Estravel - When is a travel agent not a travel agent.

Here's my situation - I need to be in New York for Christmas and New Year's, since that is my time with my kids and I am already looking forward to it. Unfortunately that is very much the most expensive time to travel and that's exactly why I was pleasantly surprised when I opened a forwarded mail from a friend about a special travel offer from Estravel. See, usually these year-end dates are as blacked out as possible. Now, I also received the same forwarded mail from couple of other friends, but that is a totally different subject matter. I am not price conscious - I'm value conscious.......
In any case I hope you have friends like I do.

Estravel would probably be considered an elite travel agency offering elite travel service in Estonia and one of the better recognized brands in the country. I don't really get the whole " We got a new logo" thing, but hey lately I've been discovering a lot of that - not getting it.

I have used them quite a bit in the past and do have their gold card and found out today that ownership of that card does qualify me as a frequent client, for what-ever that's worth.

So here's the offer - because they have some kind of birthday or anniversary thing coming up, they will get me across the Atlantic for less than 4000 EEK's and that's less than $400. WHOAA. That is not bad. Maybe even great. I know as well as you would've known to wait for the catch. So here it is - THE CATCH.

The travel starting point has to be Stockholm. Hmmm...but I'm here. OK not the end of the world, but then the next absolute must travel check point is London and even though I want to end up in NY, my travel itinerary needs to somehow include Miami. Did you get this? It took me a while.

Anyway being value conscious....I decided to play along. Not really proud of myself right now, but I kinda had a plan to take my kids to Florida anyway, seeing Grandma and going fishing off the Keys and so-on.

After listening to fake finger nails abusing the keys for let's say five minutes I was informed that almost everything I was interested in was possible except flying on the dates that I had requested and the New York - Miami leg would have to be in business class and that would actually cost more than all of the rest of my trip.

That's when it hit me - Deja Vu, I had been sitting in the same chair disappointed before. I mean the same exact chair.

So when is the travel agent not a travel agent? Is it when they make promises they can't keep and do it knowingly? Is it when you want to go to a certain place and they tell you to go somewhere different? Really, C'mon if they would have included Prague in my travel arrangements I think they should have offered to pay me.

Travel agent is not a travel agent when they can't help you to travel, to get from point A to point B. That's exactly what traveling is. Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY ESTRAVEL!