Seven steps, and the party answerable at each
Seven steps from a first note to a reservation with a San Diego travel agent
Each of the seven steps below names the party answerable for it. At no stage does this end take money, and nothing binds either side until the operating company sends you its own confirmation.
Reserve one of these weeksSend the form whenever it suits: it never shuts. Someone here replies inside one working day, and no charge arises at this end.
Steps one to three: asking, checking, quoting
It starts with the form, or with a letter of your own. What arrives is read here, and if it carries enough detail, it goes on to the firm that operates that week where the week happens. Back comes an answer: which dates are available to hold, and the figure attached. Two to four working days is what pricing a named set of nights takes, since the season's remaining availability is checked against your dates first and the number reaches you second.
Agreeing a figure, then being invoiced direct
Your agreement goes in writing and it is exact: one figure, one set of dates, one named firm. The invoice then comes from that firm, under its own name, for whatever portion it collects at the time of booking. Money never passes through this end and no card is ever seen here. Should the firm want a deposit instead of the full amount, its confirmation prints the date the remainder falls due, so no one finds that out late.
Confirmation, and the weeks before you go
Written confirmation comes from the operating firm and sets out dates, rooms, guided days and the terms on which it will cancel. A copy stays here, checked line by line against the agreement, and any discrepancy is reported to you. Between then and departure, requests to alter something are handled here, whatever the firm passes along is passed to you, and this remains the address you write to. Travellers who have not asked for a telephone call do not get one, and no text messages go out.
Where this office stops, in practice
Air seats and sea berths fall outside the business altogether, and not one carrier holds a contract here, so getting you to the country is not something this end arranges, nor will it offer opinions on fares nobody here controls. Insurance of every kind is absent from what is sold. Visas, passports, vaccination, law, medicine: on all five the answer is that no advice is given, said plainly instead of guessed at, since being wrong on any of them costs a traveller more than the week is worth.
Asked before anybody commits
Could dates be held while I make up my mind?
Occasionally, though only where the operating firm makes that available. When one can be arranged, you get in writing both its duration and what follows once it runs out. When it cannot, you are told that outright, not left with the impression that your dates are secure. Proceeding is never an obligation created by a hold, and no charge for one is made at this end.
Suppose the operating company changes something, what then?
Word reaches this office, and the same day it arrives you get it, in plain language, together with whatever remedy the firm has put forward. The decision after that is yours. No change is accepted here in your name, and nothing is held back in the hope that a cheerier message follows.
Finish the sentence and a week gets reserved
Whatever the hour, what you send lands here and is read by a person, who replies inside one working day. Sending it binds you to nothing, and no sum is ever taken at this end.