When I tell people I am a travel agent, I often get the following response - I like to plan my own trips, why would I need a travel agent? Well let me tell you why!
Here is the story of the perfectly planned (by me, of course) vacation for my clients. I will call them Amy and Bill, although that is not their real names. They were flying to Athens three days early for a Greek cruise to do a couple tours in Athens, before they set sail.
They arrived at the airport three hours before their departure and after waiting in line for 45 minutes and not moving at all, I got the dreaded phone call from Amy saying I don’t think we’re going to make our flight. She explains the situation and I tell her to hang on. While she is in line, I look for a later flight and find one. Sure enough, the flight was cancelled due to some issues at the airport so I booked them on the later flight. As they are walking up to the desk to check in for their new flight, that flight is cancelled as well.
So it looks like it will be a hotel for the night. Bill requests dinner at the Capital Grill so I jump into action and find one 10 minutes away from the airport and luckily it has a nice hotel 1 minute from it. I reserve it for them and they hop in an Uber to the hotel to check in and enjoy a nice meal. This is when my “real” work begins.
As I mentioned, I had scheduled tours for them in Athens. With being a day late, this means they would miss one - the BIG city tour. I reach out to “my guy” (Yeah, I have a guy, and he is amazing) and explain the situation. The next morning, we have managed to combine 2 of the tours into one so that they will still be able to see and do just about everything. Hotel, and private transfers are also notified of the flight changes. All is good right?
An hour before Amy and Bill are set to fly out (again), I get a notice from the cruise line that they have changed the itinerary. Not only have they changed the order of the ports, but they have substituted 1 port for another. I email Amy with tour suggestions for the new port and call her to let her know of the change and the email I sent. I then email “my guy” again with the new itinerary and let him know we have to change the dates for the tours. He says no problem. Do you want me to send you some options for the new port? I replied - I already booked them before their flight took off (because a good travel agent knows what her clients like). Oh and “my guy” had everything changed by the time they landed in Greece.
I checked in with them on their cruise and asked how everything was going. Bill said “It was wonderful - Thanks to you!” That’s all the thanks I needed.
Fast forward to their return flight - yes I was up texting with them at 1:45 am my time to make sure they made it to the airport safely and then again 4 hour later to make sure they made their connection. I may have been a little tired that day, but it was worth it. And I know they were very happy knowing I had their backs. At one point, Bill even texted me telling me I could go back to sleep - which wasn’t happening until the plane took off.
And that is why YOU need a travel agent.
Sara is the owner of Platinum Travel. She customizes seamless, stress free vacations for people who want to see the world and all things Disney. She can also help you with planning the "surprise."
She also owns Autism Friendly Vacations where she helps families who have a member on the Autism spectrum get the vacation they deserve. Visit AutismVacation.com for more information.
You can reach her at 414-377-8611 or Sara@PlatinumTravelWI.com to start planning your vacation today,