twelve questions this office is asked, with straight answers
Questions about how to reserve a vacation package without paying this agency
This office arranges twenty seven trips, $1,951 to $6,545 a head, and is paid a commission by the company that runs each one rather than by the traveller. Twelve questions follow, with the answers a person here would give on the telephone: billing, holds, solo figures, the five rungs, and what happens when plans change. Each is written the way it would be said out loud.
Send a booking requestThe Pine Gazette answers every request within one business day.
Every trip on this site is reserved the same way: you send a request, this office prices it with the company that runs the trip, and you say yes or no to a written figure. That is how you reserve a vacation package without paying this agency a cent, because whatever you spend goes to the operating company and this office is paid by that company afterwards. The twelve questions below are the ones that arrive most often.
The catalogue is one chain of twenty seven trips, from $1,951 to $6,545 a head, ordered by how much of the trip you have to run yourself. At one end somebody meets your arrival and a guide is beside you most days. At the other end this office arranges a permit, a ranger and the single bed there is, and the rest is yours. the whole ladder, top to bottom runs the chain in order.
Does anything I pay reach this office?
No. There is no arrangement fee, no service charge and no handling charge of any name, and the number you are given is the operating company's own. Your invoice comes from that company alone, written on its own contract. No field on this site would accept a card number, and nobody here asks for one.
Then who pays you, and when?
The company that runs the trip pays this office a commission, and it pays once you have travelled and come home. Nothing arrives here on the day the reservation is placed. An arrangement that falls apart in March earns this office nothing in April, which is the whole of the incentive here.
Can you arrange my flight, or a passage by sea?
No. This agency arranges no air travel and sells no tickets for it, so the flight remains yours and every figure here is worked out on the ground without it. A sea leg inside a trip is the operator's to carry, on a license, as part of the service it runs.
Do you sell insurance, or advise on visas and passports?
No, and no. This office sells, arranges and comments on no policy of any kind. It will not tell you what document you need, whether the one you hold will serve, or anything about vaccination or fitness to travel. Those belong to an insurer, to the issuing authority and to a physician.
Is this site a publication?
No. Pine Gazette Bookings LLC runs a booking office. Not one page here exists to be read for pleasure. There are no articles, no contributors and no editions. Nothing here grades, ranks or scores a place. Every page exists so a request can reach a person able to price it.
How do I work out which rung I want?
Ask what you want to be true on the fourth morning of the trip. If you want that day already settled and somebody standing there to run it, that is the first rung. If you want to wake up with nothing decided, that is the fourth or the fifth. the five rungs side by side sets the five out beside each other, and none of them is put forward as the better one.
What if I choose the wrong rung?
While it is still a request, it costs you nothing. Say what feels wrong and this office prices the same region a rung along; the figure usually moves and the shape of the days always does. Once the operating company has confirmed, a move between rungs becomes a fresh arrangement rather than an edit, because a different company may run the version you move to.
I am travelling alone. What does that come to?
It turns on the rung and on the operator. A room built for two is charged for two unless that operator has another arrangement, and some do: a small number of rooms priced for one occupant, or a pairing with another solo traveller who has agreed to it beforehand. The written figure names which applies to your dates and states the single occupancy amount as its own number.
How is a place actually held for me?
By the operating company, and never by this office. When you accept a written figure, this office places the reservation with that company and your name enters its system. Some companies will hold a name for a stated number of days on a signature alone. Others hold nothing until a first sum has reached them under their own terms. Which applies is written on the figure before you accept it.
What happens if I cancel?
Say the word here, and the operator hears it from this office inside the same working day. The contract being cancelled belongs to that company, so its terms decide what comes back to you, and you are given them before you commit. the cancellation terms in full sets out what happens at this end, and what this office has no power over.
How quickly does somebody answer?
Every request that arrives is answered within one business day, and the request form on this page takes bookings 24/7, so there is no window you have to catch. A full figure priced against your dates takes longer, usually two to four working days, because an operating company has to answer this office first and it works to its own calendar.
Will you ever call me or text me first?
Never. This office answers what comes to it and starts nothing on its own. It places no outbound call, sends no text message, runs no mailing list and hands your details to nobody except the company that will run your trip. You are welcome to telephone +1 (504) 832-6194, which carries traffic in one direction only. ## What the commission changes, and what it leaves alone Most people assume a fee is folded into the figure somewhere. Here it is not. The number that reaches you is the operating company's own number, and this office has no mechanism for raising it or lowering it. What the commission does change is timing. It arrives after you have travelled, so a trip that never happens is worth nothing at this end. The practical effect: nobody here has a reason to talk you up a rung, or down one, or into a fortnight when ten days is what you asked about.
Mistakes, and how one is put right
Errors at this end look like a wrong date carried onto a written figure, or a detail from an operating company relayed inaccurately. Where a cost can be absorbed here, it is absorbed here. Where it cannot, you are told what happened in the words that describe it rather than in gentler ones, and what can still be done. Write to corrections@thepinegazette.com and it reaches a person who can act on it.
Regions that stand nowhere in the chain
Requests for places that appear nowhere on this site are ordinary, and they are welcome. Twenty seven trips is what this office has priced and put into an order; it is not the limit of what it can arrange. Describe the place, the month, the number travelling and roughly how much of the trip you want run for you, and the same sequence follows. how a request becomes a reservation sets that sequence out step by step, and request a trip quote 24/7 carries the longer form for anyone who would rather write in their own words than take a trip off the chain.
One thing helps more than anything else you can put in the form: name the part you are least sure about. Whether that is the walking, the driving, the money, the month or the person you are travelling with, it is usually where the useful half of the answer sits.
Send a booking request
This form takes booking requests 24 hours a day. A person reads it and answers within one business day. Sending it is not a reservation, it costs nothing, and this office will not telephone or text you unless you ask it to.