Thanks again for the advice, I`ll try some of the call centres in the week and see what they come up with. Keep living in hope that the price will change on the First Choice web site. (it did this earlier in the year when we wanted a holiday to Egypt! price came down for 25 hours then increased rather a lot)

Our local Travecare said they could not beat the web price.

It might just be that branch of travelcare. My travelcare told me they will beat any price and theyt have beaten 2 web prices before, just by a few pounds but by at least £100. Try a different branch.

Thats a good point on being persistent.

Agents especially in call centres are always at different levels of commission targets throught out the month. Some may be a head of target others behind.

Every time you phone a call centre the incoming call management system puts you throught to an agent based on the call wait time & line volume per hour.

Now not all call desks are the same, some desks have the "high flying" sales agents, ie, the ones who make the most commission. These agents get most of the incomming calls at quieter times of the day as the system is biased to their desks. These are not always the best agents to get the price near the booking cost floor.

Best agents to aim for, are the agents who are on the lower volume per hour desks. These are often newer travel agents learning the ropes and have a sales team trainer looking over things.

The newer agents are conditioned to work out cost floor prices so their not making losses for the company and anything over that cost floor figure is a big green booking flag to them. It helps towards their personal monthly tragets and the training team targets as well.

The best way to get newer agents is during peak times when the call-system is looking to reduce the call wait times.

Never call an agent back on their direct number unless you want to book. Always use the main call centre number to have a better choice of agent desks.

Something I do when calling a call centre if I can't get the price off the operator I ask them to go and ask their manager what they can do it for. I have got prices as much as £200 lower than the companies web price. The best I done was £500 off a £2500 holiday.

It can be done if people persist and don't take no for an answer. One of my favorite one is to say if I get the right price I will book it now. They don't know the your right price is and will come back with a price, then I say I don't want to pay more than x amount and can you ask your manager if they can give me that price I will book now. The price they come back with is a very good price and will be near the price you said. It works, and towards the end of the month is a good time when they are trying to hit their monthly sales target. The managers have a overall monthly sales target as well.

The other reason why its worth calling more than once is because there might be 3 or 4 different call centres around the country and if don't get luck with one you might with another.

Thanks to you both.

Can I ask, don`t the call centres etc take your details and log them, so if you ring back and get someone else won`t your details come up each time they put in your name/postal code?

Just curious?

They will often give you the prices first, they will log your details if you say I will look around but you don't have to tell them your details. I can only recall being asked for my details before the price is given only once.

Thanks, I`ll have a ring round this week.

Agents are trained to "log" ie write details on a log book so they have your details if you call back on their direct line or they are calling you back. The standard TUI model is name, number then travel details. Just refuse to give anyother personal information.

There is other reason they do this is to stop other collegues getting "their commission" if they hear another agent using your details.

As always if your just after quotes use the standard "Mr &Mrs Smith" then "Mr & Mrs Jonhson" ect its not wise to give out your personal details until you are certain to book.

Remember the centres get 1000's of calls per day and they often have two floors of agents. So the odds are greatly in your favour.

Having done commission software modeling, the general trend is that agents booking figures are greatest between the 13th & 21st days after their monthly commission targets have reset. There is a reason for this.

The agents have to earn a set commisson bookings target for the company of between 6 to 7 thousand pounds before they start to earn bonuses above their basic pay and this 13 to 21 day window is critical if their going to beat their targets.

Its mind boggling!! thanks

where i work if someone wont give you their number or name we would very likely think you werent a serious booker anyway-what we call a sunday shopper! agents listen to each other and we will say "Is that Mr ??? i've just quoted him x amount, it's not fair to ring and ring the same centre when someone there has given you a price and a direct line number, it only causes problems when that booking goes on the board and details emerge to be of the booking, same dates, times, passengers etc then it becomes an issue of who gets the commission. just go to a shop where they don't have call conversions please! no offence

The customer always has choice over which agents they decide to use, if the first agent didn't do their best on capturning the client then the client should not be passed back. Customers should be aware of this practice trying to pass customers back to other agents and refuse.

Yes it does create problems when other agents hear similar details being entered, and I've seen many a hissy fit over it. ))

Thats why you don't use direct numbers and if agents do try and "pass you back to other agents" just say no, saying, I wasn't 100% happy with the last agent could you contuine. This is a common tactic used by company "mystery shoppers" who are calling agents and assessing them by their over all call performance including price matching btw.

If the customer says they don't want the last agent, then the sales team leader will say its fair game on commission.
In partice if a customer calls and quotes a figure above the booking floor cost then the agent should always take the booking. If they don't they have either miscalculated their cost floor or worse their tring to be a little greedy. Either way they should lose the automatic right to any booking commission due failing best sales practice.

Thats why its important for the customer to have a rough idea of Booking floor cost as it aviods playing agents off each other. It gives the agent an easy price match booking and if the agent does not take the booking, its their own fault on commission consequences.

No offence is meant, just tring to highlight some call centre practices..

If you haven't booked already try the Caribbean Warehouse.

I was in a similar situation being unable to get the price down to something I could afford and phoned them.

When I look I prefer to move the holiday dates slightly to get a better price, which caused a bit of a problem at first.

They may be cheaper as they are not tied to a particular airline and had a special on when we decided to go.
I was given various travel options (and costs) with different airlines allowing me to choose how much I wanted to pay for the plane.

I have already mentioned in another thread that we had the same holiday bar the physical "flight and transfers" but at £250+ each less than the FC price on the eclipse website the same day I booked. We could have even used the FC flight but it would have added £150 each to the holiday.