Luxury or high class travel agents

[thundacatchergo]

i understand now. You are looking for a real travel agent and not just a paper pusher. It all depends on the agent itself more than the agency as a whole. We use miramar travel and lotus. nothing to complain about.

what city do you want to go to. finding a luxury hotel is easy. finding a luxury hotel for cheap is not.

[caipiroska]

As of the lack of knowledge of TA's here, I became my own travel agent. Most luxury hotels can be booked online on their own websites. The rate is more or less equal to what the TA's could ever offer me. Or you can always use pages such as expedia, hrs.de, aisarooms...
I normally check the hotels I am interested in on tripadvisor, and then shop around online for the cheapest rate.
For flights, try zuji.com or the airlines webpages. Some, such as LH, will offer you the possibility to book multi stop tickets online. Otherwise, call them and ask the agents to give you a quote for booking.

I know, this takes a bit of time, but I always came up cheaper than with the packages the TA's offered. What I find especially annoying with HKG TA is that they don't inform you on limited a/v of airline seat. Once the agent told me to pay first, then he would try to book the airticket. Nice try...

[BenderBends]

are you looking for exotic destinations or just a more knowledgeable agent? i know Abercrombie & Kent - Luxury Travel are excellent and they have offices around the world. otherwise i can put you in touch with someone

[Seared]

Hi, I am new here but found interesting posts, as far as I know Amex Centurion cardholders do have "concierge" style service. I suggest you to check on their website and see what they offer as "deals". I believe they should keep a higher standard than what is offered elsewere here. Good luck!

[MovingIn07]

Hi, I am new here but found interesting posts, as far as I know Amex Centurion cardholders do have "concierge" style service. I suggest you to check on their website and see what they offer as "deals". I believe they should keep a higher standard than what is offered elsewere here. Good luck!

Amex centurion uses the same people as Amex Platinum which uses the same people as Farringdons. They are all "ok" but absolutely nothing special. (View based on 2 years of using them for business travel pretty much every week. These days I instruct them in EXACTLY what I want (ie "please book cx901 on x date in x class, returning ...) because whenever I try going "what options do you have for a business class return to London" for example, I get a response of "cathay flies at these times" and NOTHING else. Which infuriates me. Last trip I ended up booking AirNZ online as Amex never even mentioned them and they were about 20k cheaper for a better product.....

[Katiedot]

If it's a cruise you're interested in then I know of an Australian cruise specialist who's opened a branch in HK. His team are pretty on the ball and may possibly be able to help with other travel requests too.

I'll dig out his business card when I'm back in the office tomorrow.

[Katiedot]

Ok, don't know if this will be of any use:

Ecruising Hong Kong/China
9/F Tack Building
Gilman St
Central

tel: 8202 6226
fax: 8202 6227
ecruising.travel : Home - The online cruise holiday specialists

Don't know why they have a fax number but no email address.

[Crocodile]

As of the lack of knowledge of TA's here, I became my own travel agent. Most luxury hotels can be booked online on their own websites. The rate is more or less equal to what the TA's could ever offer me. Or you can always use pages such as expedia, hrs.de, aisarooms...
I normally check the hotels I am interested in on tripadvisor, and then shop around online for the cheapest rate.
For flights, try zuji.com or the airlines webpages. Some, such as LH, will offer you the possibility to book multi stop tickets online. Otherwise, call them and ask the agents to give you a quote for booking.

I know, this takes a bit of time, but I always came up cheaper than with the packages the TA's offered. What I find especially annoying with HKG TA is that they don't inform you on limited a/v of airline seat. Once the agent told me to pay first, then he would try to book the airticket. Nice try...

I would have to agree. I have used TAs occassionally, but have found it limiting in some respects.

Blowing a bit of time on googling various things is time well spent. I also use several travel forums and consolidating websites to give me a wide range of selections and prices, that I can quickly narrow down to exactly what I want. A great cruise site is vacationstogo.com. Trip Advisor is very helpful also for overall ideas and suggestions.

A good TA is helpful for certain things, but in my case, they just don't meet my needs for most things.

[pin]

I'm looking into sorting out a 10 day package to South Africa. Anyone recommend me a TA for this?

Or time to hit google?

Need more than just flights. Would need hotel bookings, internal transfers, game park reservations, etc.

I did have a look at A&K and they have a couple of great packages. However a bit out of the price range.

[amseiko98]

There's actually a travel agent in a travel book shop in Central that will organise everything for you. I think it's in Wyndham street (upper part). I haven't used them because their service seems to be geared to high end budgets, but if that's what you're after they may be good.