Last week I had a referral client who wants to go to Europe with 3 of her girlfriends and things started to get too complicated for her to organise so she got in touch with me for help.
Here are their requirements:
- All 4 of them fly together on 24 Oct and do the trips together until 2 of them come back home on 10 Nov where the other 2 will continue on until 23 Nov.
- Preferred to fly with Qantas or any Oneworld airlines to get points.
- Need internal flight, train, car hire, accommodation with single bed, breakfast, good location and day tours.
- One of the ladies' husband will do a cycling tour prior then meet up with the group mid way until 23 Nov which the accommodation will also need to change to cater for 5 people.
- From 10 Nov - 23 Nov, they don't have any plan and would like to visit new places, do shopping, lots of wine, food and culture so they are open to recommendation.
From my experience, when you travel in a group like this, it can get complicated, especially when one person is the main organiser and everyone lives in different states. I have helped many group travel and been in one so I understand what needs to be done and how to plan this 😎
As you can imagine by now, there will be a lot of work and research around this to accommodate 5 of them which I will have to invest at least 4-5 hours of my time to come up with the proposal.
I was upfront about my fee where I have a non-refundable commitment fee of $125/person before I start doing the research.
My research include:
- 3 Flight options.
- 3 accommodation options in each cities.
- Travel insurance options.
If clients proceed the booking with me, the non-refundable commitment fee will be converted into my service fee which include:
- Organising their flights, accommodation, travel insurance, airport transfer, car hire and day tour if they require.
- After care. If there is any flight cancellation, delay etc I will be the one who deal on their behalf so that they won't have to spend time calling the airlines.
If they decide not to proceed with me then the non-refundable commitment fee is for my research time.
Back then I used to not charge this fee however more and more people who don't value my time and service just took my research and book online themselves or just simply wasn't serious about it.
I mean would anyone would like to work for FREE???
I also have little Pixie to feed and she can't eat toilet rolls for food😝
The group was happy to pay for my non-refundable commitment fee so I started to work on their trip.
To make planning easier to navigate, I put dates, destination in an excel sheet so that I can see everything. When different people want to visit different places, I just add another column for them and whatever additional column if they wish to have different itineraries. Since the 3 clients who are staying for extra 2 weeks want my recommendation, I did 3 different itineraries for them so they can choose what they want.
After sending the proposal some people want to do itinerary 1 and some want to do itinerary 3 so this is where things can get a bit complicated.
As much as it'd be nice to travel altogether as a group, I suggested the clients to perhaps travel separately and have some ME time since they will be together for 1.5 week already. With my up coming trip to Europe with 3 other friends, we won't be travelling together all the time which is a good thing and that's why I recommended the clients for ME time.
For their international flights, they have sent me Qantas: Sydney - London return price they have found online which the fare was around $1800. After looking at their different itineraries, where they want
to be and internal flights, I also given them other options like Singapore airline or even Japan airline with upgrading their return flight back to Sydney in PREMIUM ECONOMY🤩 This last option was about $1000 more but I thought it might be worth letting them know as I've seen the products and for me personally I think it's sooooooo worth it. Bigger seats, reclined more and business lounge access in Tokyo.
The group agreed that Japan airline is the way to go as they all would like to travel back comfortably even they have to pay more as they see the value in it. I love Japan Airline Premium Economy fare because they are amazing compared to other airlines price point and you can do mixed fare with them. Too bad Japan's border is still closed otherwise I'd recommend the group to stop and check out Japan for a few days. Never been to Japan? Read my 1st timer guide here 🗾
At the moment they are still in the process of finalising their holiday and I will be here to make sure they have a hassle free holiday 😊 + while they are on their trip, if there is any drama like delays or cancellation, I'll be their first point of contact so they won't have to spend hours on the phone with the airlines or find a solution to fix their issue.
📞 0425328050
📧 sekha@itravel-au.com
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