Is 'Ocean Blue and Assoc., Inc.' a trustworthy company or am I a sucker for having signed up with them?

Question

Ocean Blue does their marketing through TRVL, Inc. The company claims to save frequent vacationers a lot of money by taking out the 'middle man' when making travel arrangements and making you your own travel agent (for an up-front price). Does anyone have experience with them? Your answer is very much appreciated... :)

Answer 1

Travel Agents are "Middle Men"? That's news to me =)

Hmmm well no experience with this company, but there are a lot of scammers out there hopefully for your sake this isn't one of them. I take pride in what I do and I know I always help my clients to the best of my ability so I never consider myself a middle man I consider myself "the man" in a matter of speaking. haha even though I am a "woman" =)

Usually the reason companies prefer to cut out what they call the middle man is because then they don't have to pay a travel agency commission. A lot of times you the consumer will pay the same rates online, sometimes higher sometimes lower. Either way we don't tack on commission. The company pays that to us. It's just if something is booked direct by cutting out the middle man they are making more money. If this makes sense.

I looked and I can't even find a website for this "company" which is usually never a good thing considering virtually all have websites now a days.

Hope it works for you, but if it doesn't please reconsider using us travel agents. Most of us (if you find a good one) are quite knowledgeable and even if you have to pay a $20.00 per person service fee which is common. It is well worth having your own personal contact, not some big corporation of some sort or another. Plus we do searching in order to not only find you the best price, but the trip that you are envisioning in your head. Most people don't even know what they want and that is ok. Or some think they know what they would like by visual pictures, well pictures can be deceiving and a good agent would ask qualifying questions to determine your best location.

Price is important, but isn't what you are spending your money on important to?