We’ve been learning a lot since we added travel advisor to our enterprise in our quest to help today’s baby boomer travelers get out there and enjoy this beautiful world of ours (read about it here).

And while our original motive was to respond to the cry of our readers’ disdain for travel planning, we’ve since learned that not only can we help you with any travel package you’re likely to find on the Internet, but also, because of our affiliation with the $12 billion a year Virtuoso Travel Network, we are likely to find travel deals, packages, and values that you simply won’t find on your own.

Here’s a recent case in point…

Last week, clients came to us looking to book a transatlantic cruise on the world-famous Queen Mary 2.  They were quite frustrated because the only cabins available in their desired category were sold out, and they were faced with spending $20,000 for a larger suite, or booking a tiny cabin in the belly of the whale.

With a little homework, we learned that we could have them catch the very same ship, two days earlier in a different port, have a 9 day cruise instead of a 7 day cruise, and the fare was $10,000 for the suite they actually desired.  PLUS, we got them a complimentary upgrade two suite levels above what they paid for!

Now, the story doesn’t end there.  After we reserved their cabin on the Queen Mary 2, we turned our attention to the airline flights.  They wanted to fly business class to England, but were finding that the flights available on their routine airline were coming in at over $6,000 a piece.  Yowza!

Again, we turned to our Virtuoso airline booking desk, and because of the volume of air travel that is booked through our network, we found them business class flights for only $2,800 each during the busy summer months.

So, we’ve saved our clients not only a lot of grief trying to figure this out on there own, but we also saved them over $16,000!

Moral to the story?  The world is again changing, and today’s professional travel agent has the tools to be your best travel search engine.  Not only will a professional travel agent save you a lot of time and grief, but they are very likely to save you a lot of your hard earned dollars as well.

To offer you some non-biased articles with the same conclusion, check out these articles from the New York Times, and the Today Show:

• New York Times – Is the Best Travel Search Engine Around the Corner?
• Today Show – When to Use a Travel Agent

And now for a shameless plug – we are actively looking for clients of our Roaming Boomers Travel Services.  If you’d like to put us to work on your behalf, call us at (480) 550-1235, or use our handy travel information request form by CLICKING HERE.