Volcano disruption...

If you are sceptical of the benefits of booking through a reliable Travel Agent, rather trusting your bookings to the Internet alone, then may be this will give you reason to reconsider.

As you know all UK air space is currently locked down with no flights coming in or out. I think the news broadcasts have underestimated the serious disruption to people's lives this one natural event is causing and have failed to capture the knock on effects it is having.

Irrespective of the delays and additional costs that travellers are currently experiencing; in some cases, lives are being threatened and the eruption is effecting peoples' around the world in one way or another. Such is the power of nature.

My job though is not just to make travel arrangments, but also to help passengers who are, as I write, captive in places and destinations around the world being held against their will. As a Company we are working flat out to contact and advise the many hundreds of people we have involved in this disaster, in many cases rebooking them alternatives and taking away their worries and concerns. Each customer is an individual with personal needs and concerns so each needs to be treated as such. A challenge indeed.

I have contacted all my clients now, either by phone or text, in one case through the night, reassuring them that they have not been abandoned and giving them updates way ahead of anything else they may be hearing. This information, so often lacking when these events strike, is helping them I believe, make plans way ahead of others competing for hotel beds and flight seats etc, so are they not fortunate to have a travel agent working on their behalf? I have already heard one horror story to date of Internet passengers being ignored or sent packing by their "suppliers".

Whilst I cannot always guarentee to obtain the best price in all things travel, I am always very competitive, more so in many cases,  and the added value a good Travel Agent brings with him / her compensates surely for any minor price inconvenience. I think of myself as Insurance when things go wrong and let's face it, when you travel, there is always something that will not go quite to plan however small it may be.

If this were not enough. the financial security we (Travel Counsellors) offer too is yet another reason to re-consider the Travel Agent as an option when planning your next journey.

There are no guarentees in life as we know, but surely it is better to make the best provision you can in all things, rather than let fate take its course and winding up distressed, fraught, angry and most of all let down...