I agree with Aslemma (is that a real name ?)I usually book independant nowadays as the choice is far wider re flight times and hotels etc.
Doing so I realise that there is a risk.

I'm the same Del and Aslemma and I do appreciate the risks involved but I like the flexibility that it gives me compared to a standard package. However, I do fully understand what that entails and that it's on my head if something goes wrong - I do always ready the T&Cs before confirming the booking!

SM

Me too this year. I have already booked a flight with BA, will probably book a villa only with James Villas, Villa Plus or Villa Select, and hire a car. I know the risks and accept them. I just don't think I would book all three through an extra company - what happens if they forget to pass one of the three elements on to the supplier ? ?

If for so e reason something goes wrong and the hire car isn't there, I will have a fall back plan.

I do agreed that if folk go into a travel agents and ask for recommendations on hotel/resort that is on the flat, or want beachfront, or ask and pay for two connecting twin rooms but get crammed in a family room etc then that is a genuine complaint and should be addressed by the company.

Although even if I booked in store I would go through my paperwork with a fine tooth comb !

SMa wrote:

I'm the same Del and Aslemma and I do appreciate the risks involved but I like the flexibility that it gives me compared to a standard package. However, I do fully understand what that entails and that it's on my head if something goes wrong - I do always ready the T&Cs before confirming the booking!

SM

Opps you posted as I was typing. At least your topic has folk talking

Doe

I book separately, but I don't consider it a risk as I don't use middlemen. I book flights direct with the airline, villa direct with the owner, and car direct with the car hire company. If there is a mistake it's my own fault, and I can then rectify it by dealing direct rather than having to trust someone else to do it for me. I have the correct insurance for independent travel.

Where people make mistakes these days is by asking a travel agent for recommendations.They forget they aren't actually travel agents, just sales people who sell package holidays. They get plenty of sales training, but very little product training. Even the vertically integrated ones have woeful product knowledge about their own products. Good independent agents are a dying breed and many have closed over the recent years. The agency I used to work for closed. Our main business was packaging our own Florida holidays, but obviously we sold everything else as well. In the end the girl that owned it got fed up of Thomas Cook undercutting them all the time. TC were selling as less than the agents net price, and were undercutting nearly everything they quoted on. You either sold to just get a booking, and took a hit on it, or didn't get the booking. We all know what that policy eventually did to TC, as they have since admitted, but they did see a lot of good small independents out of business one way or the other.

As you can tell, it's something that I feel strongly about - sorry, rant over

Yes it is a very changed industry from 20 years ago. Where we live (London suburb) we still actually have an Independent high street travel agent, I sometimes wonder if they are the last in the Country, and how on earth they have survived, they must offer a very high level of customer service and presumably have a lot of repeat custom. Plus a co-op travel and a Thomas Cook (I think), there used to be six though including two independents.

Doe

Unless you too live in the Tayside area, Doe, I can tell you that they aren't the last. Up here we have an
excellent small independent which has a small group of shops in the area called Ramsey's World Travel. Any packages that I have booked in the last 25 years have been with them. They've got me some good deals in the past and they run their own charters each summer to Jersey and Mallorca which are very popular - it's a real bonus not having to go to either Edinburgh or Aberdeen.

SM

That's good to hear Sma, I've just googled my one and they have been there for 29 years so they must be doing something right, and have seen off Going Places and Lunn Poly (or maybe the internet saw them off ?).

It is interesting though as many people seem to feel the need of some kind of third party to book their holiday's via that's all I can think off to explain the rise of the On Line Travel agents that we now seem to have a plethora of and are the main source of (often unjustified) complaints.

I assumed it would just end up with the two big name high street travel agents or people booking completely independently, but then this new breed of call centre/ on line system came along.

Doe

OK, so I admit that I literally have nothing better to do right now but yesterday evening a new member posted a quite specific inquiry about Cuba. I didn't have the chance to post a reply then but earlier this evening I posted a quite detailed reply and the OP must have set up an alert for when a new post was made into the thread because they visited HT within minutes of me posting it. And they have now done exactly the same thing 3 further times tonight as other posts have been made into the thread. So I'm assuming that they have read my reply but there's not been so much as a hint of a 'thank you'. So OK, they might not have found it helpful but if it didn't provide them with the information that they needed how will anybody else know or realise that they needed further information which another member might be able to provide.

I keep falling for this - posting what I think are detailed, helpful replies to an OP who doesn't have the courtesy to take a few seconds to type 'thanks'.

SM

SM please see the reply the OP HAS posted in the Cuba forum and also my response to YOU, an apology to the OP would be in order I feel

You'll see that that is exactly what I have done - I was not aware that posts from new members were vetted in this way before being added to the board.

SM

Thanks SM

it also seems the new poster was unaware his posts beyond his initial one were being vetted. This must be a bit offputting. I can understand the need to vet the first posts but perhaps beyond that would put off new members? This poster appears to have had to wait 6 hours for his first reply to show. How does the vetting work- is it over a certain number of days or posts?

Fiona the poster of that thread had only made 8 in total, and initially when SMa thought that the poster had not replied it was awaiting approval, so it was only a couple of posts, which isn't unreasonable even if it's 5 or 10 it's surely a good thing isn't it.

The Mods/Admin have a hard enough job vetting the various areas, and this makes it a little easier knowing that new posts are checked before going out and therefore ensuring that they are not offensive.

Thanks for your support and understanding folks it is much appreciated, it has been very hard to keep up recently with the volume of new posts coming in as we have been under a constant bombardment by spammers from, China, Vietnam, India etc etc, so to avoid having all that rubbish appearing on HT a decision was taken to vet all 'Newbies' posts for a while.

When they post they do get told that their post will be checked before going live on the forum so they should be aware of this.

I agree with you Fiona , the new poster had 2 posts that were withheld for vetting , in the context of the thread that caused enough confusion with was dealt with by Kiltman , it must also be said that that poster " nachoman " has always said thank you and been polite , imagine the confusion and frustration of the new member if it was 5 to 10 posts ??
I think the mods on here do a great job , they are even handed and level headed in their moderating duties IMO , to criticise them would again IMO be a bit " Moyes" like

I also visit a couple of other forums linked with other aspects of travel and like I find on here they are friendly and also encourage good manners , one of them like here is very well moderated the other not so and it can sometimes get a bit heated but that's the nature of that forum and is pretty much acceptable .

As regards to saying " thanks " etc i think that it's only courteous to do that , and I think the majority of people act and behave in this way . I think it's nice and pleasant if people thank me if I have posted useful advice or reports , but I don't really get upset if people don't and this is my reason , if I post something on a public forum I am willingly giving my knowledge or advice , I've decided to " give it away " it's not just there for a specific person , it's there on record for anyone else who wishes to read it , I don't feel anyone is obligated to have to say thank you , if they wish to then that's great , fine etc , if they find it specific to them then they might feel its courteous to say thanks , which is ok , if lots of people read it and all find it useful , they can all chip in and buy me a box of Roses to say thank you

The Internet can be a very personal or impersonal experience , we can interpret it as we like or choose . I like and enjoy reading travel related stuff and part of that enjoyment is giving advice or help freely if I can .

andy66

As regards to saying " thanks " etc i think that it's only courteous to do that , and I think the majority of people act and behave in this way . I think it's nice and pleasant if people thank me if I have posted useful advice or reports , but I don't really get upset if people don't and this is my reason , if I post something on a public forum I am willingly giving my knowledge or advice , I've decided to " give it away " it's not just there for a specific person

this sounds correct to me Andy, nothing worse than 10 people reading something and ALL SAYING THANK YOU.
thank you
thank you
thank you
thank you
thank you
then others coming on to read the NEW POSTS and yes what do they say...thank you

Please note Kiltman that I was absolutely not criticising you. I know you are a very active mod. You are allowed a life outside ht . Might it not be an idea for any of the team to vet newbie posts for all forums rather than just their own? That would surely take pressure off. I just worry that long delays before newbies see their posts will be offputting and a bit confusing for the flow of the thread.

ray388 wrote:

andy66

As regards to saying " thanks " etc i think that it's only courteous to do that , and I think the majority of people act and behave in this way . I think it's nice and pleasant if people thank me if I have posted useful advice or reports , but I don't really get upset if people don't and this is my reason , if I post something on a public forum I am willingly giving my knowledge or advice , I've decided to " give it away " it's not just there for a specific person

this sounds correct to me Andy, nothing worse than 10 people reading something and ALL SAYING THANK YOU.
thank you
thank you
thank you
thank you
thank you
then others coming on to read the NEW POSTS and yes what do they say...thank you

As the person who started this thread, that was not the sort of situation that I was referring to and what you describe is very different to the one I raised and the later one that resulted in this thread being resurrected. My gripe, and (yes, I am ready to admit that I was griping) was those situations where a poster comes on to HT asking for fairly specific information and/or advice, and then receives a detailed and/or researched reply from another member but that member never receives an acknowledgement or any feedback as to whether the information or advice was useful or even provided all the information they needed. I no more expect everybody who reads a post to say 'thank you' than I post a thanks for every post that I read here and find useful. However, where I have asked the original question it would never occur to me NOT to acknowledge and thank people who have taken the time and effort to answer it. And one reason why I do this is because I hope that it will encourage them to continue to post and either continue to be or become active members of HT.

In fact the recent exchanges I have had with Nachoman66 are an example of this. Once we got over the initial confusion arising from him being a new member and the vetting of his replies to me, we have had quite a detailed exchange. He has been very courteous, acknowledged each new post from me and hopefully this has provide him with some useful information over and above his original query and who knows, perhaps others will find the info useful in the future too. But I wouldn't expect them to necessarily thank me, I've already received thanks for the original information provided and hopefully it did it's job. However, if others come along later and read it, find it useful but decide that it doesn't fully answer their queries so they post another question into that thread with the result that I then provide further more detailed answers in response their additional questions, is it that unreasonable to expect some feedback or acknowledgement from them?

In a way, I'm pleased to hear that others don't feel the same as me about this because personally I find it very de-motivating not to receive even a brief acknowledgement of detailed replies with the result that I find myself less and less likely to reply to new posts by new members with the result that I have started to post less and less here. If everybody felt like me HT would continue to wither away so the fact that others are still prepared to keep posting detailed replies even if never receiving thanks for them suggests that HT does have a more optimistic future and that my personal pessimism that prompted me to start this thread is ill-founded.

SM