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VacationInformation Travel University Travel 101
How to Choose a Good Travel Agent
(Reverse the article to see what makes a yucky one!)

  The good news is that the travel agents we connect you with have already self-selected themselves as being better than average. Because they pay a referral fee to us, and because they know they're in a competitive situation with other travel agents, only those who are confident they can earn your business are likely to respond to your travel request.

The following is a list of key factors to consider in choosing a travel agent. You probably won't need to consider every factor for every trip. Obviously when you're simply seeking a two-night package vacation to Vegas, you need less input from a travel agent than when you're planning a two month tour of Africa.

Quality of the Travel Agency
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Some of the factors to consider relate to the travel agency the agent works for. A good agent can be made better when they are working for a good agency. A good agency has probably been in business for at least a few years. This has given them time to build a 'track record' and to amass some negotiating clout with suppliers and has given them the corporate experience at dealing with issues and problems, so as to create their own internal systems and management procedures to help your booking go smoothly.

A good agency probably belongs to a travel agency association. The two main associations in the US are the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) and the Association of Retail Travel Agents (ARTA).

Most good agencies also are accredited by the airlines to issue tickets. The two accrediting bodies are the Airlines Recording Corporation (ARC) for domestic airlines and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for international airlines.

A good agency probably belongs to some sort of agency buying group or consortium or franchise. This gives it access to preferred rates at hotels, and gives it extra commission with other suppliers - extra commission which they might choose to share with you, or at least use to ensure you don't have to make any out-of-pocket payments to the agency as well.

Full-service or limited-service agency
Can the travel agency help you with all your travel plans or is it unable (or unwilling) to help with some parts of your vacation? Usually you'll prefer to make all your arrangements with a single travel agent/agency so as to minimize possible errors that can occur when booking different portions of your trip through multiple sources or methods.

Full-time or part-time agent
Generally you want to deal with a travel agent who does this for a living, full-time. You usually don't want to have someone who works as a travel agent part-time only, because plainly they have less opportunity to get experience dealing with clients like you, and less personal commitment to succeed in the travel industry.

Specialization in the travel you're looking for
We believe it is impossible for one person to be a specialist in everything and to know all about the entire world.

You want to use an agent who specializes in the type of travel you're considering.

Experience and knowledge
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A travel agent who has had some years of experience is more likely to have encountered most of the tricks and traps that can sometimes lurk unexpectedly out there. There's also more reason to believe that veteran agents are committed to the travel industry and are likely to remain so, at least until your travels have been completed.

As well as general industry experience, you want an agent who has personal and recent knowledge of the travel products they'll be recommending to you. This probably means they should have visited the destinations you'll be visiting, and done much of the same touring you'll be doing. Hopefully they have stayed at the same hotels, and have done so in the last two or three years.

Agents can also supplement their personal experience by sending other clients to the places you'll be going and then getting feedback from those people upon their return, and by attending seminars and 'road shows' by suppliers and destination tourism companies.

There are some semi-formal industry training programs some agents choose to take. They might have passed a Destination Specialist course for the region you're traveling to - either one offered by the region itself or by a recognized travel agency school. They might have received training in cruise lines/cruise ships, and they might also have general travel management training.

References
While we're on the topic of "other clients," feel free to ask the agent if they have some satisfied past clients you can speak to as a point of reference.

Ease of contact
You want to be able to conveniently contact your travel agent both before your travels start and potentially while you're traveling too.
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How easy is it to contact your agent? Do they consistently either answer their phone or quickly return messages?

Do they have a toll free number for when you're elsewhere in the US? Do they use email and answer emails quickly?

What hours do they work? Do they have an after-hours emergency service to help you if you're traveling and something goes wrong outside office hours?

Ability to understand you and your needs
Does the agent seem to be the type of person who understands you and your travel interests? As an extreme example, a 21-year old man is unlikely to understand a 51-year old woman's interest in visiting luxury spas. Does the agent ask you sensible relevant questions and are they answering your questions in a way that shows they understand you and your needs?

Added value services
Is there anything else the agent or agency can do to help you with your travels? You may even wish to ask an open-ended question such as "How else can you help me with my travels?"

Maybe the agent has a library of travel videos they loan out to clients. Perhaps they have access to cabin upgrades on cruises. By some chance they may have a contract with an airline that allows them to waive advance booking requirements. Maybe there is something else they can do - ask them.

Fees and rebates
These days, travel agents are less likely to earn commissions on airfares. For that reason, if you're only buying an airfare, the agent may need to charge you a fee for their help. But if you're buying a complete travel package, the agent is more likely to be earning commissions on most or all of the items they are booking for you - sometimes as much as 20%.

If you're simply asking a travel agent to book you a cruise, and if that takes the agent no more than an hour or two to do, and if that is perhaps a $5000 cruise on which they are making a $1000 commission, some agencies may choose to not only waive all fees for doing this work for you, but also possibly to rebate back to you part of their commission.

Of course if you are having the agent book a detailed itinerary for you, including various items of low value or which don't pay commission, and if the agent ends up spending 20 hours on your booking and earns only $500 in commissions, they're not going to want to rebate any commission and might instead quite fairly expect an extra fee from you.

There's no standard approach to this issue, so you'll have to ask the question and negotiate the outcome based on the complexity of your booking and the amount of commission the agent earns.

Summary
Our referral process increases the chance of you dealing with a good agent. By considering the appropriate factors we detail above, you can ensure that the agent you ultimately choose is not just a good agent but a great agent.

Epilogue: Every single piece of information here is FREE. You pay ONLY for services you contract for like hotels, tours, tickets. Etc. No credit card, not even a phone number, if you prefer. No gotchas, gimmicks, or gags. Just good pure free travel information about the places you want to go, given to you by the folks who know. Click our pages with confidence! Get ready for your Vacation of a Lifetime!

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