Super cheap flights

’50% Discount!”Cut out the middle man”Its the super cheap flights on the web!”Free Insurance for a year!”Book direct and save!”No Booking Fee!’ Are you confused? Did you know the difference between a travel agent, a tour operator and a consolidator.

We do not pretend to be unbiased and we recognize that our opinion doesn’t always reflect the opinion of others in the business, but we do try and be truthful and give the facts as we see them. Hopefully you may find the pages helpful.

TOUR OPERATORS:

Tour Operators put together the varied parts of a usual vacation and sell them as package holidays.They sell their packages either direct to the general public and / or thru travel agents. The price of a vacation can change significantly between tour operators ( see examples ).

If they sell thru travel agents, they pay a commission ( sometimes a share of the vacation price ) to the agent.Most folk are acquainted with the giant tour operators like Airtours, Thomson and JMC. However, never forget that there are thousands of other tour operators out there. Many are tiny operators, focusing on particular markets or particular destinations. And their costs can be awfully competitive.Tour Operators come in for lots of feedback from customer response groups and watchdogs. While, there are, naturally, fantastic operators and awfully poor operators, we think that sometimes, customer service in the travel industry leaves a lot to be desired ( at every level, including operator to agent, agent to the shopper and operator to buyer ). Direct Sell ======== Some tour operators will only sell their package vacations direct to the patron, bypassing the travel agent. Other will sell thru travel agents and also direct to the buyer and others sell only through travel agents.’Is it not cheaper to buy direct then?’, you can ask. The answer’s'well, maybe sometime, if … And but…’. Let us explain…First we need to clear up a myth that has developed from a deplorable series of Television adverts. These adverts were engineered to discredit travel agents. One especially, pointed to the fact that travel agents ADDED commission to tour operators’ costs and so charged the customer MORE than the quoted costs.

This is absolutely incorrect and led to grumbles to the ITC ( Independent TV Commission ), which were defended.

The ITC also needed the broadcaster to stop further transmission of the announcement in its current form.The truth is, clients booking thru travel agents don’t pay more than the operator’s quoted costs.

Further details and the ITC’s controlling is available here.Right, that is that out of the way – back to the query and the answer…Generally, there’s not much advantage buying direct from a tour operator who also sells thru travel agents. The tour operators don’t desire to divide the travel agents and therefore, you can mostly get similar costs from both travel agents and ‘direct’.Tour operators who only sell direct to the general public can offer good price. They do not pay commission to go agents which should let them sell vacations a little cheaper than if they actually did.

However, remember that : * the tour operator has the additional cost of supporting the customer that would historically be borne by the travel agent ( resort and accommodation info, visa and health needs, changes to bookings etc ).

Similarly there may be better vacations available with other tour operators.Our recommendation : – only buy from a ‘direct sell’ operator if you are positively sure precisely which vacation you would like and that no other operator does it less expensive.

TRAVEL AGENTS:

Travel Agents are agents for tour operators. Sometimes, they sell package vacations ( and other products / services ) for the tour operator and are paid a commission or fee by the tour operator for doing so.

As well as package holidays,most travel agents will be offering other service and goods such as : * Travel Insurance * Flights * Automobile Hire * Ferry Crossing * Train Tickets * recommendation and info Autonomy ========== lots of the huge UK chains of high st travel agents really belong to corporations that also own the United Kingdom’s major tour operators. We class these as ‘non-independent’.Independent travel agents are those that are independent of their providers, and typically,, have bigger liberty to provision a wider range of products from a wider range of tour operators In our perspective, non-independent travel agents will always have great trouble in offering a completely equitable service to their clients. Range of Products / Services ==================== The range of products / services offered varies from travel agent to go agent. Especially, the amount of tour operators supported by agents varies considerably.Most ‘High Street’ travel agents will actively market and sell only certain tour operators’ holidays. Their ‘racking policies’ dictate which leaflets they’ll display in their shops and this is typically decided by commercial agreements with tour operators. Further, if a travel agent is non-independent, this could seriously influence which tour operators are promoted.These policies limit the quantity of tour operators that are actively promoted by sales staff. Vacations from many operators are not sold at all.At Vacation Bargains, we are commonly asked by our clients,’ Well why did Lunn Poly not offer me that one?’ ( for’Lunn Poly’, you may also read other ‘High Street’ travel agents ). The difference is that we don’t operate a ‘racking policy’ and we won’t prohibit our range of providers based primarily on the commission that they pay. More Coincidently, at the time of writing this document, one of our Vacation Bargains advisors has had an enquiry from a worker of a major ‘High Street’ travel agent, who was, allegedly, not able to find the vacation she needed at the same price as we could get. ( We found the vacation with a smaller operator which isn’t part of the same group as the travel agent ).

Selecting a Travel Agent

( Yes, its apparent what’s coming, but we passionately believe it.. ) Our recommendation is to always book thru an independent travel agent.This will not guarantee wonderful service and costs, nor will booking with a non-independent agent guarantee bad service and costs. However, we think that you’ll be much more likely to get : * actually independent recommendation and guidance * an agent with the liberty to use a good range of tour operators and other suppliers.