Hawaii Vacation Specialist-Chris

One thing that was mentioned is that if you book wholesale and not direct with the hotel or airlines you are always first to get bumped on a flight if it’s overbooked or first to get walked from a oversold hotel.  WRONG!  That is not true.  Not to say it never happens to people who book through wholesale but it’s not the reason it happens.  First of all when you book a bulk fare ticket, the ticket agent, reservationist, gate agent can’t even see how much you paid for the ticket so how are they to determine who paid more?  Their rebuttal …that they can certainly tell it was booked in a bulk fare.  Okay …that may be true but no one ever said bulk fares are ALWAYS cheaper than published fares..because it’s not true…sometimes they are and sometimes they are not it really depends.  The hotels also do not walk you because you didn’t book it through them either.  Again I’m not saying it never happens to people who book wholesale, but it’s rare.  Myself personally have not had any customers walked from a hotel and have only had one customer bumped on an overbooked flight which they were compensated for and got them on another flight.

Another thing I saw mentioned was frequent flyer miles.  Now I’m not privy to the online agencies like expedia and travelocity apparently according to the "resident experts" you can’t get FF miles on many flights booked through online agencies…which may be true, but I also heard mentioned it’s because it’s bulk fares and they are cheaper so they don’t allow you to get FF miles on many of their fares…well that my friend is WRONG.  It’s not a bulk fare that cannot get FF miles.  My customers all get their miles when I book their bulk fares so it’s not true.

Payments and restrictions on bulk fares.  I had mentioned to a person who had asked a question about booking with an online agency that they may consider a travel agent, may be able to get a better price or match it, be able to answer any questions they may have, help if there is an enroute problem or even problem beforehand and may be able to book a bulk fare which won’t even need to be paid in full upfront.  Again the "resident experts" said I was wrong and that there are no airfares that you can book and not have to pay for upfront in full and if you don’t the flight will sell out.  …WRONG AGAIN.  You most certainly can book a bulk fare with a deposit and pay in full at a later date..now this depends on how far in advance you are booking your trip.  If it’s last minute well then yes you have to pay in full..but if it’s booked in advance you have until usually 35 or 45 days prior to pay the balance for the pacakge.  We do them everyday.

Missing a flight or canceled flights day of travel.  If you miss your flight, quite frankly a travel agent , a good one anyway will try to help you out and work with the airlines, sometimes get the wholesaler involved if they have to, but in the end the airline has the final say on what can be done.  A travel agent does not have the power to just put you on another flight, we can’t just take the money back and book you another carrier for things like that.  Sure you should get your travel agent involved for some help, but be courteous because remember YOU missed your flight and there is only so much a travel agent can do for you, we can plan you a perfect trip but we can’t get you there on time.  I did mention this in the forum and well you are better off using an agent in this situation, which your agent will just have to contact the airline and try to work it out for you.  Now if you book it with expedia or travelocity, you might as well just go ahead and start negotiations with the airline yourself.  I don’t know why people put themselves through that as they mention they stay on the phone with these online agencies for hours aggrevating themselves even more when either yourself or they could have been working on it with the airlines.  Basically you simply ask them if you miss your flight if they can get you out on another flight, if they say yes great, if they say on standby okay, that is the same answer we will get.  Like my last blog said there is only so much control a travel agent has on bookings.  We are not miracle workers but we do try.  Remember if you miss your flight you are at the mercy of the airlines.  They said the airline said I had to go back to expedia to fix it, yeah well depends who is standing at the counter telling you this because I have had the situation at the airport the airline says contact the wholesaler, the wholesaler says we can’t do anything if the flight has left without them the airlines have to do it and back and forth, well ultimately the airline is the one that does have to try to fix it for you…or I wouldn’t say "has to" but normally they will.  Generally the airline will start trying to fix it, but once in awhile you get that one agent who says no go back to the person who booked it for you..well what can we do?  we can’t just move you to another flight of theirs..they have to do it, but we can certainly try to make phone calls for you as that is our job to make sure your trip runs as planned but we can’t make promises because we too are at the mercy of the airline.

I just wanted to blog about some of the untruths that have apparently been spreading on forums about wholesale and show that instead of listening to the "resident experts" on travelocity or expedia you may want to try asking a real travel agent about these things before just taking any old persons word for it.  Booking through a travel agent is not the same as booking with an online agency and should not be treated as so.

I hope this busts any travel myths that people may have had or any wrong information they may have gotten from people who were really trying to help, but not giving all the facts or only the facts of one type of travel booking system.