Your vacation is precious—who wouldn’t like the advice of an expert to help you make the most of it?

1. PERSONAL

“One of the great benefits of working with an agent is the personal relationship you form,” says Jenny Collister, president of Reef & Rainforest. “A good agent will have a database with your airline preferences and what type of accommodation and diving you prefer. They will remember your feedback from previous trips and use that to perfect your next trip. Once the trust has been built, you simply let your agent know when you want to go away and they will put together the perfect trip.”

2. FOCUSED

Dive travel specialists are avid divers who have visited and dived the places they represent. Using their experience, they can match your wish list to the right vacation for you, from figuring out whether your skill level is adequate for the conditions at the destination to updating you on any hidden fees or local requirements to telling you the best season to find a bucket-list marine animal.

“Scuba diving travel is our only focus,” explains Kenneth Knezick, president of Island Dreams Tours & Travel. “In our case, you get 30-plus years of experience based on thousands of dives logged all around the world, honest reports and reviews, and decades of carefully acquired contacts. We purchase millions of dollars of dive travel every year. The suppliers want us, and our customers, to be fully satisfied.”

3. SECURE

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) handle travel transactions among suppliers, consumers and agents. An IATA number or an ARC number issued to a travel specialist is a sign of legitimacy. Caradonna Adventures, a dive travel specialist with more than 30 years’ experience and over 200,000 successfully arranged trips, knows that accreditation represents security for the traveling diver. “You’ll have peace of mind knowing that your travel investment is safe with us as we are a United States Tour Operators Association member with a $1 million Travelers Assistance Program. We are ARC and IATA certified and bonded, which means you’re covered on all fronts,” says Tim Webb, Caradonna president.

4. FREE

Best of all, most of these services cost the traveling diver nothing. Travel specialists often have relationships with tourist boards and airlines worldwide that allow them to offer customers special perks and benefits, like preferred pricing, that a diver is unlikely to learn about or be able to take advantage of on their own.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR BOOKING
A travel agent books accommodations, car rentals, flights, cruises and tours. Can they handle a trip with complexities, such as multiple flights (international date line time and date changes, and connecting flight itineraries) and possible layovers? Or travel delays like illness or natural disasters?

PAYMENT
Is the payment plan clearly spelled out? Are the rates for your desired travel competitive?

ACCREDITATION
“ARC accredited ticketing agencies are the most select group of dedicated travel professionals in the U.S.,” Reef & Rainforest’s Jenny Collister explains. “They have met stringent financial, personnel and security requirements. All you need to do as a client is ask for their ARC number and enter it into ARC’s website to be sure they are a fully ARC accredited ticketing agency.”