What a figure is made of
Pricing
Every price on this site is written the same way: from a figure, per person, based on two people sharing. This page takes that apart into the parts it is made of, says which parts move and which do not, and names the ones that are not in it at all.
The shape of every price here
from $940 per person, based on two sharing. Each of those four parts is doing work.
- from. It is the lowest we have recently arranged that trip for, in the season named on that trip's page. It is a starting point for a conversation about your dates, not a promise about them.
- the figure. It includes the flights from Boise, the accommodation and whatever else that package's page lists under what is included. If it is not on that list, it is not in the figure.
- per person. Not per couple and not per room.
- based on two sharing. One traveler alone pays more, sometimes a great deal more, because a room or a cabin costs what it costs regardless of how many people sleep in it.
Anything written differently anywhere on this site is an error. There are no struck out prices here, no percentages off and no totals presented without the word from, because each of those makes a figure harder to compare rather than easier.
What is inside a package price
| The part | Does it move | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Airfare | Constantly | The single most volatile element. It moves with the date you ask, not just the date you fly, and neither of us controls it |
| Accommodation | Seasonally | Room category, the season, and how full the property is when we ask |
| Transfers | Rarely | Distance and whether it is shared or private. It is usually the smallest line |
| Port charges and government taxes | Fixed at booking | Set by governments and ports. Nobody discounts these |
| The tour operator's land arrangements | By departure date | Group size, the specific date, and how much of that departure has sold |
What is never inside it
This list is the same for every package on the site, and each package page adds its own.
- Travel insurance. We will quote it and we recommend it. It is never in the headline figure, because a figure that quietly includes it is a figure designed to look worse when you compare it.
- Passport and any entry document fees.
- Meals that the package page does not list. On an all inclusive week that is almost nothing; on an escorted tour it is most dinners; on an independent trip it is everything but breakfast.
- Gratuities, where they are customary. On a cruise they are charged daily by the line and are effectively mandatory. We will name the figure rather than let it appear on your final bill.
- Excursions and activities, unless a package page names one specifically.
- Anything you spend once you are there.
What we add
Nothing. This agency charges no booking fee of its own. We are paid commission by the supplier when a booking completes, and that is the whole of how this office makes money. See how it works for what follows from that.
What we do not claim
We do not claim to be the cheapest and we do not offer to match a price. Both would be promises about a market this office does not control, and the second is usually a way of getting you to stop looking.
What we offer instead is the breakdown above. A figure you can take apart is a figure you can compare against anybody, including against booking it yourself, which for a simple trip is sometimes the right answer and which we will tell you.
Who takes your money
The supplier. Not this office and not this site.
There is no card field on any page here, no account to create and no wallet. When you agree to a proposal, you pay the airline, the hotel, the cruise line or the tour operator directly, on their schedule, and their name appears on the payment. The proposal names them before you agree to anything.
That is also why no registration number appears anywhere on this site. Four states, being California, Florida, Hawaii and Washington, register businesses that sell travel and hold traveler money. This company holds none and is registered in none of them, so it prints no number, because a number nobody issued to us would be somebody else's.
Deposits and balances
Both belong to the supplier and both differ by trip. A deposit is commonly from $200 per person on a package and more on a cruise or an escorted tour, with the balance due somewhere between sixty and ninety days before departure.
Your proposal states the exact figures and the exact dates before you agree. A missed balance date is treated by most suppliers as a cancellation, which is the single most expensive mistake available on this page, so those dates go in your document in bold.