TA is MIA

[CruiserN1]

We were supposed to take a Galapagos cruise on Xpedition in Dec 2020 and obviouusly that wasn't going to happen. I tried to get through to our TA for a month last April (calls, emails, no answer and voicemail was always full) before calling X and asking to "lift and shift" our booking to Dec 2021.

 

I thought maybe our TA was just swamped last spring with all the travel disruptions and maybe I would be able to reach him after things settled down. Still no reply to email and not reachable by phone. We've booked through him once before and he always was responsive, so I am concerned that he is either out of business or worse. He's a one-man agency so there's no one else to call. We've used him before with no issues.

 

Is it possible to move the booking to a different agency at this point? Final payment is in July but if I canceled and rebooked the price would be higher than when we originally booked, which was back in early 2019. 

[Alakegirl]

Others who have reported difficulties with nonresponsive travel agents have been able to bring their bookings to Celebrity, by letting them know that the travel agent has ceased to be in contact. So you should be able to do that. As to moving it to a different Travel agent, that might be harder.

[Bo1953]

As A has indicated, call X and let them know about the issue.

 

They will try to intercede on your behalf and if they are unsuccessful, they will bring the reservation in house...

 

The reason I know is that I and my group were in a similar situation a few years back...

 

bon voyage

[mahdnc]

40 minutes ago, CruiserN1 said:

We were supposed to take a Galapagos cruise on Xpedition in Dec 2020 and obviouusly that wasn't going to happen. I tried to get through to our TA for a month last April (calls, emails, no answer and voicemail was always full) before calling X and asking to "lift and shift" our booking to Dec 2021.

 

I thought maybe our TA was just swamped last spring with all the travel disruptions and maybe I would be able to reach him after things settled down. Still no reply to email and not reachable by phone. We've booked through him once before and he always was responsive, so I am concerned that he is either out of business or worse. He's a one-man agency so there's no one else to call. We've used him before with no issues.

 

Is it possible to move the booking to a different agency at this point? Final payment is in July but if I canceled and rebooked the price would be higher than when we originally booked, which was back in early 2019. 

 

There may be other alternatives available to you, but I will tell you that it is possible to force a booking to be transferred away from a travel agency. 

 

In 2017, I had a situation where the owner of the small travel agency that I had done business for years had unexpectedly passed away and the new ownership's service was horrendous and very unresponsive.  No one answered my calls and no one returned my phone messages or emails--and this had to do with making my final payment for an upcoming cruise which was due.

 

Well I was able finally to get through to them to get my final payment executed but I found out that all 3-4 employees that I knew there had quit this agency because of the new ownership.  So after that cruise (and experience) I was done with them, but I had one other Celebrity cruise booking that I made through this agency that they still held.

 

So I wrote an email to agencychanges@rccl.com and outlined my problem with the service with the current agency and requested that my booking be re-assigned to another one that I specified.  I never got a reply or an acknowledgement from Celebrity, but one week later my new travel agent emailed me to let me know that the booking was transferred to her.

 

Anyway, good luck with your situation and please let us know how it turns out.

Edited February 26, 2021 by mahdnc

[zanderblue]

Like Bo1953, we had a very similar issue. TA was a one man show, who up until time of his disappearance had offered a very good service. We eventually found out that he had a very serious medical emergency and was no longer able to service his clients.

You need to talk to Celebrity customer services as soon as you can, chances are they are already aware there is an issue. 
They have procedures to deal with this type of problem. In our case, our existing bookings were transferred to another TA of Celebrity’s choice. It all worked out well in the end.

[CruiserN1]

Thanks for the advice, I will reach out to Celebrity. I'd told them the situation when we needed to change our cruise date and they let me do it directly with them. I'm bummed about losing the perks we had with our MIA agent.

[RosieRoo]

We were in a similar situation long before Covid. Used the same agent for ten+ years.  He gave us great pricing and perks and one day he just disappeared. I had several future cruises with him on different lines and had a hard time sorting things out.  I even lost a large deposit because final payment wasn’t sent on time. Anyhow, I did finally work with the cruise lines to cancel all my bookings, but lesson learned, I would never book with a one man agency again.  

[helen haywood]

On 2/26/2021 at 10:53 AM, zanderblue said:

Like Bo1953, we had a very similar issue. TA was a one man show, who up until time of his disappearance had offered a very good service. We eventually found out that he had a very serious medical emergency and was no longer able to service his clients.

 

We had this same agent.  Has anyone ever heard how he was/is doing?

[Arizona Wildcat]

On 2/26/2021 at 7:56 AM, CruiserN1 said:

We were supposed to take a Galapagos cruise on Xpedition in Dec 2020 and obviouusly that wasn't going to happen. I tried to get through to our TA for a month last April (calls, emails, no answer and voicemail was always full) before calling X and asking to "lift and shift" our booking to Dec 2021.

 

I thought maybe our TA was just swamped last spring with all the travel disruptions and maybe I would be able to reach him after things settled down. Still no reply to email and not reachable by phone. We've booked through him once before and he always was responsive, so I am concerned that he is either out of business or worse. He's a one-man agency so there's no one else to call. We've used him before with no issues.

 

Is it possible to move the booking to a different agency at this point? Final payment is in July but if I canceled and rebooked the price would be higher than when we originally booked, which was back in early 2019. 

Lots of one person TAs went out of business.  I would have done something long ago.

Simply as others have said tell them you have not been able to contact your TA.  Move it to X.  Then you either can leave it with X to keep things simple or move to another TA.

[zanderblue]

11 hours ago, helen haywood said:

We had this same agent.  Has anyone ever heard how he was/is doing?

I did ask about him to the new TA that took over our bookings. They were very tight lipped and would only say that the incident was not fatal, but that it was unlikely he would be back at work. 

[WestLakeGirl]

You should be able to move the reservation to Celebrity. Getting it to a different Travel agent might not be possible