36 Things which you did not know that you did not know

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You pay:

the tour operator: who buys direct from the hotel

the travel agency/airline: who you buy from

taxes: government is going to get their piece, and

the hotel. Do you like paying 4 sets of people?

None of the middle men - not the tour operator, not the travel agency, and not the airline - charge you the same amount as they paid for the hotel.

They put in a mark-up to be able to make a profit.

Consequently, you pay a multiple of the actual cost. Can you afford to lose a multiple of your money on each vacation?

Generally, everybody is looking for the best deal - where they get the most value, the most bang for their buck, while paying the least money.

The problem with a travel package is  that you do not know the individual costs of each of the items in your package - you just know the total cost. Consequently, you do not know if you are really getting a deal or not - you just hope that you are.

Your travel package price changes by the:

1. destination, 2. season, 3. quality/star-rating of the hotel, 4. type of room, 5. view from the room, 6. number of people traveling, and 7. inflation.

Your vacation budget does not change, but your vacation cost does. We travel not to where we want to, but often to where we can afford to. 

When you decide on a travel package, you have, without realizing it, gotten married to the flights.

You have to choose 1 of the flight options which come with your package. If you change anything with the flights, you change your package cost.

You fly when the flights says you can. Do you like being held hostage by your flights?

Check-in time, at nearly any hotel in the world is after 3 pm, and check-out time is before 12 noon.

When you check-in after 3 pm, you lose the first day of your vacation, and when you check-out before 12 noon, you lose the last day of your vacation.

Do you like to lose 2 days of every vacation?

At an all-inclusive resort, you pay per person, per day, because you get breakfast, lunch, and dinner included with your accommodations.

However if you check-in after 3 pm, you would have paid for both breakfast which finished at 10 am, and lunch which finished at 3 pm, but received neither one. Do you like paying for stuff that you can never get?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, your package is a bare-bones package with absolutely no frills or V.I.P. privileges attached.

You pay to upgrade to a better room.

You pay to get better restaurants.

Do you want to keep on paying to upgrade to better quality on every vacation?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, your package is limited to only that which comes with that package.

Nothing More.  Nothing Less.

Do you like having places at the resort where you cannot go, facilities which you cannot use, benefits which you cannot access? You came on vacation to getaway from stress, not to get stress.

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you check-in at the Hotel Lobby.

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you join the line waiting to check-in, at the back of the line.

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, frustration from slow, check-in procedures await, as does boredom from having nothing to do for long periods.

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you pay for the flight, the  hotel, the food, and transfers as part of your package.

You do not get to stay for free at the hotel.

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you pay the all-inclusive cost for every member of your party.

You do not get for your children/grandchildren under the age of 13 to stay, and to eat for free.

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you are routinely offered access to upgrades when you check-in at the hotel.

You do not get free upgrades at the hotel.

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you get, at check-in, whatever room the hotel wishes to give you.

V.I.P. s pick the destination, pick the hotel, pick the building, pick the floor, pick the type of room, and pick the view. 

What do you get to pick? Nothing!

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you get a map to guide you, at check-in, and an ´I will see you again at check-out´.

How do you think it would feel to have your own personal butler - to attend to stuff for you, while you layout by the pool or at the beach, sipping cocktails in glasses with colored umbrellas?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you walk, or you take a train to get around the hotel compound.

The train has its own schedule, so you could be waiting for up to 30 minutes for it to come, it does not only take you, so if it is full, you get to wait for it to come back, and it has a specific route, so you walk from wherever it leaves you.

A chaffeured golf cart is personal, private, and direct - no waiting, no stopping, no other people.

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you do not have access to exclusive, V.I.P., private, privileged areas.

No member's-only functions in the member's lounge.

No meeting with various managers of the hotel.

Don't you wan t to feelspecial, pampered? 

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you check-in after 3:00 pm as do all of the other regular guests.

If you get to the hotel before 3 pm, you are homeless as you have no place to be until your room is ready, children do not understand that.

Do you like losing the first day of your vacation?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you check-out before 12 noon as do all of the other regular guests.

Regardless of the time at which your flight home leaves, you have to vacate the room by 12 noon. You get to walk around aimlessly until then.

Do you like losing the last day of your vacation?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you do not have access to the private member's-only beach.

You get to get up at 5 am to put towels on beach-chairs to reserve them - just like everybody else.

On vacation, do you want to be getting up at 5 am to do that?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you do not have access to the Beach Club.

The Beach Club has its own pool, showers, bathroom, and bar - and staff to bring you your drinks - you do not need to get up to go get drinks.

Would you like being waited on hand and foot?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you do not have access to premium alcohol. A regular guest pays additional for each premium alcohol drink.

How would you feel if you could drink what you want, regardless of whether it was premium alcohol or not, when you want, how much of it you want, as often as you want?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you do not get access to all of the restaurants on the compound.

You only get access to those restaurants which come with your reservation.

Do you want to eat what you want to eat, or to eat the type of food the hotel wants you to eat?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you do not get access to a la carte reservations for every night of your vacation.

You get 3 or 4 a la carte reservations per week.

Do you like eating more nights at the buffet  than at a la carte restaurants?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you do not have any priority in making your dinner reservations.

You make your dinner reservations after you have checked-in, and after those already at the hotel.

Do you like not getting the restaurants you want, or the time that you would like to eat at?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you do not get any staff dedicated to your comfort, and convenience.

Do you like not having someone specific, who you know and can contact, to work with the management of the hotel and the management of the restaurants, to ensure that you are happy, pampered, and having a good time?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you do not get to make free telephone calls at the hotel.

You pay for every call that you make, and the cost of each changes by the destination which you call.

How would you feel if you could access a place on vacation where all of your calls were free?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you do not get a private transfer from the airport to the hotel.

You get a bus, which you share with many people.

Do you like to sit and wait for others to board the bus, and then to sit and wait some more while they get dropped off before you do?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, nobody at the hotel knows what you were promised with your package, so nobody explains anything to you, for fear of contradicting that which you were promised.

You learn about the hotel, personally & privately.

Do you like being on your own, in a foreign country, where you do no speak the languauge?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, your relationship is with the third-party provider, as is the hotel. You and the hotel have relationship, so should you have a problem with your reservation, you have to call back to Canada, for them to call the hotel to fix it.

Do you like that noone at the hotel can help you, even though you are 2 feet away from them?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you get regular service. That is to say that you get whatever type and level of service which the person in front of you, at that time, at the hotel, wants to, or is knowledgeable enough, to give you. Do you not like good service?

You have worked hard, you deserve the best, why not be a V.I.P. when you are on vacation?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you get to be nickel and dimed.

You are at an all-inclusive hotel, where  all your food, and all your drinks are included, but you pay separately and additionally for premium alcoholic beverages, and for gourmet food like steak and/or lobster. Do you like to constantly having to put your hand in your pocket to pay for stuff?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, they make more money if they put you in the cheapest and lowest rated hotel that they can, so they show you only the hotel optons which they want you to see, and they show you the photos which they want you to see.

Do you like booking a hotel only to realize when you get there, that there were better hotel options to that which you were offered?

When you buy your vacation package from a third-party provider, you pay more and get less.

You do not get the best room.

You do not get the best restaurants.

you do not get the best drinks.

You do not get the best facilities.

You do not get the best service.

Do you want to continue paying more and getting less?