What happens when you book a trip through a New Orleans travel agency

Twenty seven trips sit in one chain on this site, and the route to every one of them is the same. To book a trip through a New Orleans travel agency you write down where you want to go, roughly when, and who is coming with you. This office reads that against the ladder, checks it against what the operating company charges on the dates you named, and places the reservation with that company. What changes from one trip to the next is how much of the week you run yourself, and the whole ladder, top to bottom shows all twenty seven of them in order.

The five rungs change what the reservation covers, not how it is made. A rung one week has somebody waiting when you land and a guide on most days. A rung five week is a permit, a ranger and the one bed that exists at that place. The sequence below is identical for both, and the five rungs side by side sets out what each rung includes before you settle on one.

The sequence, from a note to a held reservation

A note is enough to start. Three lines will do: a country or a coastline, a month, a number of people. If you already know which rung you want, say so, and if you do not, describe what the week should feel like and this office will suggest a rung that fits. The form at the foot of this page is the shortest route in, and request a trip quote 24/7 carries the same questions with more room to answer them.

The second step happens here, without you. Somebody reads the note, picks the trips on the ladder that answer it, and writes to the operating company for open dates, the current figure per person, and whatever else the trip stands on. That last part explains why answers arrive at different speeds. A rung three week is usually settled the same afternoon. A rung five week can take several days, because a permit is issued on somebody else's calendar and the operator has to ask for it before anyone can quote you a figure at all.

The third step is the written answer to you. It names the trip and its rung, names the company that will run it, gives the dates that are genuinely open, and gives the figure per person as it stands that day. Trips on this ladder run from $1,951 to $6,545 per person. The answer also states what the figure leaves out, and one of those items never varies: your own flights are yours to arrange, and no part of that arrangement passes through this office. Any water crossing inside a trip is the operator's to run under its own license and carries it on its own paperwork.

Where money moves, and to whom

Nothing is paid here. This office runs no checkout, holds no card details and issues no invoice of its own. The first money in the whole sequence moves after the reservation is placed, when the operating company sends you its booking document and asks for what its own terms require, usually a part payment against the total with the balance due before departure. You pay that company, in its own name, on the schedule it sets, by whatever method it accepts.

Once you are home again, that company pays this office a commission for the work of placing the booking. That is the entire income in the arrangement, and it is worth knowing, because it tells you where your figure came from: it is the operator's price on the operator's dates, passed to you as it stands.

What arrives in writing, and who issues it

Three documents reach you, from two senders. The written answer described above comes from this office, and it is the one to keep, since it records what you asked for and what was agreed. The confirmation comes from the operating company, in that company's name, with a reference number on it and the trip terms attached. Nearer to departure the same company sends joining instructions, a meeting point and copies of any permit it obtained on your behalf.

Papers that a government issues to a person, and any policy sold as cover, sit outside all of this, and the questions this office is asked most says so directly rather than leaving it implied. Cancellation runs on the operator's terms rather than on anything written here, and the cancellation terms in full sets out how that works before you commit to a date.

The line between placing a reservation and running a trip

This office answers for a defined part of the work and will name that part. It is responsible for reading your note correctly, for describing each trip the way the operating company describes it, for placing the reservation you approved and no other, and for the accuracy of the summary you were sent. If any of that is wrong, correcting it belongs to us, and corrections@thepinegazette.com is the address to write to.

It is not the operator of anything on the ladder. It runs no vehicles, employs no guides, holds no rooms and moves nobody across water. Performance of the trip, the people who staff it, the schedule it keeps, the permits it stands on and the terms under which it can be changed all belong to the company whose name appears on your confirmation. When something has to be sorted out while a trip is running, that company holds the authority to sort it, and you will be told as much instead of being passed in a circle.

The fortnight you are actually travelling

The file stays open. This office keeps the summary, the reference number and the route back to the operating company, so that a note from the road can be answered with the exact terms that were booked, in writing, at bookings@thepinegazette.com. Every request is answered within one business day, wherever it was sent from. This office rings nobody and sends nothing to your phone; if you would rather speak to a person, the number below is yours to call at a time that suits you.

Pine Gazette Bookings LLC is the company behind The Pine Gazette and is registered with Louisiana Secretary of State. Everything set out above applies to all twenty seven trips, at every rung, at any figure.

The request form takes booking requests 24 hours a day, every day of the year. It is a form, not a telephone line, and a person reads what it collects and answers within one business day.