Toofarfromthesea

No, you weren't playing off MY words, you were making up some of your own to try to discredit mine.

Huh? Reading comprehension? hyper-competitive =/= hyperactive

If I used the same Dr. for years, while suffering from a chronic condition, and when he retired my new Dr. cured that chronic condition then no, I wouldn't say I had been given excellent care by my old Dr.. especially if the new Dr. charges 8-10% less than the old Dr. Your second statement, of course is true but irrelevant as there are bad apples in every basket. I'm not telling anyone what THEY should do, I am simply relating what has worked well for me. I'm much more impressed with tangible savings than I am with amorphous 'excellent service'. But that's just me.

Which is another way of saying that the "excellent" agents you were using initially were not getting you excellent deals. Which kind of demonstrates my point. The difference, for the most part, is that brick and mortar agencies operate in a low information, low volume, not very competitive environment, so they don't come anywhere near the deals that high volume hyper-competitive online agencies offer.

I think I see the problem. This is not intended to be mean or harsh, but you are bad at selecting agents. It sounds like you have used brick and mortar local agencies and an agent you were steered to by a river cruise line. These are not the best places to find agents. There are a lot of online TAs that will give you significant perks and/or discounts. Personally I use a site that allows me to specify the sailing and cabin class and get quotes from a variety of agents (to whom I am anonymous unless/unlit I contact them). Then I look at the best offers and vet the agent - which means l

Yes, but OP was using this singular event to discredit all travel agents. "I regret ever using a travel agent! Learned my lesson" See, "a" travel agent, not "this" travel agent. My cruising days are likely over, but I still appreciate all of the money I saved by using a variety of travel agents.

It is hard to find things, using google, that happened months ago, but here is an example I did manage to find. Even Trump was saying, early on, that it would take 12-18 months, and was derided as being delusional. But many were saying it would take much longer https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/don-t-count-a-covid-19-vaccine-for-at-least-five-years-says-ai-based-forecast

Maybe you aren't aware that while it is true that April is in the second quarter, millions of people have had access to, and gotten, a vaccine for months, now. Months that are NOT in the second quarter. CDC said general availability woudn't START until the 2nd or 3rd quarter. Trump said it would be available to everyone by April. Which turned out to be correct?

The problem isn't my selectivity of experts, it is your selectivity of memory.

As late as September of 2020 the head of the CDC was saying that we wouldn't even be able to START vaccinating people until the 2nd or 3rd quarter of 2021 in response to the President's statement that by April of 2021 every American will have the opportunity to get vaccinated. " From the Washington Post: President Trump said Friday that every American would have access to a coronavirus vaccine by April, contradicting his own statement of two days earlier and sowing deeper confusion about the process and timing of vaccine approval and distribution. When Centers for

I once had a bad meal in a restaurant so I never go out to eat anymore.

Then why were the same "experts" who are demanding we get vaccinated now, saying that it would take 3-5 years to get and test a vaccine as recently as 3 or 4 months ago? Were they stupid when they were saying it? We're they not aware of the new technology? Did they think that even the J&J vaccine did not require the serious testing that caused previous vaccines to take 3-5 years? When a narrative makes a 180 degree U-turn it is never science. And I live in a world where there are more possibilities than your dichotomy of you either get the vaccine or you get COVID. So yeah, if I do

The testing period was very abbreviated. You cannot spend a year telling people that a vaccine cannot be developed and tested in less than 3-5 years and then expect people to believe you turned on a dime and now have 100% confidence in a vaccine that was developed and tested in less than a year.

But calling people who have been vaccinated for many things over their life but are hesitant about a vaccine developed with a never before used technology and an abbreviated testing period "anti-vaxxers" is just fine.

You said people aren't responding because it would just be a rehash of prior discussions, and I was pointing out that since the science apparently changed it would be a NEW-hash not a rehash, but follow the science folks don't actually follow the science, including the CDC director.