Eliminate TSA altogether is all we need

Every airport I've been to has a luggage hold area, few are free. And now most airlines will not allow u to check luggage until 2 hours b4 flight, or 3 hrs b4 intl. It's best for airports that are really close to action, like Gatwick, Milan, Midway in Chicago, Dallas Love Field, LaGuardia, Tampa, fort Lauderdale, and many others. Too many airports are very far from downtown. Like Rome, O'Hare, DFW, London, Dallas, Cincinnati airport is actually in Kentucky. Well you get the idea. So sometimes I intentionally book first flight out to a layover when you have to do a layover, and then last flight out from there. Coincidentally those are usually the less expensive flights as well. Especially good if you got friends in those cities that you can hang out with for the day.

@Christine Berencz I have it on my website also I forget the name off hand but there is a luggage check link that includes like every major and minor city everywhere basically. That has a place where you can check your luggage for an hour or for a day. With really cheap rates too. I have written a couple of posts and put them on social media and my website about why drag your luggage to the streets when you're on vacation well I care these backpacks everywhere when you're in the town for the day. And then I talk about these luggage checkpoints which just cost a couple of dollars and it's safe and secure. Instead of dragging your luggage all around being at risk of being pickpocketed with your backpack or clogging up space in a tiny little cafe by having your luggage in the floor. How ridiculous and how cheap you look and how inconvenient it is for everybody else. So maybe I brow beat people with this concept. But my commissions do flow in. And that's also on my homepage. Hahaha. Oh maybe by the end of the year this year I'll have accumulated $50 or so in commission? It takes a long time to add up. But for my clients that are traveling and are going to get off the train and see that town for the day instead of having their backpack with them or their luggage with them it's super convenient and they're really appreciative. And I think everybody I've ever told this to has never had a clue that it is it existed. And then when you do a search you're going to be shocked and how many thousands of places there are. Most places have a closing time summer is early as 6:00 p.m. some are open late to collect your luggage in the same day otherwise it's locked up overnight. And I'm sure when it comes to the Olympics they will be filled to the max. So I try to sell it in advance and I pretty much often do and I include it cuz it's cheap whether people miss it they're only going to miss a couple of bucks like $5 but they have a reservation. Because it does work on a reservation system.

@Kimberly Sherratt I do get some sales from get your guide from my website and from social media posts. But viator certainly the one that's the most active for me anyway. And I also do get shore excursion group. And that is mostly from cruises. I am familiar with a few others but I do not promote them. I'm earning 8% with viator so that's the one I promote the most. Inviator has adopted almost the identical find your cruise and all of these shore excursions are available to you type system, which shore excursion system had first. I do think however get your guide has a very easy entry system for tour guides who make up a tour can register. And they have more things even in the States for things like ghost tours and walking tours with a guide. And I have personally bought a few of those. There's another system out there which I promote on my website and it's audio tours only and you buy it inexpensively sometimes just a couple of dollars and it downloads to your mobile phone and you go at your own pace and you could do it three or four times. And I've used that in some big cities and it goes with you step by step. I've been on a couple that have been lousy but I've also been on a couple that have been amazingly pinpoint accurate for your walking your corner now it'll say look to your right that bank used to be a pharmacy blah blah blah. Incidentally on my homepage at travel happy2.com I have lots of links for a do-it-yourself vacation for research etc. All of those links will pay me a tiny commission. But I probably really only use two or three of those links when I am personally putting together a vacation for a client. So in other words just because they're there does not mean that's what I recommend. Like I'm giving away free information free links on companies that do those activities like car rentals or get your guide, or rent a boat, etc. But in reality I use a different company altogether when I plan a trip for you. Hope that makes sense

@Christine Berencz Expedia has all the above everything in Airbnb plus VRBO plus booking.com plus this plus that etc. But here's the weird thing with both Expedia versus Expedia taap, as well as booking.com as a consumer versus booking.com as a travel agent. They both have dual systems. And different information and prices sometimes for the same property on each website. When I travel in Europe I have no reservations for any hotel. I fly by the seat of my pants. Sometimes I get to a town and I love it and I want to stay another two days or sometimes I get to a town and I go this is it? What else is there to do here? Nothing! Meanwhile the guidebooks make it sound like it's a place that you could spend a week at, and I find I'm done in 2 hours. So then I move on. So for me personally I usually use booking.com as a consumer for the lowest rates. If it's early enough meaning 5:00 p.m. that I'm going to check in I will go to the property if it shows it has at least two rooms available and greet them and ask them about their rates I let him know that I'm a travel agent and I'll have the screen up and often especially in Italy many places have given me pay cash right now rate, which is still $10 lower than the best rate you can find on any website anywhere. In short cash is king. And I generally say I probably want to stay a couple of nights but I'm not really sure yet I want to check out the city. I like to find places where I can park my car and do lots of little day trips that might be an hour or so away or even up to 3 hours drive. So I make it like my little home away from home for 4 or 5 nights. I hope that makes sense. But you can't really sell it to your customers that way. But just letting you know that Expedia and booking have two sides to their system. And I've always found that booking.com is much less expensive than direct with Airbnb and often less expensive than direct with the hotel website. But you have to be on the consumer side not the travel agent side. If you do a side-by-side comparison you'll quickly see that only 80% of the properties are available on the travel agent side I'm booking and you'll also see that more than half of the same properties might cost anywhere from $8 to $15 more on the travel agent side of booking.com. The thing that I like the best about if you're going to find an Airbnb place is that booking.com is a flat rate. We're Airbnb they nickel and dime you for a cleaning charge and a discharge and a that charge. Actually I gave up an Airbnb about 10 years ago I just think the platform's awful hard to navigate and lots of extra charges. I know of probably a small handful of properties in Italy that tell me they only get about 10% of their income from Airbnb. And they hate the platform. It's the last resort for them to fill a room. Because Airbnb is very consumer friendly and allows people to cancel like up to 3 hours ahead of time and get their money back.

@Christine Berencz oh. Gotcha. Now that I reread everything it all makes sense. You are referring him to that travel assessment form. I also have it as an interactive form that I share with customers but I did not give you guys that link to fill out because then it would come back to me and my Google sheets. And that's what I really work from. It includes asking them questions regarding the passport numbers, seat preferences on air flights, car rental preferences, loyalty numbers, credit card numbers, legal names and nicknames etc etc etc.

@Michael Johnson thank you. And bingo. You hit the nail on the head. I found it was asking the same questions over and over again and again. I've used it with church groups of like 30 students that were going with a couple of chaperones, to single people. But I mostly work with couples or small families. Actually I think I most often work with two couples out of traveling together. Here's the funniest thing, I have had husbands and wives that have been married for many years come with their lists, and sometimes they have the same items on their lists and often they'll have three or four places that all happen to be within walking distance in the same town like Florence or Rome. And then when I'm circling like the three or four things that go together with them they're like oh that's all in the same area that's all in the same town? It amazes me that people think maybe they get it from the movies or something but I think a lot of people think that Rome is large like 30 miles wide or something. I live in Florida and I try to explain to people that all of Italy is slightly larger than the State of Florida. And that helps put things in perspective. And then people that know Florida pretty well I explain it's like driving from Tampa to Daytona which is about 3 hours which is what it takes to cross Italy. I think growing up in the US and maybe having traveled summer vacations as a kid and as an adult you realize that the country's really huge. And I think people assume that all countries are huge. And Italy is not. And all the population in Italy is in like 12 cities. The rest of it is all farmland. @Christine Berencz @Lary Neron @Michael Johnson I hope that they help you guys in some way and you can find a way to me because customize it and make it your own. All the best.

@Christine Berencz now that something to tell to the BDM!

Wow! Talk about Grace! Let's pay it forward.