A friend of mine recently decided to make a last-minute car rental in Scotland. Using a popular travel app, he booked what he thought was an amazing deal - a rental car in Edinburgh for only £10 a day! He’d never heard of the rental company before, but he didn’t pay any attention to it.

When he went to pick up the car, he found that instead of operating out of the official rental center at the terminal, the company was based in a parking lot 25 minutes from the airport. Of course, the car he booked wasn’t available, and he had to upgrade to a more expensive one - another £15 a day. And the company required him to purchase their own insurance, instead of the insurance offered by his credit card - another £15 each day. The rental he thought would cost him £40 ended up costing £160, and the car’s gas tank was empty to boot.

When he went to return the car, the rental company immediately discovered a near-invisible nick in the car’s wheel that he couldn’t remember causing. Another £250, to replace both wheels, the rental company told him - and of course their insurance didn’t cover it.

All told, his cheap £10 a day rental ended up costing him more than £400!

There are lots of great bargains to be found in travel, but sometimes it can be very expensive to be cheap! Here are a few ways that working with a travel professional can save you money - and often a headache, too.

Preparing for contingencies and emergencies

Everyone loves planning trips. Not so much planning for things to go wrong, though. Before you go, your travel professional should make sure you’re covered with adequate travel insurance that will cover everything from a trip to the hospital for an upset stomach to aeromedical evacuation.

Working with a travel professional also means there’s someone available to help you through more mundane problems like cancelled flights or weather conditions. Hopefully, you’ll never need to use your insurance or call your travel professional at 2AM because you missed a connection, but it’s nice to know they’re there.

Avoiding Information Overload

Your travel professional won’t just help you plan for the worst; they’ll help you plan for the best. There’s lots of ways to find travel advice - everything from friends and family to online reviews and old fashioned guidebooks. Talking to a travel consultant or agent with firsthand experience in a destination or lots of clients who go there will help you cut through the clutter.

Reading the Fine Print

Apps and travel aggregator websites make booking travel easy - there’s no question about that. But booking through them means lots of fine print and service agreements that no one bothers to read. And that can be a problem - like my friend who was forced to buy bad insurance for his car rental found out. If you work with a travel professional, they’ll read the fine print for you and make sure you’re aware of any hidden catches or fees.

Loyalty - because corporations can be people, too

A travel professional can help you find great deals by sorting through the various miles, rewards and perks program. But they also have personal relationships with hotel, cruise and tour operators throughout the world. If you work with a travel professional, don’t be too surprised if you find yourself with a room upgrade, comped breakfast or bottle of your favorite wine on arrival. (Well, you should at least act surprised.)

There are lots of great travel professionals out there, but if you’re ready to work with New York City’s top agent, just head to my contact page.

Could you spot the damage to this tire before you leave the lot?