By Les-Lee Roland

Welcome to the Flips and Flops column. We are able to do what we do here because of your input and information. If you want a supplier or a res agent or DSM to get special recognition, let us know. If there is something amiss with a company’s policies or actions, share them with us, as well. Let us know which booking engines and Web pages are hits and which are misses! E-Mail your suggestions to packagedeals@comcast.net.

A BIG, BIG FLIP to USA TODAY! A consumer advocate wrote a column in the Feb. 20 issue, trying to resolve a problem between passengers and — can you believe it — Travelocity!
The passengers booked a Princess cruise from Beijing to Singapore with both pre- and post-cruise stays and air. Travelocity’s air was a convoluted itinerary that added ten additional hours to the already long flight. Plus, the Travelocity agent didn’t take into account the time changes and had the passengers arrive after their pre stay started. Poor folks, they missed their already paid for day tour of the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. (Are you feeling sorry for them?)
Travelocity’s excuse was that the passengers should have caught the mistake on their own when they received the final documents.
Why is this a FLIP? Because Linda Burbank, who writes the Traveler’s Aide column for USA Today, closed the article with the following:
“Work with an individual travel agent. Organizing a cruise vacation means juggling a lot of details, even if you’re sure you know what you want. An agent who specializes in cruises can handle the minutiae and even spare you big hassles.”
Hooray! Finally someone is promoting us! Agents, use this to your advantage. (I wonder if Peter Greenberg reads USA TODAY?)
A FLOP to the group department of one of our favorite “Italian-style” cruise lines. They offer lots of amenity points, but is there a written list or breakdown of points and how they can be used? Nope. Yet, most other cruise lines have a written menu of points that you use as a reference piece. And if you book a group one year in advance, put even one deposit down, you cannot change your selection. They offer more choices on their pizza. Give us agents a break, too.
A FLOP to a few of the river cruise companies for 2006. Getting group space early was difficult, with many weeks sold out. We all know these are smaller vessels, so space was limited. Promos for free air, discounted air, $1,000 off per cabin, early bird specials, soon changed to $500 off per cabin (is that for middle aged birds?) — and we had been told they were selling like crazy. Now, suddenly space is available again, new lower promos — air at $99. Eating crow perhaps?
A FLIP to INSIGHT Vacations. They are now doing marketing to past passengers — something new for them. Most important, they are encouraging people to contact their travel agent. Any company that promotes booking through travel agents goes to the top of the list for me. Another FLIP to INSIGHT in having so many guaranteed departures for 2006. This eliminates the “cringe dilemma” when agents, closing a sale, have to tell clients that their tour will not be confirmed until 45 to 60 days before departure. Just pay the money in advance, and yes, if the tour is cancelled, your insurance is NOT refundable.
Globus now has some guaranteed departures, but you have to ask a res agent for them since they are not mentioned in the brochure. It was also reported by a Seattle agent that her clients had been solicited by Globus for discounted travel. When agents contacted Globus for an explanation, it was explained to be an isolated case and Globus will take bookings but not solicit them. This is a FLIP FLOP from their past practice of only dealing with agents.
A FLOP to the One Day sales promos. We probably all got the continuous E-mails from a major cruise line offering a Thursday-only sale, with upgrades and special rates. Agents could actually start booking on Wednesday, with the sale good only on new bookings. We were encouraged to notify all our clients about this sale, and the cruise line had also E-mailed past passengers about the sale. Don’t you just love that?
Well then, will someone explain this progression? Tuesday, no sale, the balcony is $970 per person. Wednesday, the one-day sale price for a balcony is $1,020. Am I missing something here? The moral to this: agents must reinforce to clients that if they deal with a travel agent, we can offer a better rate than what the cruise line offers. And sometimes a “sale” is nothing but a “sail.”
Speaking of words, is a rose, a rose, by any other name? With all the originality out there, why do so many ships have similar names? We have Carnival’s Legend, RCL’s Legend of the Seas, and even Seaborn has its Legend. Add duplicates of Jewel and Splendour and Diamond to the list. Will the Caribbean Princess be doomed to the islands forever never to sail anywhere else? At least the “dam” names are distinctive. Now Radisson Seven Seas has announced its new name is Regent Cruises, not to be confused with the defunct Regency Cruises. So this is a FLOP to the well-paid marketing people who recycle names or clone them.
A question about a FLOP was posed by an agent concerning the increase in port taxes. Seems like many of the cruise lines have added $20 to the Caribbean itineraries. This agent did the math. With conservative estimates of 10,000 passengers a week at $20 a head times 52 weeks a year — that’s more than the national debt for some countries. Too many zeros to calculate for me. Crystal adds $4 a person per day for their fuel charges. Are these non-commissionables raising ship revenue instead of providing extra bucks to agents?