E-Mail Intercept
I received an e-mail yesterday from a travel agent in Ontario, Canada. She apparently found CharterWave on the Internet and mistook me for a charter broker. Here is what her e-mail said:
“Dear Kim, I have a client who is interested in hiring a catamaran during Christmas in Belize. They would like to hire it for a period of only three or four days. Do you have a minimum rental for this period? They require four cabins and a full crew. If you could provide me with options I would appreciate it, and also if this booking would be commissionable to us?”
I share this with you here because I think it’s a classic example of why anyone booking a private yacht charter vacation should work directly with a reputable charter broker instead of with a travel agent.
This particular travel agent is quite clear about showing she knows absolutely nothing about charter yacht vacations, yet wants to keep the client away from a reputable charter broker who does, simply to keep her commission intact.
It’s an all too familiar tale, one that I hear all the time in the charter industry. Scenarios like this almost always end up frustrating the broker as well as the client, as the travel agent refuses to step aside even though she has no idea what she’s talking about when it comes to chartering yachts.
Even if your travel agent has been great in the past, the odds are that when you ask her for a private yacht charter, she’s sending out random e-mails like this one to people she doesn’t even know, trying to figure out how the charter industry works. Is that really the way you want your vacation to be organized? I seriously doubt it.
Go to the charter broker directly to get the best service, not to mention some basic assurances that you’re working with and actual broker in the first place.