldn’t upgrade with points. Good agents will help you use your caches of points and make sure you get the best value as well.
2. We can change your hotel bookings without fees
Travel Agents generally book hotels through wholesaler groups. One of the benefits of doing it this way is being able to change your reservations without penalty.
As long as we’re given plenty of notice (normally 1-7 days) we can swap you to a different hotel, change your dates or even defer the credit to a completely different trip – without charge.
3. We can tailor-make your own special group tour
If our clients have a large family, group of friends or simply don’t want to travel with strangers then we can arrange a personalized tour to fit their needs.
We’ll work with experienced, legitimate tour operators to create a trip just for you. Just give us a budget and we’ll do the rest!
4. We can book fares that aren’t available online
Even the most experienced “flight hackers” know they need to use a Travel Agent to book a lot of great fares.
You’ll be surprised to hear about a few famous fares out there that are actually too confusing for computers to handle – they require a human to book them in. For example, there are fares that offer unlimited stopovers in a multitude of airports for the same price as a simple one-way.
If you’ve got time to spare and want to tick off a few new cities, ask us.
5. We can obtain waivers and favours
Some customers don’t know how to spell their own names – I’m not kidding. Dozens of dopey passengers turn up to the airport every day with tickets booked incorrectly. For example: I’m Matt to my friends, but Matthew to my airlines (and my Mum when she’s angry).
Check in staff will generally not care too much as they have 300 people behind you to check in, so you’ll be tossed to the side and left to your own devices.
Booked online? You’re screwed.
Booked with an Agent? Call us, we’ll pick up the “Bat-phone” and get it sorted – 95% of the time.
6. We can hold your booking
Do you need a day or two to get your money together? No worries – leave a small deposit and we’ll guarantee your fare for a few days. Every ticket obviously has its own set of rules, but we can usually hold your seat for up to a week. Just ask.
7. We accept credit card points as payment
If you’ve got 200K credit card points up your sleeve then you might want to think about using them. Most banks will try and steer you towards using their own in-house travel agencies – but would you trust a bank to book your holiday? Also, the value is usually terrible.
Check if you can cash your points in for Westfield vouchers, as most major agencies will have branches there – or you may be able to obtain vouchers directly for your favorite agency.
