Special
Features / December 2007
Have Fun And Save Money
Traveling With Patty
 Patty Hanshaw
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Travel Doctors is a full service travel agency, specializing in the Sandal Resorts, the Caribbean, and Destination Cruises. Patty Hanshaw purchased the agency in 2001 and has offices in Teays Valley and Hurricane, WV. Patty’s mother was a Vice President of the AAA in Huntington and Patty followed her in the travel industry path.
“We are a completely computerized travel service. We book cruises up to one year in advance, especially for holiday sailings. Right now the Royal Caribbean which has onboard activities for families and well as the Disney line of cruises that is targeted for families are some of the top holiday cruises.”
Patty also books for business travel including groups, meetings, conferences, incentive groups, and medical related conferences. Patty alerts her clients to specials that are happening in her industry like the spring cruise leaving June 1, 2008 on the Freedom to the Seas Ship with air included at $1295.
“There are special air charters out of Cincinnati, Ohio to Cancun Mexico, Punta Cana, and the Dominican Republic,” she said. These are great deals for our clients.”
“One of the things we are able to do for our clients that on-line or self bookings cannot do is change your tickets quickly and plan for multiple stops. Normally we can save the average traveler money as compared to internet bookings. You can always go online and check out the available flights and then call us and see if we can do any better for you. We can do better for the customer 9 out of 10 times. We also have the privilege of allowing our clients the use of our corporate discounts with hotels and car rentals. Normally this is 15% on car rentals and 10% on hotel stays. There is no cost to set up an account. When you set up an account with us, we become your partner. We make note of each individual’s likes and dislikes, such as what type of seats, diet needs especially for vegetarians, and car rentals types and hotel and accommodations types. This just makes it easier for our customers. For our corporate accounts, we offer direct billing,” she explained.
Patty says that she is usually able to save leisure travelers between $50-$100 per ticket and business travelers usually between $500-$1000 a ticket.
An example that she used was that a person who needed to have something changed on their ticket in a line of 200 people can call her and she can have the tickets fixed and the traveler can quickly move out of line and continued to board the plane. Otherwise, the person would be waiting for long periods of time and may miss her/his plane.
“Air travel has changed greatly since 9/ll”, she said, “now all bags are scanned, you can only carry 3 ounce or less bottles of things such as shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, etc., and these must be in a ziplock bag to present to the security officers at the airport. Items that are over the 3 ounce amount are thrown away by airport authorities. This applies to expensive perfumes you might have with you. I saw a traveler in extreme distress when an extremely expensive perfume of hers was being thrown into the trash because it didn’t meet the 3 ounce limit,” she cautioned.
“Beginning in 2008, passports will be required for all destination travel. Currently they allow 2 check-in bags and 1 carry-on. I caution everyone to carry valuables on their person not in your checked bags. Laptops can be in your carry-on as well as your jewelry, cell phone and ipod. All of these items will need to be turned off until the pilot allows the use of them in the air,” she continued.
“A new thing that is appearing is the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) locks which can be pre-purchased at some locations (currently at JCPenney). The TSA lock is put on your baggage and only a TSA representative can open the bag with a master key. All other personnel during departure and arrival, therefore, cannot have open access to your bags. This lock is good at all airports.”
Patty Hanshaw is the owner of Travel Doctors with offices in Teays Valley (1 888 562 0887) and Hurricane (1 800 647 3627). You can visit her online at www.traveldoctors.com.
Copyright © 2007 A Woman's View. All rights reserved.
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