Before you ask
How Booking a Trip Through This Agency Works
Six steps from your first message to the documents arriving, with what you have to do at each one, what we do, and what can go wrong. Nothing here is paid to us and no card is asked for on this site at any point.
The six steps
1. You ask
By the form, by mail to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]), or by telephone on +1 (208) 331-7462 during Mon to Fri 9 am to 6 pm, Sat 10 am to 2 pm Mountain.
Vague is fine. Most useful first messages are one line: a rough time of year, roughly who is going, and roughly what kind of trip. If you already know the exact dates and the exact property, that is fine too and it is faster.
What can go wrong here: nothing, except that a request with no dates at all and no budget at all takes an extra exchange before we can quote. Any range is more useful than none.
2. We ask you back
Usually two or three questions, because the answers change the recommendation: who is travelling and their ages, how firm the dates are, and whether there is a figure you do not want to go past.
We ask about money early and directly. It is not a sales technique. A quote that ignores your budget wastes a week of both our time.
What can go wrong here: people give us the number they hope for rather than the number they have. Tell us the real one.
3. We come back with options
Two or three, not fifteen. Each one has the price broken into its parts, the season noted honestly, and the argument against it as well as for it.
If your dates are wrong for where you want to go, this is the message that says so.
What can go wrong here: availability moves while we are working. A quote is live for as long as the supplier holds it, and the proposal says how long that is.
4. You decide, or you do not
There is no charge for any of the above and no obligation at the end of it. If you take the research and book it elsewhere, that is a legitimate outcome and it happens.
Nobody here will telephone you repeatedly. If you would rather not be contacted again, one line saying so ends it.
5. We book, and you pay the supplier
We place the booking with the airline, the hotel, the cruise line or the tour operator. You pay them, not us, on the schedule set out in the proposal, and their name is on the payment.
This site takes no payment. There is no card field on any page of it and no account to open.
What can go wrong here: a deposit deadline passing. Deposit dates are supplier deadlines, not ours, and a missed one usually means the price is re quoted at whatever is available that day.
6. The documents arrive
One document, in order by day, with every address, every time, every reference number and a telephone number that reaches a person during office hours.
Anything the supplier issues separately, such as e tickets and boarding documents, comes with it or directly from them, and the proposal says which.
Who holds what
This confuses people reasonably, so it is set out plainly.
| Who | What they hold | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| My Travel Innovations LLC | The arrangement, the research and the paperwork | We are the agent. We book on your behalf and we are the number you call first |
| The airline, hotel, cruise line or tour operator | The booking itself, the money and the terms | They perform the trip. Their cancellation terms govern, not ours |
| You | The decision, and the payment to the supplier | Nothing is committed until you say so in writing |
What we charge
Nothing to you. This agency adds no booking fee of its own to what a supplier charges. We are paid a commission by the supplier when a booking is completed, which is how travel agencies have been paid for a very long time and which we would rather write on the site than leave you to assume.
That arrangement has an obvious question inside it, so here is the answer: commission rates differ between suppliers, and if we ever recommended the trip that paid us more rather than the trip that suited you, you would find out and never come back. The whole of a small agency's economics is repeat travelers.