Travel Agency Price Guarantee?

[redginger]

We asked our Travel Agent if he can provide a price guarantee or match, in the event our guests find cheaper flights on discounted websites. He agreed to match the price but will charge our guests a $200 change fee -- so essentially the price match is only worth it if the airfare decreases over $200. Is this a standard price match offered by most travel agents? If not, would it be better to have our guests book separately through travel websites?

[royalbride610]

Well, I wouldn't say its standard...  When we booked our airfare & rooms, we purchased insurance which was $129 per person.  So we had also been monitoring for price changes when we were looking for deals for guests - so when I saw a drop in the price of airfare, I asked my TA to price match.  So she said that what we would have to do was purchase the new air (in full) from the air company, as well as purchase insurance again, and then we'd be issued a refund in a few weeks.

 

So ultimately, unless the savings were more that the $258 we would have been spending to repurchase travel insurance we really weren't getting a deal. But actually, since we'd already paid for insurance that would be a total of $516 we'd ended up spending and in the end, wouldn't have been saving anything, but spending about $300 more.

 

So if they purchased insurance, and they will have to purchase it again AND pay the $200, I'd say it's not worth the trouble.  I guess this is the very confusing thing about price matching AFTER you've already purchased your package... And it's not really explained upfront...

[Dmitri_Markine]

Many airline companies charge about $150-250 fee.  Prices do change often,but not that much,unless it's a last minute deal and the resorts still have spaces.

[redginger]

Thanks for the feedback. We're finding better pricing from discounted travel websites, compared to pricing quoted by our TA and other agents. So, we'll probably just ask our guests to book on their own, which is less stressful for us to deal with.

[torilynnsmith]

Our TA got us cheaper rates than anything we were seeing online.  We contacted several TAs before we found the right one.  The first ones we contacted we also coming back with rates higher than online... didn't make sense!

 

Our TA:

 

Pauline Blacoe

shine@shinetravel.ca

 

Give her a try she has been fantastic for us and that way all our guests will be contacting her to book rather than contacting us for every little detail!

[redginger]

Torilynnsmith: Are you using a TA for both your hotel and flights? Our hotel doesn't work with travel agents or tour operators, so we only need a TA for flights. I think this is a disincentive for TA to work with us because they aren't making huge commissions or profits on flights alone.
 

Originally Posted by torilynnsmith 

Our TA got us cheaper rates than anything we were seeing online.  We contacted several TAs before we found the right one.  The first ones we contacted we also coming back with rates higher than online... didn't make sense!

 

Our TA:

 

Pauline Blacoe

shine@shinetravel.ca

 

Give her a try she has been fantastic for us and that way all our guests will be contacting her to book rather than contacting us for every little detail!

 

[torilynnsmith]

We are doing a package.  You could contact her to see if she is able to do flights for you but you may be better off to contact the group flight department of the airlines yourself.  Sorry I can't be more help, don't have experience with just flights and TAs.

 

Pauline has been so great and informative so if nothing else I hope she'd be able to provide you some information!