Hot Tips!
© Diane Goldberg under the original topic name
When Ms Budget Travel is subjected to extreme heat she's prone to lie back languidly on her chaise lounge and "think of England." What she's thinking this week is: "Why am I not in England where summer seems to last fifteen minutes?" However, she is too enervated by the heat to adequately answer that question.
Heat makes Ms Budget Travel very lazy. So in the interest of reader information and preventing heat stroke secondary to any exertion at all she's going to direct you to an exchange that took place on the discussion board here at Budget Travel recently. When Ms Budget Travel disclosed yet another alarming incident of her own naivety in the essay entitled "Greed" she and Arnvid the intrepid Managing Editor engaged in an exchange about travel agents.
I am aware that many budget travelers consider the use of travel agents to be an unnatural practice, a veritable crime against nature. Pour me another glass of iced tea and let me enlighten you.
As Arnvid points out hotels have an interest in maintaining relationships with travel agents who can fill up rooms. A travel agent with a relationship with an hotelier can often offer you that room for far less than you could arrange as a walk in.
Ms Budget Travel had to be hit over the head with this a number of times --- during her recent trip to Malta she found that http://www.cheaperholidays.com arranged airfare, transfers, and lodging for a mere pittance more than the cheapest airfare she found on her own.
Arnvid also pointed out that local agents often have better arrangements with local businesses and are right there if you have a problem. A few years back in Greece after a psychotic taxi driver scared Ms Budget Travel speechless (not a common occurrence, I assure you) the local agent was available to arrange alternate transportation that did not involve a kamikaze cab.
I tested his theory in my hometown. I called the desk of a bed and breakfast and asked about pricing. Then I called a local agent I'd chatted with previously and asked her what price she could arrange with the same B & B --- she quoted me a price that was 20 dollars less than that offered by the inn.
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