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Book Directly Or Nah?

05/25/2020 by Travel Is D'new Black

Wander tribe let’s be honest, no one wants to over pay for anything am I correct? But are you truly getting the better deal when booking your travel with a third-party company such as Expedia, Orbitz and or Priceline?

COVID-19 has definitely shaken up the world, to include the travel industry and many individuals are having a hard time getting to speak to someone, let alone get their travel funds back from cancelled travel.

So let’s talk about it, let’s layout the pros and cons of booking your travel direct with an airline/hotel vs a third party company. So let’s start with third party companies.

Third party travel companies or Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) are companies that sell you travel online. They act as a middleman between airlines/hotels and consumers, though their prices can often be cheaper than booking direct. Many of us are familiar with top OTAs like Orbitz, Expedia, and Travelocity. There are hundreds of smaller OTAs as well, and more pop up all the time. Some smaller ones include OneTravel, Vayama and eBookers. Some benefits of booking with an OTA include:

Cheaper fares
Price comparisons
You can purchase multi-airline itineraries
Discounts after a certain number of reservations

Cons of Third-Party Travel Sites

Poor customer service
Hard to change your reservation
Additional costs tacked to the booking
Many of the cheapest deals are non-refundable
Unable to earn points through hotel loyalty programs

Personally, I do not care for third party sites. I haven’t used one since late 2012 because they did not provide me with all of the details. For example, I was planning a trip to North Carolina and used Hotels.com. I paid one price online, only when at checkout there was an additional fee of some kind. When I made a fuss at the counter, they mentioned that the site was notorious for not being 100% transparent and many of their guests that have booked with them have experienced this. That was the LAST time using a third-party site. But let’s not forget about how the COVID-19 really showed the hand of OTAs. Remember the site Bookit.com? Well Bookit.com was a OTA and it went out of business amid COVID-19 without refunding their customers! Thousands of travelers received an email stating “Your trip is now cancelled,” others travelers were stranded, while the company went belly up overnight.

Now let’s dig into booking direct shall we.

Booking direct means exactly what it sounds to be. This is simply securing a room/plane ticket via the hotels/airline’s website. Here are some of the pros and cons:

Room & seat preference
Best rate guarantee
Loyalty program points
Better customer service
Free WI-FI and other amenities
Can capitalize on co-branded credit cards

Cons

They could cost more

So, tell me what would you decide on? Are you going to gamble and secure a flight/room with a third-party site? Or will you book directly in the future to maximize your travel dollars? Me personally I will continue to book direct to continue to receive free Wi-Fi, free breakfast, and room preferences but I hope this breakdown assists you in making the best decision for your travel needs.

Did you find this useful? Be sure to comment, share and subscribe to my blog for more travel stories & tips and follow me on my social media platforms!

Anita

Carnival’s Great Vacation Guarantee (Is It As Good As It States)

04/20/2020 by Travel Is D'new Black

Good morning wander tribe! While being quarantined, I wanted to brush up on my travel knowledge and I stumbled across the Great Vacation Guarantee provided by Carnival Cruise Lines. Let’s take a look at what it looks like shall we?

Breaking Down the Guidelines

If you’re not happy with any 3–14 day Carnival Cruise Line vacation you take to The Bahamas, the Caribbean, the Mexican Riviera, Bermuda, Canada/New England or Alaska, just let Carnival know within 24 hours of leaving the port of embarkation. If Carnival gets something wrong, they will refund 100% of your fare with no hassles and our Guest Services team will get you back to your home or port of embarkation free of charge.
Their Guest Services team will make all the arrangements to get you off the ship as quickly as they can, and fly you to either your home airport if you flew in, or back to your point of embarkation if you drove to the ship.
Simply notify Carnival’s on board Guest Services desk. If you decide later that you want to give Carnival another try, they will give a $100 per stateroom on board credit to any guest in your party who exercised the guarantee and, within a year, books another Carnival cruise.
Applies to individuals who are U.S. and Canadian residents only.

Thoughts?

With cruising being a great way to see many countries at once, I highly advise any and everyone to give cruising a try. Whether it’s Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Princess, or Norwegian, be sure to take note of all of it’s guarantees, and payment/cancellation guidelines in the event you have to cancel and or decide that you no longer want to continue your cruise once you’ve embarked. Looking deeper into the Great Vacation Guarantee, I looked through a couple of reviews and some past passengers were not happy with the guarantee because they had to “PROVE” that they were not having a good time. This negates what is mentioned above and I can understand why past passengers were unhappy when trying to utilize the guarantee.

Recommendations

When deciding on cruising with any cruise line, give them a call and see if you can get them to email something to you in writing. Just to have it on stand by in the event you may want to cancel and or utilize any of the guarantee policies. To take it one step further, PLEASE look into their insurance policies to ensure that you are actually getting your money back and not a voucher. I mean, who wants a voucher to return in the future if you weren’t happy the first time around right?

Last but not least, take a look into travel articles and posts on the topic. For example, TripAdvisor has a lot of feedback on the matter and many posts from past passengers on their experience with the guarantee.

I hope you guys liked this blog post! If so, be sure to comment, share, and subscribe to my page!

Anita

You Might As Well – Keeping Busy While Quarantined

04/08/2020 by Travel Is D'new Black

I must say that these times are not the best. A little eerie if you ask me. But hey it is what it is. On every television screen, channel, web banner, radio station there is mention of the Coronavirus and what they think is going to happen, what has happened and what they want us to do here on out.

That also includes quarantining yourselves and practicing social distancing. While you’re being quarantined, I would like to ask how you’re keeping busy during these times? Do you have a new regimen to your day? Are you working from home?

I would like to share with you some things you can do while quarantined, I mean you might as well right?

House Chores

Now, before you get to rolling your eyes and sucking your teeth we all have some things in our place of residence that can use a little sprucing up right? Maybe a face-lift here and there? Here are my house chores that I’m doing this week that I’ve been putting off since……FOREVER

Purging my closet (Be sure to take your items to the Goodwill for a tax write off)
Cleaning the ceiling fan (I used Clorox Wipes)
Wiping down the baseboards (This sucked horribly but the house smells amazing)
Cleaning the oven/microwave (This didn’t take long because we cover our food and line the oven with aluminum foil to catch spillage)
Cleaning and deodorizing the fridge (……….Sigh……..)

Outdoor Activities

If you’re at home and could use a little outdoor time, then most definitely go get your vitamin D. Many states have issued curfews and really want you to stay at your place of residence, which is totally understandable. So here are some suggestions to check somethings off your outdoor to do list to include:

Mow the lawn
Clean out your vehicle
Start the garden you mentioned

Fitness

While being stuck at home, our governor mentioned that of course we can get out doors and get our exercise on. But to consider keeping six feet away from other citizens that maybe out and about. I can dig that, with all of the open space around me, that was not a problem and I am determined to keep the “Rona” weight up off me! Ya dig?

One of my classmates from high school started a Nike Run Challenge to complete 35 miles during the month of April. This is to include, walking, running, and jogging. Whatever your pace, just do it, right Nike? (Corny, I know but you get the point.) I asked to be added to the challenge and man I have to say I enjoy it because I have the time to do it! If you’re able to do so, I encourage you, your family and friends to stay active by all means.

20200406_174450 — You can’t see it, but my feet were SCREAMING!

Love On Yourself

With the uncertainty of everything, it can bring on lots of anxiety and worry. I get it! Don’t be afraid to take some of this down time to focus on YOU. On your self care, mental health, and whatever else you need for YOU. Here are a few things I would like to suggest:

Meditate/Pray
Steam your skin
Give yourself a facial
Paint your finger nails
Consider a juicing recipe (For breakfast, I used ginger, lemon, celery and fuji apples for my juicing recipe for 7 days, my skin is hella clear and it helped me…….ummmm…. go lol)
Take a long bath (Get fancy with it by adding oils, Epsom salt, and maybe cut the lights and bring in your favorite candle)

Don’t let social media get you down with all of those “If you didn’t come out of this down time with a skill you’re a lazy person” bull sh**. Take some time and focus on you and YOUR household. I hope that some of these things helped you all come up with something to do with some of this free time. I mean, you might as well.

Please like, comment, and share this post with all of your friends and family.

Love ya! : )

What’s Going On

01/21/2019 by Travel Is D'new Black

“What’s Going On”

What’s going on with the shutdown you ask? Well, as we look around us sh** has been shut down.

For those of you who may not be aware, the federal government has underwent a “partial shutdown.” So you may be asking what is a partial shutdown? From what many of us have seen so far, a partial shutdown happens when only some of the federal government’s agencies are funded and not all of them due to Congress not passing funding bills or the president fails to sign them before the previous appropriations run out. Why and how did this happen do you ask? Because democrats refuse to agree with the request of about $5 billion dollars to help fund steel barriers in high-priority locations along the American and Mexico border.

So you’re probably saying to yourself. Well how does this affect myself, and what does this have to do travel? Well let me fill you in on some of the things that travelers like you and myself should be EXTREMELY concerned about. I will start off by listing a few of the agencies that have been affected:

-Department of the Treasury
-Department of Agriculture
-Homeland Security Department
-Department of the Interior
-Department of State
-Department of Housing and Urban Development
-Department of Transportation
-Department of Commerce
-Department of Justice

So lets just talk about a few of the agencies shall we, let’s begin with good old Department of Homeland Security. With TSA workers not being paid to help assist in keeping us safe in the airports and in flight, this could lead to call outs and no shows. TOO DAMN LATE, they are already calling out and saying man “F*** this.” Them calling out has led to many terminal closures and making TSA check point lines unbearably long. But could you blame them? I think we have reached 30 days of many agencies being furloughed and about a week ago many furloughed employees have received paychecks that read 0.00. My heart truly goes out to these employees who are required to show with no pay, despite not having gas in their cars, or enough money to give their children for lunch for the week.

So what can we do about this? Nothing really, but I heard that some airports are accepting donations for TSA workers! For those of you who are doing this already, you’re the real MF’n MVPs. For those of you who would like to help and contribute, definitely contact your local airport and get the deets. I myself will make a donation this week, because I am blessed enough to have a paying job and travel while those that assist in my travel are not receiving funds that are owed to them. Please keep that in mind folks, and lets bless others.

For a few articles on airport donations check out some of the links below:

Orlando International Donation Drive:

Oakland International Airport:

Hopkins Airport:

TSA Food Pantry:

Another agency that is furloughed is the Food and Drug Administration, also known as the FDA. The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices; and by ensuring the safety of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. (https://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/WhatWeDo/default.htm)

So again, to the many travelers traveling around the United States, guess who is out there inspecting your food, and ensuring your poultry meets federal law and regulation? You guessed it, probably not a d*** soul because they’re furloughed. If you’re a little concerned about what foods to possibly avoid be sure to do a quick google, or start here.

Guys I wanted to bring this to your attention because this is a very serious issue. Like you and myself that enjoy the privilege of traveling the globe, many people can not at this time and I would like you to keep that in mind. On your next adventure, please be sure to thank your TSA folks and consider making a donation.

“Come on talk to me, so you can see, what’s going on” (Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On )