MYSTERY SHOPPER WIN MY BOOKING
WEST END, LONDON
WANTED: A couple are seeking an escorted tour of Russia, including Moscow and St Petersburg, in May 2018. They want details on visas and what to expect from their first escorted tour. BUDGET: £4,000
WINNING AGENT
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL CONSULTANT JOEL DARK
‘ VERDICT
All three agencies gave a decent service, but Flight Centre offered a couple of options and made more effort to upgrade the trip, despite going slightly over-budget.
SCORING SYSTEM
50% Advice and product knowledge
25% Customer service
15% External/internal appearance
10% Overall experience
TIME OUT
Any agency that keeps Mystery Shopper waiting without acknowledgement for 10 minutes will fail to score!
The top-scoring agent each month will win the use of a car for 10 days
The winning agent must be at least 25, for insurance reasons. Winners under 25 will win a week’s all-inclusive holiday at an Elite Islands Resorts property. The prize is non-transferable and the car must be driven only by the winning agent. The winner must not have any serious driving convictions. Elite Island Resorts will endeavour to supply the car to the agency but reserves the right to request the winning agent to collect and return the car from Essex or a central location.
80%
STA Travel 11 GOODGE STREET
I was offered help promptly by a friendly agent who suggested a 12-day tour
with G Adventures. We would fly from Gatwick to St Petersburg with Turkish Airlines on May 21. The trip included excursions to Valaam Island on Lake Ladoga and Ruskeala marble quarries, and in Moscow to Sergiev Posad and Monastery. Visas were factored into
the cost of £3,656. Hotels wouldn’t be specified until booking and no brochure was available, but the tour met my needs.
78% Kuoni JOHN LEWIS, OXFORD STREET
I was served within 30 seconds but wasn’t offered a chair. I was handed Kuoni’s Escorted Travelling brochure
and recommended a six-day trip leaving on May 12. We would be staying at
Moscow’s Kadashevskaya Hotel and the Demetra Art Hotel in St Petersburg, with business-class rail travel between the cities. The price was £3,448, including
excursions and open-jaw BA flights from Heathrow. The agent was knowledgeable but didn’t try to close the sale.
I always try to give the customer a few
options and make sure it’s exactly what they want. We don’t get an awful lot of Russia
requests. I just tried to tailor-make it to how the customer wanted it.
Flight Centre 159 OXFORD STREET
A friendly agent welcomed me and soon found two options: Trafalgar’s
seven-night Wonders of St Petersburg and Moscow tour for £4,162 including
excursions, flights and the train between cities; and Insight Vacations’ Easy Pace
Russia for £4,748 (with an early-booking discount) including flights and transfers.
Both included a range of excursions, such as Red Square and the Winter Palace. We would be flying with BA from Heathrow on both trips for £300 return per person. The prices were estimates, as the 2018 brochures had yet to be published, but the agent said they could chase these
and gave me their card. They also offered business-class upgrades, extra excursions and extra nights at each end of the trip.
84%
THIS WEEK’S WINNER
42
travelweekly.co.uk 26 October 2017
WIN!
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
