Travel Agents Say MoneySaving Is Immoral!

Johnnypanic_2

Reactions like this, from any industry group show you are having an impact


Martin, keep up the good work.

Johnnypanic

ben500

Martin? Is that an intended pun in your first option or are you naturaly talented?

JasonW_2

100% behind you Martin!

Rip off britain is bad enough, but even tyring to get out of Britain isnt without its share of rip off travel agents, travel insurance, etc etc. I'm glad the travel agents are now a target. If they have not artifically inflated prices then what do they fear? They can say no to disounts, but it will mean people take thier business elsewhere. Sooner or later they will come round to our way of thinking and realise their customer base has dropped (we can hope!)

Ive only just finished reading youir book and was VERY impressed, and it was the wake up call I had needed. Have already started the wheels in motion to lower the interest paid to my lenders. The only way they will sit up and take notice is if more people do this. The banks make so much money from us, and now they are talking of bringing in more fee-charging ATMs so we need to pay them to get access to OUR money. Yeh right. Without going off topic any further, rant over, and I will tell everyone I know about this site and hopefully they will start making changes also.

JW

System

If they didnt charge over inflated prices then we wouldnt have to haggle would we?

We are not imoral, but they are.

Godders

Sorry travel agents, the minute either you or a competetor can offer the same deal for less than advertised by you in the first place due to haggling from the consumer, you open yourself up for exactly that to take place.

Being able to cut 10-100 pounds+ from the cost per head of a holiday (or anything for that matter) from the advertised price just to 'Close the sale' means that the cut was extra money you didn't really need to make your profit margin but would be a nice bonus if you got it.

If you are really offended by someone coming back and saying 'Fred down the street can give me it for £10 less' then you need to offer something Fred doesn't.

bs7

JasonW wrote:

Rip off britain is bad enough, but even tyring to get out of Britain isnt without its share of rip off travel agents, travel insurance, etc etc. I'm glad the travel agents are now a target.

Rip of Britain is an interesting point:

Details taken from http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/business.cfm?id=275852004

It's interesting to note that whilst Thomas Cook made a loss of €251m in the financial year 2003/2004, "the UK arm returned to the black to turn in a financial performance that was "one of the best ever achieved in its 163-year history"."

So despite "the impact on tourism of the war in Iraq, the SARS outbreak and continued fears of global terrorism" Thomas Cook still managed to make a profit in the UK. And they have the audacity to try and suggest that Martin's advice is in some way immoral.




I also found this article on the BBC's website from April 2002 which stated that "the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) says brochures prices are often inflated because the public expect to be offered discounts."

So even the Travel Agents' own Associate accepts that consumers expect a discount on the advertised prices. Surely not!!


To those of you that didn't read the letters page Martin posted - there was a Branch Manager for one of the Thomas Cook stores complaining about the "the general disregard shown towards agents – a problem typified by the tone of last week’s Tonight with Trevor McDonald: Holiday Haggles programme" and that "All [the customers] are interested in these days is getting their holiday for the cheapest possible price". It's very clear why Thomas Cook don't want you to concern yourself with their prices - they want UK consumers to subsides the prices that our European counterparts receive!

BungleGirl

As a consumer I am totally behind shopping around and haggling for the best holiday price.

As an ex travel agent I do feel sorry for the staff in high street travel agents. Being told they need to sell more, being 'encouraged' to sell certain operators and this for minimum wage.

I worked for one of the multiples and it's embarrassing when someone comes in with a price from the same agent's website for less that we could sell it in the shop!!

I do agree with shopping around, but would not spend hours in a high street agency when 90% of the time you know you will end up booking on the net or via a call centre.

nearlyrich

Over the last 10 years, even before we had internet access, I have organised our holidays independantly of high street travel agents. It is very much easier when you can go online and sort out hotels and flights. We have used Travelbag twice to book flights etc but only after extensive research to satisfy myself that I was getting a good deal. On the other hand my sister happily hands over £1500-£2000 for a week in Spain for herself, her husband and one child. The point is there will always be people who are wary of arranging their own holiday, need a rep in resort to sort out their little problems. Rep, do me a favour, usually the rep is about 19 with little idea of what's going on except where you can get P***ed for 5 Euros and desperate to sell tickets for the Tours.:(

The first time we booked flights and nothing else we went to America, where we had been royally ripped off by Thomas Cook 3 years earlier. (We paid well over the odds for a pokey dirty room in a scruffy hotel miles away from where we were led to believe it was going to be. Because we went at Easter it was very expensive, the hire car which was "included " cost a fortune in extras and it was again a dirty scruffy mess) Doing the trip independantly we hired a car at the airport got upgraded to a decent motor and got all the insurance in at the price quoted, no extras. We then drove to the area that we wanted to stay in and then found a hotel, negotiated the rate and looked at the room before paying. It cost about 50% less for the holiday than booking with Thomas Cook and it was 3 years on.....

Travel agents have had it too good for too long, go into a high street travel agent and ask about a resort, usually they haven't got a clue and just reach for the "airtours brochure", or whoever the affiliated travel operator is. With low cost airlines and the internet they are lucky to do any business at all.

Addy

Brilliant response to an unjustified argument.

The Tour Operators are selling a product from an industry which is renown for it's unethical and heavy-handed methods - the main example being the way it browbeats the accommodation suppliers into supplying the product at an almost unfeasible low price and then taking an age to pay them.

They can't have it both ways. They've had it good for too long!!

Domski

the holiday industry is 98% bent.
any company that has no set price
for goods/services but will make it up
depending on the customer is fair game to be shamed.

sure they'll kick up a stink, shows you they know they been rumbled.

I have been had so many times by holiday companies.

the old under occupancy supplement trick.
last time they got £100 and they put me in a 2 bedroomed
not 4 as they stated, when I asked for money back they said
2 beds had been removed prior to me arriving.

thing is, if another 2 single beds had been there, the door couldn't be opened
and you would have spent the holiday walking on beds.
didn't want to know at all, they need to clean up there industry badly!!!!!!