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I just want to share my 10 seconds of fame. While it's not quite the Andy Warhol's "15 minutes of fame", it's still pretty exciting! During the noon newscast on Feb 9th, 2018 on CBS, between 100 and 150 million people saw a version of the following video:
Recently I was reminded of a few hidden travel agent services that I routinely provide. These will not make the top 10 list or even mentioned in our previous post on the travel agent services. Both occurred in the past few days from current clients. And both made the travel process so much less stressful for my clients - and even saved them money.
This time of year many investors hear the words "past performance can not be used to predict future returns". In fact today I received a note from Vanguard discussing this very phenomena. They called it past performance bias. Here's the premise: in many areas of life, performance from one time period to another is consistent. For example, if you had a really good experience eating at a restaurant, chances are good that you'll enjoy your next meal at the same restaurant. But in investing (ie: stocks and bonds) this is not necessarily true. Vanguard suggests that there are three factors to making better decisions about investing: Education, Discipline and Focusing on what you can control. I thought it would be interesting to see if these also apply to vacation planning.
Do you recommend your travel agent?
"So why the heck should I use a Travel Agent anyway? I can call the supplier directly or I can use...
Business is very good as passengers continue to travel.
Did you see the NY times article called "How to Pick a Travel Agent"? It lists four tips to find the perfect agent. While some of these tips are fine, I'll comment on each as well as provide some additional considerations. Here's the NY Times articles main points:
How do you protect yourself from bad travel agents? We typically only talk about really good or excellent travel agents on this blog. But recently I was quoted by a Travel Agent magazine in response to question about a really bad travel agent.
Recently I got a call from a client that was interested in a mass market ocean cruise. She had the supplier, dates and ship all picked out. I had previously introduced this client to river cruising via AmaWaterways. She asked what the benefits of booking through a travel agent for an ocean cruise. The cruise line advertised quite a bit and she didn't think she needed much help from a travel professional. So I thought this would make a good posting since many of you probably have the same question. so here's how I responded:
Would you hand over a $1000 bill to someone you've never met with expectation that you will get something in return? Can you trust your travel agent? Can you trust the underlying travel supplier? After all, you may be spending between $5000 and $20,000 on a vacation so asking about trust seems pretty reasonable.