225. My Experience Using a Travel Agent for the First Time with Sally Riggs

Planning a trip can go from exciting to overwhelming fast, and that's the spot I was in when I finally brought in a travel agent instead of doing it all myself. In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with Sally Riggs, a fellow therapist who works as a travel agent, to talk about what changed once I handed the planning over to her.

We get into the hotel mixup that almost put me in the wrong place entirely, how she handled my CPAP machine for my first trip traveling with one, and the perks that showed up on my bill without me asking for them. I also ask her about travel insurance, refundable rates, and what happens when your plans change at the last minute. By the end of this one, you'll understand why I'm never booking a trip on my own again.

In This Episode, We Explore…

• How two hotels with nearly identical names almost caused a booking mixup.
• What it actually takes to fly internationally with a CPAP machine, including the extra bag rule most people don't know about.
• The perks that came free with booking through an agent, from airport shuttles to early check-in.
• Why booking a fully refundable rate matters, especially if you live with a chronic illness.
• How points and miles can get business owners into business class without spending more money to earn them.

Connect with Sally Riggs:
Website: https://www.sallyssafeandconnectedtravel.com/
Points and miles offerings: https://www.sallyssafeandconnectedtravel.com/pointsandmiles
Freebie - How to visit Japan without crashing on Day 2: https://mailchi.mp/fora/eh0ztkgo8z

Are you ready to take the plunge and become a Traveling Therapist? Whether you want to be a full-time digital nomad or just want the flexibility to bring your practice with you while you travel a couple of times a year, the Portable Practice Method will give you the framework to be protected!
➡️ JOIN NOW: www.portablepracticemethod.com/

Connect with me:

• www.instagram.com/thetravelingtherapist_kym
• www.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/
• www.thetravelingtherapist.com

The Traveling Therapist Podcast is Sponsored by:

Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.heyberries.com/therapists

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:02

I'm Kim Tolson and I'm the traveling therapist. It's my passion to teach therapists how to navigate online private practices and multiple income streams so they can travel the world. I'm a digital nomad with a virtual insurance-based private therapy practice and a multi-six-figure coaching business. In this podcast, I will discuss my journey as a digital nomad. I'll chat with other traveling therapists, and help you navigate the complexities of running an online insurance-based practice. I'm so glad to have you with me on this journey. A year from today, what would your dream private practice look like? Would you spend less time chasing claims or only working with clients who value your skill set? What if you had more time for yourself? Alma empowers you to confidently accept insurance backed by an all-in-one EHR that simplifies scheduling, documentation, and day-to-day practice operations. Your dream practice is closer than you think. Learn more about AMA at helloalma.com. A year from today starts now at helloalma.com. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Traveling Therapist Podcast. You guys, I've got Sally Riggs back here with me again. She's a therapist. She's a travel agent. I think this is her third. Is this your third time, Sally, being on the podcast? Thank you. I didn't think so. I keep saying, well, why don't you come back and talk about that? Or to traveling with chronic illness and being a travel agent and then just, you know, just I can't remember what the other one was. I think it was just she went to Japan, right? We talked about that a little bit too as a traveling therapist. Anyway, I brought Sally back because over the years on this podcast, I have interviewed multiple travel agents. And I always think after the episode, I'm like, why don't I use a travel agent? Like I don't I don't even think of it to use it. But then Sally, like I said, she's a therapist and a travel agent. She's also a member in my AI memberships, the clinical AI Club is the membership she's in. So I've gotten to know Sally like through our masterminds and her kind of like messaging me, like, well, what do you think about this and that? And we started talking, and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna just I've got a trip coming up to the Dominican Republic. I wanna go. My mom's down there. I was like, I'm gonna see if Sally can handle it. Cause I was already overwhelmed. So you guys know part of my story is I've also got a chronic illness. I'm running like 15 income streams. I'm just like a crazy woman most of the time, really, honestly. So I was like, let me see if Sally can handle this. Cause I was literally like trying to book stuff, and I was like so overwhelmed. I was just like, I don't even want to go on this trip. So all I have to say, Sally, welcome back. I'm glad to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I'm excited to be here and talk more about this other side of my business.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

I love it. So just a quick intro, if you could. I know we've already had an episode on this, but just about the split, how you do the therapy and the travel agency piece. So people know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

So I've been a psychologist now for gosh, like 25 years. But um, I've been a travel agent for two years, and I primarily started because I was traveling more and I was, you know, wanting to maybe get some discounts on my own travel. And I think more and more people these days who do travel a lot are looking into options around that. And then as I was kind of doing some of the training and kind of getting up to speed on how the industry works, because it's quite different than the therapy industry for sure, I was realizing that I do just love planning trips and booking travel for people. And I think, you know, 25 years ago, if I had said with a PhD that I wanted to be a travel agent, people would have laughed at me because that wasn't a career in those days that you did at that level of education. Whereas now there has been a huge revival in the industry. And there are hundreds of us who work in healthcare pretty much as our full-time gig, whether they are psychologists or OTs or nurses or speech and language therapists, and also are a travel advisor on the side. And sometimes that's because we also want to specialize in some type of accessible travel, which for me, living with chronic illness kind of makes sense that I would want to do that. So, kind of bringing in my skills as a psychologist, when you work with me, obviously I'm not going to be your therapist, but I do have those skills that I can assess the needs that you have much more easily because I'm used to doing assessment. And I can also do things like advise you on your travel day, ways to set things up so that you're not overwhelming your nervous system and then likely to crash on day two or day three. And I think a lot of people are kind of doing that now, taking their skills from their previous career and kind of bringing it into the travel advising niche. And ultimately, I just get so much joy out of booking people's trips. And obviously, even if I was traveling 365 days a year, there's only so much that I can book for me. And getting to do it for other people is, you know, just maximizing that even more.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

I love it. So Salina I thought we would go through because literally she helped me with so much during this process. I was like, I've got to write all this down so I can come back and explain it to the traveling therapist, like how it worked and how much you helped me.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

So if I can jump in just to kind of highlight, because I think for the longest time, like travel agent wasn't something we thought about using, right? Like I remember when I was a kid and we would go to the mall and we would go into the travel agency, and my mother would pick up the paper brochures for the trip that we wanted to take in the summer, and then we'd look at them for weeks, and then she'd come back and sit down at the computer and the travel agent would book it. And obviously the world has changed so much that we all were not doing that anymore, right? We were using what we call TC's online travel agents, who, you know, the XPDR and the Booking.com and what have you. And really just to highlight that if you are a business owner, which if you're listening to this podcast, you must be, because all of us who are therapists are business owners. You are so busy running your business and using your brain and your energy to do that, that you don't need to also be booking your own travel. That at this level, and using a travel advisor is not a luxury thing, right? It doesn't cost you thousands of dollars on top of your trip to use me. And so to think about it just like you would using Claude to set something up for you or using a VA to set something up for you, that I can just take that piece off your plate and then you don't have to think about it. And just, you know, to put that out there because I think so many people who are business owners for some reason are still thinking I have to put my own travel and who don't. And you should.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Yeah. Yeah. It's so like, because my first pain point, I guess, or first thought of why not to do it was I was like, it's too complicated for somebody else to figure all this stuff out for me. But what I learned is you are literally an expert with it. Like you know all the pitfalls, all the things that could happen, and and you were already prepared for that, even though I'm a micromanager. So I was like, wait, are these we'll talk about that a little bit? I was like, wait, this date's not right. And it was really, I was just looking at it wrong because I was like in a brain fog. And I messaged Sally, I'm like, wait, I I think you know the departure date is wrong or something like that. And Sally was like, no, can't she was like, actually, it's this date to this date is exactly right. And I was like, Oh, thank God. Because I'm one of those, have you ever seen that meme where like somebody like checks their backpack like 20 times for their passport to make sure it's in there? That's me. I'm like, I'm checking the dates and checking the dates, and and you know, do I have everything? And for some reason that day, I was just overwhelmed, I guess, a little bit anxious about traveling. I'm checking the dates. I'm like, wait, these dates aren't right. But it was really just the way I was looking at it.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

To be fair, probably one in a thousand times, it might be the wrong day because we are humans and we do occasionally make an error, but it is kind of particularly um because a lot of people like to travel to Europe from the US, and most people doing that are on an overnight red-eye flight. It's like the number one rule of being a travel agent that when somebody tells you, I want to go to Italy on the 17th of July, that you know their hotel is not gonna start until the 18th. We constantly have to be running that math in our heads. And as I'm setting up somebody's trip and going through their itinerary, I'm always double-checking that just to make sure I didn't accidentally like I have clients going to Istanbul and then Cairo in the fall, and they have a flight that leaves Istanbul at like midnight or something, and arrives in Cairo at like 4:30 in the morning. And I double check that date like four times before I blew up just to make sure that I had it right. Because it's easy to make mistakes on this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

It's amazing. And of course, Sally was right, I was not, I'll just say. So thank you, Sally, for putting up with me, you know, because I'm like, this isn't right, you know, like in a frantic, she's like, yes, it is.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

That is that is the the least of our worries, Kim. That there's a there's a travel advisor who I follow on Instagram who her whole thing is publishing the texts that she gets from clients that are ridiculous, and you would not believe some of the craziness that we can get. So please, like the dates are wrong, is is not a big deal at all.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah, it's hilarious. Oh my god, I gotta get her name later. I can follow her. But they're funny. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about the hotel first because part of what I was doing was I was trying to coordinate with my mother, right? Because her and her best friend were down there and they wanted me to come down for like a week and hang out with them. So I was trying to tell Sally, I was like, this is the hotel that they're staying in, these are their dates. I want to go the next a day later, like all of that stuff. So could you could you explain like what we discovered and how you helped solve that problem for me when I was tripping to and I think this happens very commonly, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

You were looking at one of those big, all-inclusive complexes in Dominican Republic. And, you know, I think this also happens in the ones in Mexico and there's a few other big, you know, as we call them AI, but it's a different kind of AI, all inclusive, not artificial intelligence. Yeah. So those big AI resorts, oftentimes they have three or four hotels on the same complex with a very similar name. And it's very easy if you go to Expedia and type in the name. And I think that's what had happened, right? You had you had given me the name of the place where your mom was staying, and then you had sent me, I think, a screenshot of what you had looked up and what availability you could see with the pricing. And so I priced that hotel. And then I look back at your message and I was like, but the name of that other one is slightly different. And it it was like the Grand Palace or the Royal Palace, and and and it's very easy to make that mistake. So thankfully, we caught that. But also, what I was able to do was ascertain that it was, in fact, all on the same complex. And whereas the property that your mom had reserved a room at was currently sold out for those dates, and probably because I think they had more frugal pricing on their rooms, the other slightly more luxurious properties were still available and they still had some good prices on, you know, and deals and available. It wasn't an extortionate kind of price difference. And then we were able to confirm that you could still get breakfast together, sit in the same pool, have dinner together, and all of the things, even if you were in different technically hotels for your sleeping quarters, as it were. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Which was so helpful because I was like, Well, here's the hotel. And she was like, actually, that's not it. It's booked out. And it was real helpful for you to have contacts that you could just go and and figure out like all that, all those details. Because that's what weighs me down with travel planning. It's like, can I eat with them? Like, how do I even find this out? Like, I'm gonna have to research this. It's like overwhelming. So you were able to figure that out for me.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

And that's the thing about also working with a travel advisor, right? That these days we are trying to work out so much stuff on our own on the internet. And sure, you can go to Reddit and ask questions like that. But when you work with a travel advisor, if they haven't been to the property themselves, which most of us travel a lot and more than likely we might have been to the property ourselves. I haven't actually made it to Dominican Republic yet, but I should because it's such a great place to work from. But I have like 5,000 colleagues or more that I can reach out to and say, has anybody been to this property? And it just so happened that one of my fellow chronic illness travel advisors had been there recently and was not able, not only able to give me the lowdown, but she also told me about the access for food for celiac, for other food allergies. I think she happened to mention that if you were vegan, actually there weren't as many options as she would have liked. Right. But if you were celiac and needed gluten-free, that there were plenty of options and that they were taking the allergen seriously and it was, you know, cooked separately and all the things that you need. Right. So rather than you wasting all your time and energy going down a rabbit hole on Reddit, trying to find out one small detail that when you get there may actually not be correct. Right. We can just verify these things very easily.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

That's amazing. And side note, uh, I've said this before on here, but I do have celiac disease, and that's a huge consideration when I'm traveling. Like, like, can I eat gluten-free? So Sally was able to confirm that they were really good at that.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

And I have a number of colleagues who are celiac, who are travel advisors, and so they are always sharing resources on how to find restaurants and what to ask for in a hotel. And so, you know, even though I am technically gluten-free, but I don't have celiac. So the way that I approach it is, you know, I wouldn't need that same level of separate saucepan and separate utensils, but I have colleagues that do, and and that is a great resource for me.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Yeah. So since we're on the medical, let's talk about the other, because I I have a CPAP. I recently found out I have sleep apnea, which is obnoxious. But anyway, this was my first trip with a CPAP machine. So can you just share about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Like how you got, I mean, something that I already knew is that we are allowed to bring, actually, I think technically it's as many as you need additional bags for medical devices or medicine or what have you. So I know this is a comment that we've also gotten in the traveling therapist Facebook group about having a portable size CPAP. And obviously, the thing with CPAP is it's very much about the comfort of the, you know, the mask and everything. So if you already have that in your regular one, trying to get another one that may not be as comfortable, don't do that. You can bring your regular one. Even if the bag was the size of a median suitcase, you would still be allowed to bring an additional bag. And in fact, I saw a hilarious reel the other day, somebody sitting at the departure gate with their CPAP, playing that. Let me count how many other people are taking CPAPs onto this plane and move their camera at one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. So people taking the same plane is very common and nobody minds. That's amazing. Yeah. So whatever medical device, even if it's not a CPAP, you're allowed an extra bag as long as there's nothing else in that bag that isn't medical, like a sneaky snack or something. Although, obviously, if you're diabetic and you need a sneaky snack, then that counts as medical, but no changes of clothes or or what have you, an extra souvenir for your for your mom. Yeah. And then obviously the distilled water is the other piece that we had to think about. Yeah. And there's a few options there. Obviously, a lot of countries you can use Amazon to have distilled water delivered ahead of time. And then also you can technically just use bottled water, I believe. Not doesn't have to be distilled for a short period of time. And obviously, if you're in a hotel in a country like Dominican Republic, there will be bottled water available because they're not going to be giving you the tap water to drink. And then I think I actually had some colleagues who had recently been to that airport and told me that you can buy it in the airport, which would be an option if you wanted. Yeah, that there was a pharmacy in the airport or something that sell distilled water.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Mm-hmm. Yep. So Sally helped with all of that too. She was like, here's how you handle that. And I was like, oh, thank God. And then to know it was a medical device, so I didn't have to try to pack it in my carry-on because I was like, I'm literally just doing this trip with a carry-on.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

I think that's also really important. I remember when I still travel carry-on only, and the first time I tried to do a trip, and it was about a two-week trip because I had a couple of conferences and then I was going to stay there and work in between. And I was trying to get it all in and I couldn't get it all in. And I realized that when I was at the conference, that I could have an additional bag. And it was one of those conferences that gave you a free bag. And so I just used that to be my medibag. And for many years, that was my conference bag with the Polyvagel conference on the side. It was hilarious. So yes, I can never tell people enough that you are allowed additional bags. And if you were someone who checks luggage, you can also check additional bags too for free if they are medical. So if you need some kind of medical device that is bulky and would go in a check suitcase, you can also do that.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Amazing. So good. Let's talk about, since we're kind of talking about the hotel and the medical accommodations, talk about the transportation to and from the hotel. This is something I had no idea about. I always try to figure out, like, oh, what am I going to take? An Uber? Am I going to get a cab? Like, how am I going to manage that? The transportation from the airport to the place. Can you tell about that?

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Yes. Well, I think this is an illustration of why booking through a travel agent is also going to be better for you because usually we have a preferred relationship with a hotel. Being a travel agent is all about industry and relationships. And there will be perks that are available to you because we booked to you under our Iada number. And it's not always the transportation, but in this case, when I went onto the travel agent portal for this particular hotel group and pulled up the pricing for what you wanted, it came up on the screen that what was included in that price was a free shuttle from the airport and that I would just need to reach out to let them know what flight you were on and when it landed so they knew what shuttle to put you on. Yeah. And all of it. I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

So that was really cool. So what are some other perks that somebody might get?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Just like things like a room upgrade, depending on how much availability is in the hotel. That's less likely to be in the big resorts because obviously they're always very busy. But if it's a lesser known place, you might get upgraded to a lovely suite, which would be wonderful. And then things like early check-in and late checkout, which I love. I I don't remember the last time a hotel told me I couldn't check in early or check out late. And so then, you know, regardless. In fact, I recently flew down to Carbo to check out a new property down there. And my flight arrived at 10 in the morning. Okay. I was at the hotel and checked in and eating lunch in their restaurant before 11.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Wow. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

So that's then you almost get a whole extra day on your vacation.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Yeah, because that's the worst when you have to wait till like five, four or five to check in, and then it's like the whole day's gone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

And if you have chronic illness, like you're not going anywhere else. You're just sitting in the lobby for hours waiting for them to check you in, which is kind of difficult.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yeah. And other things we can get you, like free breakfast or uh credit to use in uh the restaurant for dinner or for room service. You know I love a room service when I arrive in a hotel if I've been chatting that day. And it almost always goes on a free credit, which is great.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

That's awesome. I love that. Okay, so more about the hotel. So of course I planned this like a week before, right? And I'm like, I'm like, let me go. Why not? I'll just change some things. But of course, I was like, well, what if I want to bring a friend? Like, wouldn't that be fun to have a friend with me? And of course, none of my friends could go because including my sisters, they reminded me, Kim, we don't have just endless days off. And you know, we have employers and you know, all that. So I got a bunch of that. And people were like, we can't just drop everything and go. I'm like, okay, whatever. So I ended up going by myself, but I said to Sally, I was like, if I want to bring A friend, can I do that? Can we change the room? Or, you know, like could I at this last minute, you know, because I didn't want to bother Sally and also I wasn't sure if she could do it. So could you talk a little bit about that? Like how you helped?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

I think the key thing that I'm always trying to do for clients is to make sure that they are booked on a fully refundable rate. So basically what that means is that if you needed to upgrade to a better room or a bigger room because there were going to be two of you, it wouldn't cost you anything for me to cancel that original booking and make another booking for the better room. And obviously, you know, again, dealing with chronic illness, we never know something awful might happen. We might have a flare, we might have a new infection or something, and suddenly we can't go. And there's nothing worse than being locked into a rate that is not refundable and you wind up having to pay for your vacation anyway, even though you didn't go on it. And that's another thing to watch out for if you're booking online, because all of those online travel agencies, the advertise rate that they list to make it be the lowest possible. So you go, oh wow, that's super cheap. It's always the non-refundable rate. And then you're locked in. And this happens to my sister all the time. She has a little kiddo who is just turning three. And you know how those little ones are always like getting sick or having some kind of medical issue. And the number of trips that she's booked into a non-refundable rate, this was before she clocked the fact that I can actually book things for her. And she'd be messaging me, oh my goodness, we're gonna have to pay for this hotel again, even though we've been in the emergency room for the last 10 hours. Oh, don't book non-refundable rates, people.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Yeah. Yeah, such a good tip. Oh my gosh. So that leads into the travel insurance part. Since we're talking about non-refundable, let's talk about travel insurance because you helped me with that too.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Yes. So that is something that we can also always offer. Now, obviously, I am not a licensed insurance broker. Right. So there's limits of you know what I can explain to you legally, but we are able to sell travel insurance. And particularly right now, you know, even if you're not dealing with medical issues, it is advisable because if you look at all the events that we've had this year that have affected travel, um, the situation in Venezuela where all of the planes were grounded for 24 hours. So if you had a cruise going out of any Caribbean port, you were not making that cruise because your flight in Miami was not taking off. And then we had all those people in the UAE and Qatar and places that were just sitting there on vacation and suddenly bombs were falling all around them. We've had, I feel like there was another, oh, the Mexico situation when people were in Puerto Vallarta and there were cartels running through with all kinds of stuff. And so if you had a trip for the following week, if you didn't have travel insurance, you still had to pay for the trip even if you didn't want to go. So something that we have been helping people to, you know, make sure that they have cancel for any reason travel insurance, which will give you, depending on the state that you're in, I think it's up to 75% back for even whatever reason you come up with. It doesn't need to be a legitimate reason according to the travel insurance. You know, it can be, yeah, I don't feel like going, sorry. And then you can refund, which is great. And then obviously, if you do live with medical issues, I think we forget because health insurance in the US mostly does cover you wherever you are in the US, that if you go to another country, it does not cover you. And so you would need additional coverage. If you had stomach flu and needed to get an IV, that would not be covered, and you'd pay a lot of money out of pocket if you needed to get that in the Dominican Republic. Or let's say you, you know, you got glutened and and you had to go to the hospital for some recovery meds, that would be expensive.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, that was super helpful. And then you you helped me find it, you gave me options. You're like, here's the cheaper one, here's the more expensive one, here's the difference, here's the one I think you should go with. And, you know, inevitably I was just like that one. And she like helped me just sign up. The credit cards on file already. Like she just took care of the whole thing for me.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

And that's the great thing about working with an agent too, is that once I have your info in our secure system, you don't have to keep giving me your credit card, you don't have to keep giving me your frequent flyer number for a particular airline. I have all those things stored and I can just take care of it for you.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Yeah, amazing. And that's why I'm like, you know what? I'm going to Switzerland in September, Sally.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

I'm like, phone me up. And she's like, here's, she's like, literally sent me a link. She's like, here you go, put your itinerary in, and then I'm just gonna start working on it. And I haven't done that yet because I'm waiting on my 18-year-old nephew to like give me a date. I'm like, come on, kids. Okay. Um, but anyway, so that's what's going on with that. But I did, I'm like many years ago, I took a business class flight for the first time. I was like, I will literally never fly coach again. Yeah, and now I feel the same way about using a travel agent. It's like it's one of those things that feels extravagant and a little like bougie, and something I because I'm like, I could do this stuff on my own, I could figure it out. But no, you know, it's like Kim, you could also paint your nails. Do you paint?

SPEAKER_00 27:38

No, I don't. Look, does it look like I painted these?

SPEAKER_02 27:40

No, right.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

And technically I could probably cut my own hair, but thankfully I also don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Now I do color my own hair. As you can see, it's really bad right now. It's much darker than it usually is. So I I need a salon for that too.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

It's okay, right? I think it's like it's figuring out what we are willing to do and what we're not willing to do, right? I will never have somebody else do my laundry because I am fastidious and specifically because I come from a different country and we don't tumble dry all our clothes and we have the front-loading washing machines, that if I were to give all my clothes to the laundromat, heaven forbid what they would do with them, they would give them back to me in a horrible state. So even though I pay somebody to clean my apartment, I don't pay for that extra service for them to do my laundry. But I do pay for somebody to clean my apartment and I do pay for somebody to paint my nails. And I think it's, you know, if you like me or someone who is kind of a budding travel agent yourself and you want to book your own trips, that's great. And I have a couple of clients who are like that. They will literally tell me that they've looked up the deal and they've even repriced it, like it's two weeks before, and they've repriced it again, but I still book it for them because I get them the extra perks and what have you. And we don't mind plans like that either, right? Because for all the people who come along and say, I don't even know where I want to go, give me some options. Then we have other people on the other end of the spectrum who say, This hotel, this date, this room, this particular whatever, and that's fine too. I'm happy to book those. But love it. Yeah, we are definitely not in that luxury category that you might think of. And yeah, like you said, Kim, you do enough already. You don't need to be doing this as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

And the other thing, I mean, we should say is I didn't I didn't pay you to do this stuff for me. Like you are getting paid through, like, I guess, rebates and and exactly what happens.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

And and we have, you know, slightly different options. So if someone comes to me and they know exactly what hotel they want, which you did, then I don't charge a planning fee because we do get paid a commission by the hotels, which interestingly, hotels also pay commission to online travel agencies, but they're not doing anything for that commission. Whereas we obviously are doing something for that commission. So there's always a commission that a hotel is paying to somebody. And wouldn't you rather it goes to a lovely small business that's owned by a therapist small business rather than some big corporation? So, yes, if somebody knows specifically what cruise they want to take, then also I don't charge a planning fee. And this varies slimy from agent to agent. We all are our own technical independent businesses. I do charge if somebody is wanting me to do, you know, they know where they want to go, but they're not sure which hotel, they're not sure the itinerary, they're not sure the activities, or even, you know, I have a client right now who wants to go to Japan for cherry blossom in March, but they're flexible on when to go, and they just want me to take care of the whole thing, nice, then we do charge a planning fee for that, but it's a small amount, it's not like thousands and thousands. You know, it's worth it. Yeah. And I do like if you know where you want to go, but you're not sure exactly which hotel, and you maybe want like a three option. You tell me your vibe, you tell me the neighborhood, and I'll give you three options. That one I charge $99. So, like a fixed price, you give me a small amount of money, and I pick three hotels that are tailored exactly for you. And how much time would you spend online trying to figure that out yourself? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Yeah. Exactly. All the details, especially with the gluten stuff. And you know, I mean, that would take a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

So it's so good. It's relatively like I think people assume, right, that they're gonna spend, let's say they've got a budget of 5,000 for a trip, that if they came to a travel agent, suddenly that would be another 5,000 on top to pay us. And it's not, it's like a you know, if there is a planning fee, it's a tiny portion of that budget. And as somebody reminded me the other day, chances are that the rates we're gonna get you for the hotels are gonna be better than what you would have gotten anyway. Yeah, and so probably if you do pay me a planning fee, it's offset from your budget in terms of that.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Mark, that makes so much sense. Oh my gosh, that makes so much sense. Oh, I love it. I love it, I love it. I think there was one more like the flights. Like, I wanted, I was like, Oh, we talked about the points thing.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

You know, I've got a million points, and I was like, Can I use points for this? And Sally researched it for me and basically came back and said, It actually'd be better not to use the points, and here's why. And she sort of walked me through the whole process with that too. So I thought that was super helpful. And then I've got this Switzerland flight coming up, and I'm already like, I've got all these miles, like I want to take me and my nephew business class all the way to Switzerland. Can you help me figure that out? And she's already started talking to me about that. I think we're gonna do a whole nother episode around like ways to do that.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

I think points and miles is something that like it's talked about a lot, and it's kind of like a throwaway comment, right? Oh, you should be using your points for that. But yeah, the reality is that the credit card companies make it deliberately incredibly complicated. Yeah. So that you basically don't take advantage of all the benefits that they provide. And so they are making more money than they're spending. And so points and miles is something that I personally started getting into as I was recovering from illness, because obviously it's something I had thought about a little bit before. But when you're sick, traveling as close to the front of the plane as you can is always going to be more comfortable and therefore make it easier for you to be able to travel and easier to go further. You know, you're not just, oh my goodness, my body couldn't do four hours in a metal tube. Let me limit it to three, kind of a thing. So I started getting into it and learned a lot from a particular program that I joined, and then have been to various conferences and connected with people. I would say I'm probably at the sort of intermediate level because there are definitely people more advanced. Yeah, like hackers. Right. And know all the stuff. But that not every travel advisor is going to be able to offer you a points of mile service. That is something that I have as an add-on for my business because I use them myself. And because for chronic illness, I think it is so important to be in at least business class. And the reality is that for the vast majority of us, we can't afford that out of our regular income. We do need to use points and miles to offset. Yeah. But especially if you are a business owner, because there's such a lot that happens with business credit cards in terms of earning multipliers. And so if you are running a business and you were spending money on Chat GPT and Claude or meta-ads, or, you know, a phone line or particular categories of business spend, if you're someone who is a therapist and does a lot of networking lunches with people so that you can build referrals, there are specific cards that are going to get you more points than just the one for those categories. And so if you can optimize that, you can easily earn a lot of points without really trying or paying, and certainly not by spending more money than you already are. And that's kind of the key thing. Nobody wants to be spending more money to be able to earn points. You want to optimize the money you're already spending. For example, I spend a lot on medical stuff. Unfortunately, that is the downside to being sick. And so I have it all on a card that gets as many points as possible from that. Because if I'm gonna have to waste money on all that stuff, I might as well get some points back. And that's something that I can help you with if you are a business owner, or if you've already done that and you've got your million points, I can help you find the award availability so that you can fly those bougie aircraft to your next vacation.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Amazing. Yeah, I'm excited for you to help me with that too. So, how do people find you and hire you as their travel agent?

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yes, so my business is Sally's Safe and Connected Travel, and my website is exactly that. Don't forget the two S's together. So Sally's Safe and Connected Travel. And you can also message me through there. I'm also on Instagram at Dr. Sally Riggs, and you can also DM me that. Love it. Thank you, Sally. Thanks for taking the time today to share. Absolutely. I could talk about travel all day, every day, as you also want to be. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

I love it. And it was super helpful for me. That's why I wanted to come on and let people know because I I think people hear about it and they don't realize what it is. So I wanted to really share my experience with it and say that I'm I'm hooked. I'm doing it now. You got me for life. And so you fire me for being obnoxious and for getting dates and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Oh goodness. Not at all, Kim. I can't wait again. You want more and more bougie trips. That's the issue. Me too.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Me too.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Thank you so much for listening to the Traveling Therapist Podcast. For show note links and downloads, head over to thetraveling therapist.com where you'll be able to learn more about my journey, the courses I've created for you, and other exciting resources to make your dreams become a reality. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share with your traveling therapist friends. Subscribe to the podcast, and if you love this episode, please leave a review.