No one is bigger travel evangelist than I am. Part of what I hope to do here is help regular people find travel resources and tips to help people make their trips the best. I felt confident that I’d found a variety of trustworthy travel advisors and providers who could help me put together a seamless trip on my budget, so I could relax with my family and friends and enjoy the trip. Sadly, Covid and recent economic pressures have changed all that. Its unfortunate that as desperately as the travel industry wants us to get back to traveling, at the same time, many of them are struggling to provide the services and products they promise.
I’m still traveling , but recent travel experiences have led me to drastically reconsider how I travel and who I have help me do that. Here are some new rules I’ve adopted for my own travels.
I Don’t Trust The Airlines
I have taken over a dozen flights since November, and not one single one of those flights have gotten off on time without some sort of problem. It’s frustrating as a citizen to see an industry that our tax dollars have bailed out several times over the last few decades; pandemic, financial crisis, 9/11 groundings, and when business picks up, the airlines are never held to account to provide even basic improvements in customer service. Delays, cancellations, changing schedules, broken equipment , lost bags; the list goes on. I can’t imagine any business plan is written that suggests every time your business communicates with it’s customers that the conversation begins with “We’re sorry” or worse, “Thank you for your patience”
I’m losing my patience and a lot of travelers are, some of them behave badly, taking out their anger on customer facing employees who have little control and no authority to change things. Instead of losing my cool, I’m trying to change my behavior to make the miserable experience of flying a little less miserable.
Have a strategy for your flights…be loyal for extra access to basics, pack carefully, build in extra travel time, and be patient!
What I’m Doing Now>>>
I’m buying access to loyalty programs or lounges. This can be done with points, or credit cards or cash, but often the cost of buying “status” with an airline can get you dedicated phone lines for rearranging travel. The airlines should provide good service to everyone, but the reality is they don’t and while it’s no guarantee of better treatment, having status might elevate your problem to someone who can help and private lounges may be a more comfortable spot to wait out lengthy delays.
I’m adding in the cost of pre night hotel stays in my destination prior to important trips with embarkation dates, like cruises, or important events, like weddings. I don’t count on the airlines getting me to my destination on time, so I build in extra time before a trip to buffer the airlines poor service. Usually, an airport hotel can be an economical choice for a “pre night” stay.
I’ll take a train or a bus instead if I can. I used to think that would take “too much time” until I waited 8 hours to take a 45 minute flight from Boston to NYC ( and waited another 6 hours to get back) I nearly missed a Broadway show because I couldn’t count on the airlines to deliver me to my destination.
I carry on my bags or keep enough clothes and any essentials in my carry on to live without checked bags should they not arrive at my destination. By using only a carry on, I’ll have flexibility to make changes in flight if there are cancellations or delays.
I bring lots of nutritious snacks with me. Planned time for airport meals can disappear with flight delays. Most airlines no longer serve food, and I could be stuck on the tarmac for hours without food or food service even if the airline does serve a meal.
Our travel advisors and the major brand tour company we traveled with to Peru let us down in many ways
Rethink Your Partnerships with Travel Advisors
I booked my travel advisor from one of the premier listings of travel advisors. I booked with them because they and the publishers of vaunted “listing” suggested that when you use a top travel advisor you can count on them to be proactive, to help you untangle problems when you run into trouble. Then Covid hit and the group I booked my recent trip (not my first trip booked with them!) to Peru with before the pandemic became a “fee for service” travel advisory, and I stopped hearing from them. I didn’t get updates from them when I needed to know if our trip would be run as planned during covid times, I couldn’t reach the same advisor, getting passed along from person to person depending on who wasn’t traveling themselves, I recieved documents late and panicky emails telling me to provide information I know they had to travel suppliers at the last minute. This once well organized Travel Consultancy had let me down before I even started my trip. When I got Covid during my trip, they were an even bigger disappointment. It took hours to reach an emergency person, who then asked me to provide them with phone numbers of the travel provider and were unhelpful in acting as an “intermediary” as promised.
What I’m Doing Now>>>
More than ever, I’ll rely on a RECENT recommendation from a recent traveler before I trust a travel advisor or famous list of travel agents
Trusting my gut…I knew the “top rated” consultancy wasn’t giving me what they promised, but I kept moving forward despite my misgivings, having booked, I was kind of stuck. Most interesting, is I formed a personal relationship with a travel agent who works for a large online travel agency. For a long time I was reluctant to trust that a generalist could help me with a specialized trips, but I learned his professionalism even during the worst of the pandemic travel issues led me to trust that he will be there when I need him. During my Peru trip, which he had no part in planning and made no profit, he saw on Face Book that I was isolated in Peru and reached out to ask how he could help out. I was grateful for that kind of high touch customer care, and I know now that I need to trust my instincts, not reputation, because times change and so will reputations, a personal relationship is more important.
On the road again after a 5 day quarantine in Peru for Covid 19
Im Rethinking Brand Names in Travel
For our trip to Peru we chose a major brand I had long admired despite the high price tags because they had an itinerary that worked for us. This a world recognized travel and photography brand.
The disappointments started before we traveled. We received conflicting information pre trip on everything from itineraries, Covid policies to luggage weight limits. Our pre trip documents were sent to someone else’s address in our town and we only received them because a kind neighbor found us on a town FB page and delivered them to us personally!
The covid policies were nonsensical, and didn’t follow CDC guidelines and caused us a lot of pre trip stress. And they WERE ineffective because by the end of our cruise all but 2 or 3 of 21 passengers had contracted covid and were forced to quarantine for part or all of the trip.
Despite the pre trip troubles, we decided to set aside any negativity and try to embrace the trip itself with a positive attitude. Within minutes of arriving to meet the group, covid procedures were confusing, or ignored and testing was perfunctionary, with the nurse barely touching our nostrils and seemed ineffective (and it turned out to be!)
Once on board our Amazon cruise, we learned our “expert” guides were pulled out of retirement, one of them was physically unable to do many of the excursions. The photography “expert” had taken a 3 day course with the “brand” and was not more knowledgeable than most of the amateur photographers on board with a DSLR camera. The amateurs on board found her unhelpful and she gave lots of tips for using your iphone for photos, while most of the images of wildlife would be impossible to capture with an iphone.
But most disappointing was the expected evening programs with experts consisted mostly of showing documentaries on TV or were shortened presentations so the guides could post the days adventures on social media for the brand’s marketing purposes. This was promoted to us as our guides creating a permanent record of our journey, but the result was that while we were told not use our phones for social media or calls and to be “present” for the trip, our guides were unavailable to us in the moment because THEY were posting content for prospective travelers on social media!
The “brand’s” communication with and treatment of us once I contracted covid was also handled poorly. We were grateful that the Delfin 2, the company that ran the cruise, was in charge of our covid care and handled everything from Dr notes to meals beautifully. But communication from the “brand” was poor including a lack of advance information about rescheduled travel plans.
What Im doing now>>>
Just like with travel advisors, “post covid” I’m reevaluating who I can trust to travel with. We traveled with Natural Habitat Adventures during covid and things were handled beautifully with top guides, good communication about changes in itineraries or covid policies. I need to use recent information and trust my instincts if a brand is flailing, and bail out.
Document everything that happens so I have the information I need for travel insurance and to make claims with companies that fail to deliver on what I pay for.
Letting folks I know about my experiences so they can avoid paying top dollar for experiences that don’t measure up.
The moral of my horror story is plan ahead, be patient, and don’t rely on the “old” brands and rules, things have changed and having a personal relationship with a trusted travel advisor who can help you manage the challenges is more important than reputation or slick marketing. We are in a period of great disruption in travel and we get to vote with our dollars! Good luck out there!