by Joseph Malek

Created on: December 05, 2009

Believe it or not, there are some travel agents who care more about the wishes of their employer and/or owner than they do about fulfilling all of your hopes and expectations for that once in a lifetime vacation of your dreams. Yes, you might have been saving for many years until, at last, you can now book a vacation to that far-away place.

You have a very good idea of when and where you want to go and all that you need to do is make the travel arrangements. Checkbook in hand, you go to the nearest travel agency and, within a short time, one of the travel agents greets you and offers to be of service to you. Beware of any travel agent who asks you how much money that you plan to spend.

Most likely, you will soon find that all of your vacation money will be required and you might even have to get a loan, just for the spending money that you will require while you are away from home. If money is not an important consideration you will most likely pay out big bucks that you might otherwise use for other purposes, like trinkets, tours and fine dining.

Like it or not, travel agents usually tell you about what their agency has to offer because that particular travel agency might have a financial interest in the travel packages and/or charters that are shown to you. So too, travel arrangements are made in your behalf that will produce the greatest amount of commissions paid by the commercial carriers, lodging and tour providers.

Naturally, good and bad travel agents will want to sell you trip interruption insurance, in the event that you are unable to travel to your destination as planned. That, in itself, is a good idea if you can receive a refund should you also, for some reason, not be able to depart at the arranged time.

It should go without saying that a bad travel agent truly does not have the knowledge and/or the experience to provide to you a fun filled and/or most enjoyable vacation experience. A good agent knows the place that you intent to visit and can show you a whole lot of interesting things to do and see. It is also important to have, in advance, a well planned schedule of events so that there will be adequate time in which to see and do all that you desire to do. A bad travel agent could really care less what you want to do and might even waste your travel time, in order to spend your travel money for those things that the agent wants you to do.

It is true that you might discover other points of interest, but you also desire to see and do those things that caused you to go on such a vacation in the first place. My advice to you is to not allow that, what could be, a bad travel agent pressure you into booking and paying out your money for those things that are suggested by the travel agent in question during your first visit to that travel agency.

On the other hand, you should obtain the printed information of such a planned vacation and take it home and subsequently read and pick from all that you received for your expected travel expense. Your vacation budget is your business so you should get a good idea of the total estimated cost of such a trip before you start writing checks that are made payable to people who you do not know. Then again, a trip to more than one travel agency is truly a wise thing to do.

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