WhyA Travel Agent Is No Fair-Weather Friend (NAPSA)—The way you choose to book travel should not leave you stranded during stormy weather. That’s what many vacationers thought when booking their Cancun vacation through popular online travel agencies. Many online agencies promising “travel guarantees” for resolving any problem while on vacation were nowhere to be found after thousands of Cancun vacationers were left helpless in the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma. During a time of need, online travel agencies directed their customers to busy reservations hotlines and the State Department for information and assistance. In many cases, travelers could not get any help without a trip identification number—information that was not readily available to people stuck in hurricaneshelters. However, vacationers who booked their trip through a travel agent had a completely different experience. Liberty Travel, a leading retail travel agency with more than 200 locations, was amongthefirst to evacuate more than 700 of its clients from Cancun aboard four company-funded chartered flights. Since scheduled carriers were not able to fly into Cancun, Liberty Travel funded four private charters to rescue their customers over a three day period. Hundreds of travel agents worked around the clock, from speaking to clients via phone to assisting passengers as they arrived at the airport. More than ee [3 : B Onetravel agency chartered four planes to bring homeclients who were stranded by a hurricane. 20 travel agents and staff members were on hand to personally provide clients with connecting flight information, ground transportation or overnight hotel accommodations if a flight was not available that day. A dedicated toll-free Hurricane Hotline was set up to provide upto-date information on family membersreturning from Cancun. “Hurricane Wilma reconfirmed my belief in using a travel agent,” said Matthew Wright of Slingerlands, New York. “I witnessed travelers who booked their vacations through online travel agencies who were left stranded without any help in sight. We were fortunate to have our Liberty Travel agent who informed us that a charter flight was on the way and we would be returning home very soon.” For more information on Lib- erty Travel, call 1-888-271-1584 or visit www.libertytravel.com.
