~What you are about to read could save you a ton of cash on booking your dive trips~

[Bryan Cunningham]

Not only can travel agents get you better deals, but also help sort out any hiccups you may have. By having close relationships with the hotels and dive ops, we can tweek your trips by getting things sorted that may not be that easy for you to do yourself. Larger tanks, din adaptors, unlimited nitrox packages, etc etc. Hotels and dive ops go that little bit further to keep a travel agent happy than they do for an individual. Sounds wrong, they should give equal service to all their customers, and will claim to. But at the end of a day, a complaint or request from someone who sends $1000's of business gets more attention than someone doing a once off trip. Same goes for airlines, hotels, dive ops, cruiseships etc etc. Travel agents are also offer incentives for their customers that they do not offer guests. EG Royal Caribbean. Much better to book through an agent than go direct. Ask them, they will tell you.

Biased as I am a travel agent, but its true.

Cheers
Bryan

 

[BDSC]

My decision on whether to use a travel agent usually depends on the size group we have. With a large group, I have found over the years that I can offer everyone a better deal when we book direct with a resort or liveaboard rather than go with an agent. If it's just a few folks, I may or may not use one depending on the deal they can get me compared to the deal I can get on my own.

 

[Bryan Cunningham]

My decision on whether to use a travel agent usually depends on the size group we have. With a large group, I have found over the years that I can offer everyone a better deal when we book direct with a resort or liveaboard rather than go with an agent. If it's just a few folks, I may or may not use one depending on the deal they can get me compared to the deal I can get on my own.

Not sure on trips from the States, but when pricing my trips against dive shop group trips here in Canada, I always come out cheaper. Sometimes by up to $400pp on a weeks all inclusive trip when you take flights,diving, hotel and food into consideration.

 

[BDSC]

Not sure on trips from the States, but when pricing my trips against dive shop group trips here in Canada, I always come out cheaper. Sometimes by up to $400pp on a weeks all inclusive trip when you take flights,diving, hotel and food into consideration.

Like you, I can almost always beat a dive shops price for a trip. When folks go with a dive shop they are usually paying "retail price" so someone can go for free. Some dive shops will even add extra to the price. I know of one local dive shop that would typically add a $200 premium to the price that you could book yourself as an individual. They claimed it was worth because the shops had to do all the leg work, provide a "trip leader", blah blah blah.

That's why a number of years ago we started booking our own group trips at resorts. We get to share equally in the free spaces we earn as a group and also get to share in a portion of the commission. We have a trip next year on the Rocio Del Mar and the normal price is $3295. We are all going for $2795. That's a $500 discount for each person.

I think there will always be a place for "shop trips" but most folks I know and dive with don't need what little extra a dive shop provides if they provide anything extra at all.

 

[Shasta_man]

Super, now let's see the numbers. Here's two trip examples we can use as a test:

- Trip to Komodo on the Komodo Dancer for the Sep 17 - Sep 27 sailing - from San Francisco Bay Area
- Trip to Fiji Nai'a for the June 15 - June 25 sailing - from San Francisco Bay Area

 

[Elite Travel]

I agree Bryan!! Very well put!!

Not only can travel agents get you better deals, but also help sort out any hiccups you may have. By having close relationships with the hotels and dive ops, we can tweek your trips by getting things sorted that may not be that easy for you to do yourself. Larger tanks, din adaptors, unlimited nitrox packages, etc etc. Hotels and dive ops go that little bit further to keep a travel agent happy than they do for an individual. Sounds wrong, they should give equal service to all their customers, and will claim to. But at the end of a day, a complaint or request from someone who sends $1000's of business gets more attention than someone doing a once off trip. Same goes for airlines, hotels, dive ops, cruiseships etc etc. Travel agents are also offer incentives for their customers that they do not offer guests. EG Royal Caribbean. Much better to book through an agent than go direct. Ask them, they will tell you.

Biased as I am a travel agent, but its true.

Cheers
Bryan

 

[Firewalker688]

My decision on whether to use a travel agent usually depends on the size group we have. With a large group, I have found over the years that I can offer everyone a better deal when we book direct with a resort or liveaboard rather than go with an agent. If it's just a few folks, I may or may not use one depending on the deal they can get me compared to the deal I can get on my own.

I would be curious how the comparison would turn out and I would recommend checking it both ways without regard to the group size, if nothing else the agent is doing the work for free to check it out. There may be the same group discount through the agent too if not an even better one. The incentive for the dive op to give a better rate to an agent is the probability of the agent sending them even more and more people. The savings is passed on to the consumer which is rather rare in today's time. I am not sure what agents you have spoken to in the past BDSC, some may be adding a fee per person on top... Wendy can either beat the price (in most cases) or she can't. Either way you get an "apples to apples" comparison and you have someone more than willing to make it happen with minimal headache on your end. It won't cost you a dime to have her check it out for you and your group.

Wishing all of you the best.

Scott

 

[Elite Travel]

I am more than happy to run prices for individuals or groups. I have been able to beat most of the resort/dive shop prices, it is the flights to the destination that are a killer. I recommend that if you are looking to book a trip, then try to do it well in advance in order to keep your flight prices down!! Anyhow, any help that I can provide, please don't hesitate to contact me!! That's my job, that is what I am here for.

Take care all!! Goodnight!!

-Wendy

 

[Shasta_man]

Apparently the usual "prices so amazing that I can't give you any concrete examples of"...

 

[Firewalker688]

Apparently the usual "prices so amazing that I can't give you any concrete examples of"...

Where would you like to go? We can give you a very concrete example of cost to a destination you are interested in. Say you go to Belize every year and have for 5 years. You always stay at "x" and always stay 7 days. You always pay/paid "$". You have a baseline for comparison so you can recognize the value of it. If that trip has cost you $1800 and we can book it for $1650 that would perhaps influence your decision. Another scenario would be that the cost through us is still $1785 except you have to make no phone calls, arrange no taxis, book no room...... you pass the leg work on to us. I know this has been resolved outside of this thread but I didn't want this thread to have this type of ending. Thanks for the interest.

Scott