Travel agent question or travel service professional type business?

[LuvOrlando]

There was no bad weather where you are. But there were huge weather issues all over the Northeast, including what you've stated as your destination, BOS. Planes and crews out of position because people and equipment couldn't get into or out of bases. Since two of JetBlue's bases are BOS and JFK, and they definitely have been dealing with weather all weekend.


How much would you be willing to pay? And how many others do you think would be willing to pay the same? There has to be critical mass for a business like that to succeed. IIRC, you've complained about flight prices in the past, are you willing to pay an extra 20% on each flight for the one time out of 20 that you need this? And are you willing to bet that the service will make the same decisions you would based on what they know? What seems like a great decision to others, may not for you for various reasons.

Thanks to Flight Aware we could see the plane that was coming to us was in Boston, where we live, just sitting there and there was absolutely zero going on in either Boston or in Florida or along the coast at the time that flight should have left Boston. We called and asked for an explanation and got unintelligible mumbles

 

[lanejudy]

Thanks to Flight Aware we could see the plane that was coming to us was in Boston, where we live, just sitting there and there was absolutely zero going on in either Boston or in Florida or along the coast at the time that flight should have left Boston. We called and asked for an explanation and got unintelligible mumbles

While the plane may have been in Boston on time, the crew may have been coming from elsewhere and couldn’t get to Boston in order to fly that lane to you. Tons of cancellations in the NY/NJ area yesterday impacted the whole northeast.

 

[tvguy]

Cruising used to cost so much more on a per day / per person comparison.

It has become a commodity vacation and has changed to be less personal since I started cruising in 1995.

I am one of those that takes multiple per year because I see the value.

Raw dollar wise I am paying slightly less per day per person for a cruise in 2026 than I paid in 1995. Adjust that for inflation and I am paying MUCH LESS now than when I started cruising.

The $1200 a spent in 1995 for a budget 7 day cruise on the Ocean Breeze in an outside cabin seems so expensive when adjusted for inflation to $2520. I could book two or more 7 days cruises in an outside cabin for $2520, meaning cruising is at least half as expensive now as it was in 1995.

The base fare, probably. My first cruise in 1980 was $5,600 for an ocean view stateroom, that's about $22,000 in todays dollars. But that included everything.
When I was working the issue with vacation of any kind was I only got 4 weeks (20 days) off a year. Now that I am retired, I have to schedule trips around medical procedures and post procedure travel restrictions. I am almost a year behind schedule for my cataract surgery. Hopefully that will happen in 2026, but I will not be traveling for two weeks before, to reduce the risk of illness, and you can't travel for 4 weeks after, so I have already lost three months of 2026 that I will have to stay home.

 

[Southernmiss]

It's riskier to fly nowadays than in the past.

You're fortunate you got out in a matter of hours and not days.

 

[kdonnel]

The base fare, probably. My first cruise in 1980 was $5,600 for an ocean view stateroom, that's about $22,000 in todays dollars. But that included everything.

You could do 10+ 7 day cruises, all in, for $22,000 in today's dollars on a mainstream cruise line.

20+ if you are retired and can travel when rates are their lowest.


Mainstream cruise lines are dirt cheap now.

 

[kdonnel]

Thanks to Flight Aware we could see the plane that was coming to us was in Boston, where we live, just sitting there and there was absolutely zero going on in either Boston or in Florida or along the coast at the time that flight should have left Boston. We called and asked for an explanation and got unintelligible mumbles

If you really need to know, read up on Expert Flyer, and get a subscription.

https://www.expertflyer.com/

Me personally, I just assume the airline is out to get me and everyone else on the plane are just innocent victims of the very personal attack against me!

 

[kdonnel]

I would have absolutely no issue paying a flat fee to have all my travel watched and then a commission on time saved by their efforts in the event of a mess, like today.

https://theconciergetravelgroup.com/

Their rates start at $200 per traveler per trip.

 

[sam_gordon]

No idea, I would not pay for something effortless and !0 K sounds like hyperbole, I could literally put an add out on Linkedin and hire a personal assistant to stare at my stuff all day for way less than that

It's something you really need to think about. While 10k sounds like, and is to a certain extent, hyperbole, you want someone to watch your stuff 24/7. Look at your situation... the cancellation happened sometime overnight. So a normal 9-5 gig isn't going to cover it. Extra hours mean extra money. Maybe a service provides it for a year, but it's $10k, regardless of the amount of trips you take. Or it can $500/trip, or $100/trip/pp.

And that person/organization would need to know your preference. We were returning from a cruise in 24 when Delta had their meltdown. We had an afternoon (330) flight scheduled. Everything was on track and we were sitting at the gate when the flight was first delayed, then cancelled. Delta rescheduled us (party of 8) on multiple flights the next morning.

There were a number of options open to us...
1) Stay with the rescheduled flights and find hotel rooms.
2) Try to find flights on another airline from that airport or the other nearby one.
3) Find rental cars and drive

We ended up taking option 3 (because some members of our party had to get home for work the day after). Wouldn't a service or person need to know what choice you would prefer? I mean, I guess in your overnight situation they could find out there's an issue and call you with the various options.

I don't think you have a bad idea, I do think it's unrealistic and cost prohibitive.

 

[LuvOrlando]

It's something you really need to think about. While 10k sounds like, and is to a certain extent, hyperbole, you want someone to watch your stuff 24/7. Look at your situation... the cancellation happened sometime overnight. So a normal 9-5 gig isn't going to cover it. Extra hours mean extra money. Maybe a service provides it for a year, but it's $10k, regardless of the amount of trips you take. Or it can $500/trip, or $100/trip/pp.

And that person/organization would need to know your preference. We were returning from a cruise in 24 when Delta had their meltdown. We had an afternoon (330) flight scheduled. Everything was on track and we were sitting at the gate when the flight was first delayed, then cancelled. Delta rescheduled us (party of 8) on multiple flights the next morning.

There were a number of options open to us...
1) Stay with the rescheduled flights and find hotel rooms.
2) Try to find flights on another airline from that airport or the other nearby one.
3) Find rental cars and drive

We ended up taking option 3 (because some members of our party had to get home for work the day after). Wouldn't a service or person need to know what choice you would prefer? I mean, I guess in your overnight situation they could find out there's an issue and call you with the various options.

I don't think you have a bad idea, I do think it's unrealistic and cost prohibitive.

I could find someone in between jobs to do it and the premium you place on overnight doesn't really reflect the world I know where I raised my family in Pennsylvania. In PA a great many decent good hardworking people have late shift jobs that don't get paid 10K a week and would probably like a side gig of something like this. There are a whole lot of people out there with night jobs or night shift with a ton of downtime like those working at hotels, security at offices and apartment buildings and warehouses who could easily manage setting up alerts with a contingency list:

1st priority: I prefer airports A, B & C
I will pay up to 200 per person to avoid connecting flights
2nd Priority: I prefer dates A, B & C
I will pay up to 100 extra to be next day
3rd Priority: I prefer hours x-z, a-c, l-m
I will not fly 9 pm or later so if it is 9pm or later go to the next day and see priorities 1 & 2

Extra night hotel, I prefer closer to the airport for convenience, please reserve me at hotels A, B or C if this process takes longer than 2 hours to resolve up to a cost of $X

As it was with us managing it the extra day cost us $1500 and a ton of aggravation. Room $800, rental car $150, Valet $60, car parked at home $60, plus all the meals for everyone and all the other stuff I needed to replace because I threw it out. We got the news at 4:15 am so we were dealing with this completely delerious in the early hours

 

[sam_gordon]

I could find someone in between jobs to do it and the premium you place on overnight doesn't really reflect the world I know where I raised my family in Pennsylvania. In PA a great many decent good hardworking people have late shift jobs that don't get paid 10K a week and would probably like a side gig of something like this. There are a whole lot of people out there with night jobs or night shift with a ton of downtime like those working at hotels, security at offices and apartment buildings and warehouses who could easily manage setting up alerts with a contingency list:

1st priority: I prefer airports A, B & C
I will pay up to 200 per person to avoid connecting flights
2nd Priority: I prefer dates A, B & C
I will pay up to 100 extra to be next day
3rd Priority: I prefer hours x-z, a-c, l-m
I will not fly 9 pm or later so if it is 9pm or later go to the next day and see priorities 1 & 2

Extra night hotel, I prefer closer to the airport for convenience, please reserve me at hotels A, B or C if this process takes longer than 2 hours to resolve up to a cost of $X

As it was with us managing it the extra day cost us $1500 and a ton of aggravation. Room $800, rental car $150, Valet $60, car parked at home $60, plus all the meals for everyone and all the other stuff I needed to replace because I threw it out.

As I said, you might be able to find a service that will cover you for a full year for $10K. And yes, while there are people who work overnight, we're not just talking overnight, we're talking 24/7. If it was me, that would cost a premium.

As for your last paragraph, this isn't going to save you any money over what you found, but it could save aggravation. But you need to know what that value is worth to you. Then sure, find someone who's willing to do it for the price you want to pay.

I will say, I don't think your idea of using people who have "downtime" at their employer is a good idea. What happens if they're in the middle of solving your problem and their "real" work needs to get done? Do you expect them to drop what they're doing to cover you? What if their "real" job takes hours and they can't work on your problem at all.

Again, I don't think what you want is a bad idea. I don't think it exists and doing so would be cost prohibitive.

 

[LuvOrlando]

I wouldn't want every trip all year like a subscription, there are years things get in the way of travel and if I do a day trip up to Kennebunkport again I can figure out the disruptions just fine, other hands in that would annoy me. Plus I would end up being very demanding to get my moneys worth and it would capsize toe business. I also wouldn't want help during the day when I can manage fine by myself just they way I want it. The only thing I would want is overnight long distance travel monitoring so I don't wake up to shock and a miserable scramble with systems overwhelmed.

Did I mention how miserable people looked sleeping in the airport and waiting on standby? Just yikes - nope nope nope

 

[sam_gordon]

The other thing I thought of is you'd have to give your credit card info to whoever is your "monitor". They'd need it to book rooms, other airfare, rental cars, etc.

Personally, I'd also want someone who is familiar with travel.

 

[kdonnel]

The only thing I would want is overnight long distance travel monitoring so I don't wake up to shock and a miserable scramble with systems overwhelmed.

I think to make such a service viable, you would also need to pay for monitoring during the times you don't want it.

Like healthcare, the premiums of the healthy subsidizing the sick, under your travel plan you would need the non impacted and day payments subsidizing the overnight hours.

 

[Marrila]

You might check into using Tripit Pro. It's been very helpful to us when there are changes during our fly day or the occasion earlier flight changes.
I use the notifications to quickly make changes as needed. (Usually in the app.)