3 Reasons Why You Need a Travel Agent, Now More Than Ever

Dreaming of a honeymoon to white-washed Santorini? A travel advisor can help with that.

The question we’ve been asked most frequently since founding WHIT Travel has been a reasonable one. Why would someone need a travel agent? Can’t they look everything up online? The short answer is, yes, of course they can. The internet is a wonderful tool, and many of our clients have done their own research before contacting us. The better question is, should they be doing everything themselves?

Looking for honeymoon destinations for you and your fiancé this summer? Perfect! A quick search during your lunch break and you’ll have found over 40 million results. Now, after sifting through the clutter you’ll see that half a million of those results will be flooded with five stars and raving reviews, which all appear to be authentic. Most of them have the same similarly staged, overly saturated photos that are so generic you can’t tell one from the other. While this can be a fun little adventure, the flooded rabbit hole of information can very easily suck you in. Before you realized what has happened, your lunch break is gone and you haven’t booked anything.

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So armed with more experience and focus, you change course on your commute home to searching for flights. However, you hit a wall, how can there be such a limited amount of flights going to your location? Well, most major search sites actually don’t list every flight out there. Airlines often pay search engines to appear first, or to appear like the only option. It may also not be immediately noticeable that some flight search engines only show the price of the ticket, failing to mention the option for a carryon is going to add an additional half the cost to the fare. Or they conveniently leave out the fact that the “quick” layover in Istanbul on that budget overnight is nearly 17 hours long.

Now, of course these are extreme examples, and you’re probably more than capable of sifting through the nonsense to find exactly what you’re looking for. But why spend your time doing something so trivial? You could also probably watch enough YouTube videos to learn how to change your own oil, but does that make it worth doing? To some, it might, but to others, their time is simply too valuable to be spent wading through the waves of information that were intentionally designed to confuse. A travel advisor can eliminate the frustrating issues that come with navigating through a sea of search results, but they can also offer much more.

Travel Emergencies

As travel advisors, we’re actual experts in the art of crisis management. Last year, that was more true than ever. You’ve likely heard the horror stories of those 6-hour long customer service hold times or properties completely ghosting guests’ email requests for help during COVID. If you had booked a trip last summer or anytime in 2020, I especially don’t need to convince you why having an advisor was a literal lifesaver. We’re proud to say our team successfully got all of our clients who were studying abroad home safe, even when flights into the US were sold out in minutes upon the border closure announcement. We succeeded in helping multiple honeymoon clients get their full deposits back, or secure the same rates for travel the following year.

Now that things are settling towards a new normal, we help clients navigate through the ever-changing updates of border entry guidelines and re-entry procedures. The details and complexity in planning a simple trip in today’s travel environment can get overwhelming fast. We are in constant communication with other agents on the ground in multiple destinations around the globe to hear first-hand how COVID guidelines are being followed. We know which properties are offering complimentary antigen testing, and which one’s aren’t. Our job is to help you determine what you need to do before, during and after your trip, to ensure you have the safest visit possible. And if something goes wrong? We answer our phone.

Travel Industry Connections

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If you’re not familiar with Virtuoso, it’s a network of top tier travel agencies, and 1,800 travel partners including airlines, tour providers and hotels in over 100 countries. We’re proud to say our connections within our Virtuoso community help us make your trip flawless. We have strong relationships with general managers and concierge teams. We have access to the direct phone line not listed on their Google page to get in touch with the hotel’s team ASAP. We are fortunate enough to hear about new properties and updates as soon as they happen. We have global teams and resources dedicated to making sure our clients’ trips are the best they can be. Because of those tenderly curated relationships with hotels, they want to be sure your experience is a positive one. From given the first priority for room upgrades, to complimentary VIP amenities like resort credits and the most sought-after room locations, we are so thankful for the wonderful benefits our Virtuoso community allots us, and we know you will be too.

The Little Things

Not only do we know which properties 5-star reviews are genuine, we have heard reviews directly from our own clients. When we travel, we don’t just stay in one property, we stay in five - just so we know which hotel to recommend to you next. We are obsessed with exploring new places, and discovering the hidden gems we know clients won’t find from a Google search. We want to be your eyes and ears to the world around you. And after over a year of seeing just the interior walls of your home, we can bet getting out to explore is high on the list.

As a travel advisor, our job isn’t to tell you where you should go, or what hotel is the best. Our job is to learn about you and how you like to travel. One hotel that is the ideal spot for one client, is one we wouldn’t ever send as an option to another. A successful travel advisor helps to liberate you from the flurry of options, while hand-selecting the four or five you will absolutely adore. Travel is an extension of your life. Travel is something you find such job in doing that you spend your limited free time and funds to do it. A travel advisor’s job isn’t simply to book a flight and a bed for you but to guide that extension to the places and destinations you long to see, and may not even have known existed.

Ready to start planning your next getaway with an expert? Contact us here and let’s go!