The Travel Agent is Not Dead

This is an odd blog post, but I felt the need to acknowledge some really good service I got recently.

A friend of a friend of a friend told me about a travel agent friend of hers that she uses to book all her travel and I thought "travel agent? Isn't that so pre-Internet? What value does a travel agent add when I can book all my travel through the Internet?"

Well, let me tell you - a good travel agent is worth their weight in commission.  Yes, you might pay a smidgen more (or maybe not at all at the end of the day) but when you are booking a multi-city trip or when you need travel arranged for an employee / business trip, it is SOOOOOO handy to be able to send a simple email with a few dates on it and say "please book as below".  

The very lovey, very efficient Jennifer Moller has now become one of my favourite people. In my next life I might ask her to be my wife, she is that efficient*.  She is an independent travel agent within a larger network of travel agents which means you get personal service with the benefits of a big group's network. Actually I am not entirely sure how it works but I don't really care - all I care about is that Jennifer takes a huge amount (all) of the stress out of travelling and making travel arrangements.  What a lovely, efficient woman. 

And the Internet part? Well, the Internet part is that Jennifer lives in Nelspruit (or somewhere up country) and I never see her face to face, which suits my antisocial self just fine. All I do is send an email and say "please book as below" and it gets done. And then all I need to do is send another email saying "thank you".

And it is not just about booking flights and accommodation, it is about advice, tips, insight, exprience, research, knowledge etc.  I could give you many examples of the ways she saved us time and money (and potentially missed flight connections) but it's late and I am tired. 

This sounds like a paid-for endorsement, but it isn't. I am not getting anything out of it but honestly, her service is so good that it worth me taking the few minutes to write this post and share it with you guys.

If you need to book any travel arrangements and you don't have the time nor inclination to fart around the Internet looking for best deals / ideal flights / specials / rates etc, drop Jennifer an email on: [email protected] or visit her webpage at:  http://www.travelcounsellors.co.za/jennifer.moller

It is honestly worth the few extra Rand you will pay (if any at all) for her to take the stress out of travel. 

*In my next life I am going to have a wife. Wives are infinitely more useful than husbands and an efficient wife even more so. In fact, I might even have two wives if possible.  

Comments

[Alet]

As a *former* travel agent I thoroughly enjoyed that!

[Ronel]

Well done Jennifer !

[Martie]

Tertia, I think you meant "asocial" (not antisocial)... :-)

[jill]

Thanks for this I'm a travel agent in Canada. We do exist still unlike unicorns 😊! Jill

[Tiare]

I'm my family and friends' unofficial travel agent, and I make quite a lot of travel plans as a Virtual Assistant. There's more to it than just looking up flights on kayak.com, and I love the planning, bargain-hunting, and details that go into making solid travel plans. Yes, I'm a complete geek.