Travel Itinerary - Part 1

We received our sample travel itinerary from our travel agent this evening, and we're scheduled to talk with the agency tomorrow afternoon to ask questions and sort things out. Deborah will talk with the folks at the travel agency on her own, however, as Daniel has a previously scheduled meeting to attend.

We're a little perplexed at the itinerary we received. It's only a sample and not final, but it does reflect the agency's best efforts to get us to Hong Kong to join the group and continue traveling into China. Yet it's a brutal itinerary! We depart late in the day, end up with a long layover at a major hub, then arrive in Hong Kong early in the morning, fully two days later. That means we'd have to try to stay up the whole day we arrived in Hong Kong to try to get over jetlag!

We have found cheaper and more convenient travel itineraries on our own, which makes us distrust the travel agency just a little bit. But there are significant benefits to using the agency.

1. The agency's itinerary is likely refundable and changeable, while the cheaper itineraries we can find are neither refundable nor changeable. And with three adults and one (later two) children under 3 years of age, the easier changes are to make, the better.
2. Should problems arise along the way -- cancellations, weather delays, etc. -- the agency will take care of making changes and booking a revised itinerary. This is not true for an itinerary we book ourselves.
3. Leaving the work to someone else is frankly pleasant.

We'll know more about our options tomorrow after Deborah talks to the folks at the agency. In the meantime, we'll stew a little and figure out how to define the monetary value of convenience and peace of mind.