Finding Travel Agent

[Doubt It]

Greetings everyone:

 

I am looking for a TA. I know you can not state specific TA's, but I would appreciate any advice.

I have not cruised in many years due to work and covid.

 

I have booked directly with Celebrity for a 2023 cruise to ensure I got the cruise and cabin I wished. Got it. Now I want to transfer to a TA for assistance, benefits etc. I also pay in Cdn $, sigh.  The booking is $15,000 Cdn.

There are good TA's out there and they often provide OBC etc. Since I have no regular TA, I would not get some of the big OBC I see others get.

 

Q - Are the big discount cruise TA's worth bothering with?

 

Any guidance would be gratefully appreciated.

[thebutlerdidit]

I have heard mention of a website that lets you put your information out there and travel agents can compete to get your booking. I keep meaning to try it, and obviously you’d want to check ratings for the agent you’re interested in using. 

[Bgwest]

There are always the big box TAs if you are OK with store gift cards as rebates. 
When they made that change from a cash rebate, we found a “real” TA that we just love. Wish I could share their name. 👑

[cangelmd]

Here is our TA journey:

im a hands on kind of gal, and still do a lot of planning and research on my own. There’s so much price fluctuation with cruising that getting a reasonable deal (where you don’t feel like kicking yourself after reading these boards 😏), requires more ongoing monitoring than I wanted to do - especially if you are looking at more than once every few years or more far afield itineraries.

So we started looking at TAs - We tried the bid your cruise website, the first time we took the second best bid, with the thinking that the first bid was too good to be true. The TA that we went with was very meh - worked part time and her schedule did not mesh with ours, often unresponsive during her stated working hours, just not a good fit, although we got the financial deal exactly as was presented to us.

Since the financial part of the bid out your cruise worked well, we tried the website again and this time hit gold. Our current agent does exactly what we need him to do - monitors for price drops and other sales to save us bucks. He doesn’t hound us with ads, we only hear from him if he can save us money. We have in turn directed as much business as possible to him through word of mouth - I know it’s been a rough couple of years.

Finding a TA for us was like dating, just got to keep trying, unless you just happen to know someone, etc.

 

[1025cruise]

I believe there is a CC article on finding a TA.

Ask your friends for a recommendation. 

[jelayne]

If you use the bid site check out the TA before you commit, we thought we got a good deal turns out it what they promised (beverage package) and what they booked for us with X were not the same 

[TeeRick]

2 hours ago, Doubt It said:

Greetings everyone:

 

I am looking for a TA. I know you can not state specific TA's, but I would appreciate any advice.

I have not cruised in many years due to work and covid.

 

I have booked directly with Celebrity for a 2023 cruise to ensure I got the cruise and cabin I wished. Got it. Now I want to transfer to a TA for assistance, benefits etc. I also pay in Cdn $, sigh.  The booking is $15,000 Cdn.

There are good TA's out there and they often provide OBC etc. Since I have no regular TA, I would not get some of the big OBC I see others get.

 

Q - Are the big discount cruise TA's worth bothering with?

 

Any guidance would be gratefully appreciated.

Try this:

 

https://cruising.org/en/travel-agent-center

 

 

[Jeremiah1212]

A good rule of thumb is the big agencies with big discounts and strong OBC offers are not going to provide much, if any,  personalized service. The few remaining agencies out there who will provide personalized service typically won't have the discounts or their services won't be free. 

[TFree]

1 hour ago, Bgwest said:

There are always the big box TAs if you are OK with store gift cards as rebates. 
When they made that change from a cash rebate, we found a “real” TA that we just love. Wish I could share their name. 👑

We have used the big box TA on a number of cruises.  I am sure that this will improve as time goes on, but during the pandemic, they were so understaffed that you could not get through to them.  I would call at different times of the day, and many times I would get a greeting that would end with them saying that they could not take the call right now, please try back later.  When I didn't get that message, I would sometimes have to wait an hour on old to get through.  So when we booked a new cruise onboard last month, we sent that reservation to someone else.

 

Tom & Judy

[PKB]

doing research......

Edited June 22, 2022 by PKB

[Whinenowine]

2 hours ago, thebutlerdidit said:

I have heard mention of a website that lets you put your information out there and travel agents can compete to get your booking. I keep meaning to try it, and obviously you’d want to check ratings for the agent you’re interested in using. 

Yes I’ve used it several times. As long as you do so with eyes wide open as to gimmicks or tricks, it works well.  But ideally I’d like to have a TA I can trust for the long run. My personal experience is that’s hard to find using the above-mentioned tool.

[Denny01]

There’s a lot of ‘booking agents’ on line and in the Big Box stores. I know many use them and have been happy with that. 

 

I use a local Travel Advisor. More personal connection. More Followup. More assistance with special situations. Find one with an office, not out of their home, and with a bit of a staff so they can work issues quickly.

 

 So I’d suggest you ask friends who they use locally and check with the local Chamber of Commerce. 

 

We had travel mates we did a tour of Paris with that was to followup with a cruise out of Istanbul into the Black Sea. She got very ill and into the hospital. Our TA took care of the flights and cruise cancellations for them, helped them in Paris and then got her husband assigned as a medical assist for the 1st Class flight home.

 

Later, when we were flying back from an Ireland land tour into NY, a storm was raging. She moved our flight to an earlier one (last one out) and we got home. All done prior to our arriving and we didn’t even know. Another group on that tour came in later and her team got them on a bus over to Newark for a flight out. 

 

So watch out for the Biggies who appear to give great discounts and OBC’s. Can be, but they are in many (some to be extra nice) cases are only Booking Agents. Once you are booked, they aren’ that helpful.

 

den

[Mark_K]

3 hours ago, Bgwest said:

There are always the big box TAs if you are OK with store gift cards as rebates. 
When they made that change from a cash rebate, we found a “real” TA that we just love. Wish I could share their name. 👑

Keep in mind that at least one of those Big Box TAs doesn’t participate in the MoveUp program, so if you think you might interested in a MoveUp don’t use them.