Don’t use Get Your Guide!
Avoid the headache and save money with this travel hack!
Want to save money on your next trip? First step is not buying from Get Your Guide!
Why shouldn’t you purchase from Get Your Guide? Well first of all it will be more expensive! Second, you’re booking through a third party, maybe even a fourth.
Let me explain and later will show you a travel hack.
You’re going to pay more for the same experience. Period.
Ready for a travel hack? I’m about to save you at least 20% on your next trip activity.
Get Your Guide doesn’t pay companies to have their products listed on Get Your Guide, companies pay a commission instead.
How much is the commission?
Well it varies but between 25 and 35 percent!
In competitive markets, competition is already fierce and the prices are as low as possible already.
So how can they offer the same product for the same or lower price on their website while paying a 25 to 35% commission?
They can’t!
So what’s the deal?
Well, there’s a few ways around this.
1. Change the activity slightly.
To absorb the cost of the commission, companies will adjust things or simply leave items off the normal tour.
Adjust? How so?
Well they can shorten the timings of a trip. That 2 hour cruise is now 90 minutes (no mention of that though!), the 90 minute tour is now 1 hour.
The parking location is moved to a cheaper boarding area.
The most popular Marina might be ideal, but the one “off the beaten path” is a lot less expensive to operate from… Good luck with a taxi to and from that location…
Almost There, Sort of…
That 5 star meal is now 2.5 stars max.
The 30 minute camel ride is now a 5 minute photo op.
The hiking tour in the mountains with lunch, is now a convenient “hikers deluxe carry to go” package.
Why are the other guests in a SUV and we’re on a labor bus?
There are tons more examples, but you get the drift.
2. Upsell time!
Ok, you read the listing and don’t see anything that’s left off, so you’re good to go. Now you’re in the Desert and need a scarf for the sand. 10x the normal price. Thirsty? You get it…
Please Pay More!
Not every tour is all inclusive, but the unbelievably cheap tours have more of an incentive to upsell you to cover the costs. It’s more than likely their business plan.
Not everyone is out to give you a bad experience. In fact 50% of the time, you would never know the difference unless you had the other experience first to compare it with.
3. Simply raise the Price.
What most companies do, is simply add the cost of the commission onto their normal pricing.
Ok, you know what’s going on, now how do I avoid getting taken to the cleaners, being hassled or getting short changed on my trip?
4. Confuse the Price!
How does Get Your Guide “confuse the price”?
You go online and see a 1 hour private boat tour for 250 aed. Excellent, that’s a great price! Keep reading and you’ll see it’s 250 aed per person… Some tours are by nature a per person activity as it wouldn’t make sense to charter a complete dinner boat or high speed rib boat.
But an 8 person cruising boat which you can normally get for 350 aed per hour for the entire boat sounds like a great deal at 250! Just cheap enough for you to think you’re getting a great price! And “private boat tours” in Dubai are almost never per person, hence them being private!
You’re renting out the boat for your personal (private) use, the pricing should be per boat, not per person.
Next is not exactly price confusion, but more of a product confusion issue.
The reason we list boats and yachts separately, are so you can have a better understanding of what you’re getting.
Please see our blog “the difference between a boat and a yacht”.
Nice Boat for cruising, but not a yacht if that’s what you’re looking for.
50ft Luxury Yacht in Dubai
We constantly get customers ask us to price match a yacht offer they saw online.
When we have a look at what they’re actually getting, we see it’s a fishing boat and not even remotely a “yacht”!
Happens all of the time! Companies list a fishing boat on Get Your Guide as a yacht or mini yacht (read, a boat…) so customers feel they’re getting a great deal.
Umm, they’re not…
The residents who live here are our best customers because they know the game. They may have fallen for it the first time, but there’s never a next time!
Which brings me to my travel hack!
Go on Get Your Guide and search around for what you like.
Then call the company listed and ask for a 25 percent discount (or more).
Will it work? Yup.
If you don’t want to do that, then simply call me directly!
I’ll get you at least 15% off the cheapest price there (keeping 5% for meself 😅).
So why do companies use them?
They have the ability to generate bookings and increase sales for the tour companies, which are always looking for additional revenue streams.
A responsible company, will deduct the commission paid from their marketing budget, which in turn would normalize the pricing they give to the marketing or listing company (in this case Get Your Guide).
In a perfect world, most companies would do this and the rates would be competitive throughout the market. This however doesn’t happen. The commission from Get Your Guide is more than the marketing budget of most companies, or they don’t have the ability to stop marketing a certain product and segment out only the Get Your Guide income stream.
Add to that, other companies don’t have a marketing budget and use Get Your Guide as their sole marketing platform to try and squeeze through with razor thin margins. Their price is low and other companies follow them down which leads to a race to the bottom. To maintain the low price, they have to cut costs somewhere! That, or add the commission and hope you don’t check around. This leads to lower sales, so they try to offset it with much higher pricing. Cue the words “luxury” and the like.
Besides the price, there are other issues you should be aware of as well.
You’re not booking directly with the company providing the tour!
Your booking through Get Your Guide and the best case scenario is they in turn book from the tour company. This can lead to a bit of confusion of course, as you may not know the contact details of the company or other important information.
What also happens, is a company will list another companies activities on Get Your Guide, which adds yet another link in the chain!
If you’re a travel agent that does this, SHAME ON YOU!
1, your client isn’t getting the best price, and 2, you’re at the mercy of at least 1 (not needed middleman). As a travel agent, how can you ensure all of your clients needs are met, last minute changes are able to be handled and they can find their activity without issue?
Read our upcoming blog for travel agents…
They don’t post all of the bad reviews!
Did you ever leave a helpful but negative review (on Get Your Guide) on one of their tours and wondered where it went? They won’t post them! Some make it through, but others are simply not shown to the public!
I could go on and on, but I think you understand there’s a better way!
On a side note, see reviews of Get Your Guide Here
Get Your Guide Review
Stay tuned as I’ll update this in the future and will bring you even more travel hacks.
Find out why you should always contact the tour or travel company directly on our upcoming #travelhacks blog.
If you found this helpful or interesting, please share.
#getyourguide
#travelhack
