AARP Makes the Case for Travel Advisors

A recent article in AARP highlighted how travel advisors’ value is being highlighted during the coronavirus pandemic, explaining that many tourists said advisers helped them to not only get home safely but also get their money back from cancelled vacations.

Writer Elaine Glusac spoke with Michael Brooks, a missionary from Tuscumbia, Alabama, whose travel advisor spent “48 mostly sleepless hours” getting him home to the U.S. as borders started to close and flights were being canceled.

“The spread of COVID-19 around the globe threw the travel industry into a tailspin, and left millions of travelers trying to get home safely, cancel future tours, cruises, flights and hotels and seek refunds on deposits and prepayments. For many, like Brooks, having a travel professional in their corner made a difference,” Glusac wrote.

Glusac also spoke with Pamela Konkol, who had $3,000 in travel expenses at risk for a trip to Lisbon in the spring. Her advisor, Thomas Carpenter of Huckleberry Travel in Brooklyn, New York, recommended she be patient rather than taking partial refunds or vouchers.

Konkol eventually got a full refund, even on nonrefundable airline tickets. “[Tom] was very much the voice of reason. It was his quiet patience in understanding the system and what was happening globally. He said, ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s my job to worry about it,’” Konkol told Glusac.

Carpenter said he stuck to his network of suppliers where “we’ve got a relationship and good track record, we can often prevail on suppliers to be flexible and generous when we need something for our clients,” – something a consumer does not have access to on their own.

Advisors have access to fares that are contracted with travel providers and unavailable at public booking sites — or maximizing frequent flier miles in securing tickets – but “shine most when asked to do something complicated,” such as multigenerational trips where the different ages have different interests or pulling together a serial destination trip that combines several international stops.

Glusac argues that even with a planning fee, “travelers say they get peace of mind and a phone number to call when things go wrong, whether it’s a pandemic causing a global shutdown or a more ordinary flight cancellation or lost passport.”

For those new to travel advisors, the article lays out how to find a reliable one. First, either by word of mouth recommendations by friends or family, or through the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) searchable database of agents which can be matched to a destination or specialty.