Lisa

I have seen many internet travel agencies offering discounts for escorted tour bookings. I am leaning towards a Globus tour, to France, in April.<BR><BR>Affordable Tours is offering an 11% discount. My travel agency does not offer a discount at all. Please share your experiences if you have booked a tour with this company or any other internet company. I am a little nervous about booking with an internet company but the savings of approximately $500 is hard to pass up. <BR><BR>I look forward to your replies. Thanks in advance.

Leslie

If you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, contact Globus and ask if Affordable Tours is an agent of Globus. After that call Affordable Tours and ask if there are any satisfied customers that they have that would be willing to call you. Lastly, check with the Better Business Bureau in the city Affordable Tours is located and see if there are any complaints against them. Make sure you pay for this trip with your credit card, because as a last resort you can fall back on the credit card company to protect you. All of this should alleviate your fears.

xxx

I cannot blame you for wanting to save the money and I'd suggest you do just that. Unless it was the travel agent who did the original leg work and found this particular tour for you. If so, I think you owe it to the travel agent to book what she or he found for you. If it's something you found on your own and just went to the TA to get a price, then I'd say go for the best price.

Sue

Lisa,<BR><BR>I've used Pavlus Travel which is an internet company located in Albuquerque New Mexico, and saved 12% on my Insight Tour. They also give discounts on Trafalgar, Globus and others. <BR><BR>http://www.cheapertravel.com/menuglobus.htm<BR><BR>Everything went fine and I will use them again. Good luck.<BR><BR>

Lisa

Thanks Sue. I will look int Pavlus Travel.

kjulie

If you have a good relationship with your travel agent, why not tell them about the discount that Affordable Tours offers. I would think that they would rather take a smaller commission and keep your business than risk losing your business completely to another company.

kjulie

If you have a good relationship with your travel agent, why not tell them about the discount that Affordable Tours offers. Maybe they can match this discount. I would think that they would rather take a smaller commission than they normally take in order to keep your business than risk losing your business completely to another company.<BR><BR>

Lisa

kjulie, thanks for your reply. I thought the same. I have traveled quite a bit in the past few years so my travel agent has done quite well with me. And I always do my own research and booking, except when a company will only deal with an agent, such as some land tour companies. <BR><BR>This past summer I went on a 3 week long vacation to Hawaii and, again, did all of my own research and booking. I then, as a special perk for my travel agent, had the bookings trtansfered to her name. I thought that I might as well do something nice for her since I pay the same whether an agent is involved or not. She was very pleased with the hefty commission she received for doing just about nothing. <BR><BR>I assumed that one hand would eventually wash the other, but I was wrong. I wanted to book both a 13 night European cruise with an additional pre and post stay in both Venice and Mallorca, and also book a land tour to Paris, for 2 separate vacations. I explained to her about the discounts that I would be able to receive via the internet and SHE WOULD NOT BUDGE on the price. She said that she would only give me the standard 5% on the cruise and absolutely no discount on the land tour. She also told me that if she gives me the 5% on the cruise, I would not be able to use the cruise line's discount coupon. I was able to get 3 times the discount on the internet for the same cruise, and I was also able to use the cruise lines discount coupon in addition to this discount.<BR><BR>Considering I always do all of my own planning and booking anyway, this was a no brainer. I still can't believe that she was unwilling to be flexible on the discount, especially with all of the bones I have thrown her in the past.<BR><BR>To make a long story short, she will not match the discount. Whether I book on the internet or not, I will not be using hert again!<BR><BR>Sorry for my long winded answer. Guess I was just blowing off some steam.

Phyllis

I have used Pavlus Travel for a Trafalgar tour and received the 11 or 12% discount. My TA was very good. Always replied to my emails promptly and took care of booking additional nights for me.<BR><BR>I will definitely use them again.

Lisa

Phyllis, thanks for another positive reply. So far, the agent I have spoken with has been friendly and helpful. I have only spoken with her twice though, once to let her know which tour and dates I am interested in, and then to get the cost and tentative flights. I will speak with her again tomorrow and will hopefully be able to confirm the flights that I am interested in.<BR><BR>Hopefully all will go well.<BR><BR>

Lisa

Hoping for more responses. Thanks.

myst

I just tried affordable tours and it is not worth it. They are unfamiliar with the word service and were very unfriendly. Try a local agent instead.

When I informed them that their poor service would make me look elsewhere, they just said &quot;Good Luck&quot;.

jor

I have booked tours on two separate vacations directly with a tour company. No middle man (travel agency) and was very pleased with both tours. Just do an internet seach like &quot;france tour&quot;, etc.

Crab

I had the same fear about booking thru an internet site. I am currently booked on a Globus tour, Italy &amp; Greece, in Sept. thru Pavlus. I had a need to call Globus and found that we are on file with them. So far so good. I first ran across Affordable Tours but after asking for a quote and getting 3 different prices from 2 different people I decided not to use them.

Linda0515

I used Affordable Tours to book a Globus tour (we leave in a week). They were friendly, helpful, and gave more complete information and had the best price of the 3 agents I checked (including Pavlus). Since we're a family of four, the overall savings were substantial. We received all our documents from Globus a couple of weeks ago--a week before Affordable Tours said we would--and everything was in order.

I've used these kinds of high-volume Internet agents to book cruises as well as this tour, and these kinds of companies are in business to book travel, not give advice. I do my own research ahead of time and when I call I know exactly what I want. I've also found that communicating with them by phone rather than e-mail is more effective.

myst

I tried just getting information from affordable tours and they were extremely rude. I should cut and paste the emails I received. Basically I asked for an estimated price quote on a specific tour (ex. European Highlights with Trafalgar in October for 6-people). The response was that they could not provide an accurate quote based on my &quot;incomplete information&quot; and that I must provide specific tour, tour date, departure city and number of people. This was the whole of their message. I responded that I had in fact provided the bulk of the information and suggested that the agent should respond less abruptly for example &quot;Thank you for contacting Affordable for your vacation plans. We are happy to provide you with a quote; however, please not that in addition to the information submitted we will need your departure city. We look forward to hearing from you&quot;.(I also pointed out that for the tour in question during the month of October there was only a single price regardless of departure date)

The agent's response. &quot;If you provide inaccurate information you can only expect an inaccurate quote&quot; EOM

I responded that I would be looking for a different agency to handle this trip and they said &quot;Good Luck you will need it if you can't provide proper information!&quot;

Pretty nice customer service.

Susan_H

I have used both Pavlua and Affordable Tours. Although both have provided good service, Affordable seemed a bit more responsive to my needs. I had no problems with either.
Myst, when you are asking a quote from either agency, it is imperative you provided ALL details of the proposed trip, including exact date and departure city. Since tour, airline tickets and tax depend on these details, I would think it impossible for them to quote you accurately without them. If you need a rough estimate, order the tour company's brochure and figure it out yourself. It is very easy and definitely worth the hundreds of dollars I save by using the internet agency. I always have the brochures on hand to review before I call the travel agency anyway.

francophile03

Although it's true the agency needs all the necessary information to provide a quote, it is very unprofessional to have responded the way that particular agent responded.

It could have been said in a better way. They forget that they provide a service and negative comments can affect their business.

Susan_H

francophile, this is true, but luckily I have been treated with nothing but courtesy by both agencies.

francophile03

I suppose it's whomever you're lucky to get.