Latest / Missions & Miles | Mission Trips, Group Travel, Missionary Stories, Travel Tips / Angels at the Bangkok airport; Group and humanitarian flights explained | Nathanael Martin
Transcript
- Joy Owens: Welcome to Missions and Miles. I'm your host Joy. Today on the show I've got Nathaniel Martin, Butler Travels Tickening Manager. He has over 20 years of experience finding the best flight options for group and humanitarian travels. To get started, share with the listeners how you got started as a ticketing agent. Nathanael: Well, Joy, it was basically an accident to be honest. I was fairly fresh out of high school, had worked for a little while at a lumber mill, which I decided I definitely did not like. went to college for a while, and then I was actually in process at the time of getting married and just needed a job. And Ellen Butler, longtime friend of our family, going back probably three generations, happened to need an employee at the time and offered me a job at Butler Travel. I had no idea of, what she did or anything, but I was like, sure, I need a job, I'll take it. and I was also attracted by the fact that I knew I would be sitting at a desk working a computer, which I enjoyed. Joy Owens: Ha ha ha. Nathanael: and basically once once I started with her, learned the ropes, got going on things, I discovered I absolutely loved it. I had been really enjoying I liked working with computers thought about going into computer science, but I also liked people. I didn't want to be stuck in some server room with no interaction. And I really liked shopping for deals online. And so I discovered that I was sitting on a computer talking to people shopping for deals all day. It was awesome. And that was basically it. I've never quit. Joy Owens: Nice. So for most people they probably would think as like working as a ticketing agent, not really as mission work. But from your perspective, how are you furthering the mission work? Nathanael: Well, that's one of the things I have loved the most about my job is sometimes, you can feel like you're just sitting there all day just doing things or you know, you don't really have any ministry, you're not reaching out. But with the work that we do, then we have people that come back and they send us an email and they say they'll send us a picture and tell us about what they did, or we attend Marinatha Convention and they Show how many hundreds of churches they built and the wells that they dug and the villages that they brought water to that people were having to walk, two hours one way to a spring or whatever. And you realize that you had a little part in helping to make that happen. so I I don't think I would have stayed a travel agent for twenty years if I was doing Vegas packages all day, which I pretty much refuse to do anyway. but if I'm just sending people on vacation, that's fine, I have nothing against that and I enjoy going on vacation, but it's not it doesn't have the fulfillment. and so that's basically become my mission in life is to help the missionaries get where they need to go, help them get out of pickles. And I think that's an important piece of what they need. Joy Owens: You've seen many miracles in relation to travel. Can you share some of your favorite stories with us? Nathanael: boy, that's hard to think. I think one of my favorite stories that I've ever seen in my time in the industry, primarily happened to Ellen, but it's kind of become my gold standard of all stories. we had a client who was I don't remember the exact situation, but basically he was I think his flight was delayed. He was coming back through Bangkok on I think a separate a split ticket. So he did his tickets were not connected. He was flying some little domestic city where it was not possible to get a through ticket. and I think his domestic flight was delayed. He was coming through Bangkok, which was an absolutely massive airport. And he his flight landed, I don't remember exactly how long before the international flight left, but it was there was absolutely no way he was gonna make the connection. And he gets off the plane and someone is standing there and greets him and says, Is are you so and so? He says, Yes. He says, You need to follow me or you're gonna miss your flight. And this person takes him through the back side of the airport, the employee access places that passengers are not allowed to go, goes all the way through the lines with him, takes him to his gate, puts him on his plane. And he gets home and contacts Ellen and says, Thank you so much. I would have missed my flight. I just can't believe all of this. And Ellen's like, I'm not sure what what exactly happened. And he tells us the whole story. And Ella gets off the phone and tells me and we're looking at each other going, That was an angel. we would not even know how to set something like that up if we wanted to. And certainly we had no idea the situation was even happening. And to this day I firmly believe that an angel met him on that flight and escorted him. And then when you hear a story like that, it just reinforces what we just talked about a moment ago, that this is God's work and We are in ministry with him and there's a reason that we're here and we've got to keep doing doing what we're doing. Joy Owens: Hmm. Yeah, it's too bad you can't claim that as like something that you can do, right? Nathanael: yeah, yeah, for sure. I think I think the other just probably amazing situation that I'll never forget my life was on February twelve, something like that, twenty twenty, when the world was shutting down, or maybe it was March. and Ellen and I both worked, I think, till three o'clock in the morning. And, you know, we had groups stuck in countries that were closing. Peru was saying we're gonna close all flights. after midnight there's no more flights in and out of Peru, period. And we had an entire group there. And some of them had to do some rather amazing things, had to get across land borders unplanned last minute, buy all new tickets, that type of thing, but the Lord helped us get everyone home. And there were other groups that were not so fortunate and had to pay incredible amounts of money later for charter flights, things like that. Joy Owens: Mm-hmm. Nathanael: and we've seen the Lord's blessing in that over and over again. Joy Owens: Yeah, and I think there's been other similar situations as well where it's like being being able Nathanael: That was Joy Owens: to get a group out or a person out of a country right before things get really bad. Nathanael: Or or even just more minor things. Like that was, you know, the most major situation we've ever had. But and of course we have passengers that get stuck, their flights cancelled, life happens. But I cannot I can't tell you how many times I've seen a weather notice, a huge storm, a hope shutting down, and I go look through our clients and I can't find anyone that happens to be going through or they will have just been through there two days ago or there's a group going through next week and nobody will be transiting, or maybe one person. And that's that has to be a God thing 'cause we have no idea. Three months ahead. Joy Owens: Well, you say that, but you do try to avoid certain cities during certain seasons of the year. Nathanael: Yes. yes. Yeah, we do we do try to avoid spots we know have a higher chance of problems. Joy Owens: let's switch to some practical questions. If someone is planning a mission trip, what is the process of getting a group rate? How early should they look for tickets? And is a group rate always the best way to go? Nathanael: So for groups, it varies a lot depending on what time of year they're traveling, how many people are going, and the destination. Those are the three big factors. group rates are definitely not always the best way to go. the the first question that I always look at is the destination. There's some destinations such as inland Peru, is a very common one that we get a lot. Somebody's going to Cusco, Pucalpa. places like that and they're flying from a city where the local Peruvian airlines do not fly inland US, Portland, Denver, places like that, then a group rate is not usually practical. we can get a through fare for them from their home city, no problem, but not as a group rate. So for those people, I will often recommend that they purchase individually. And Butler Travel specializes, I s I've basically created Not really the department, but the way of doing it, where we can still handle those as a groups for our clients, but using individual tickets, giving a lot more flexibility for places where group fairs are not available. For that kind of thing, if a group is traveling at spring break, I would recommend that they purchase tickets individually, maybe around December, November, December, something like that. If they can, summertime, probably around January, February at the latest. it can be done later, but the prices start going up. if they're traveling at a lower demand time of year, then it's not nearly so critical. If have some schools that like to go in February because nobody else is traveling then. And even I wouldn't wait until a month ahead, but even sometimes it's not too bad a month out. a lot more flexibility. the other advice I would give for any group traveling in spring break specifically, try to stay off the weekends. I see many situations where Just adjusting from Saturday to a Wednesday can literally cut the price in half, especially if the school didn't plan ahead enough. Switching to real group rates, if it's a market where a group rate works, for spring break, we recommend booking around August, maybe September at the latest. By the time we get into October, the rates, the space is starting to get picked over, and the pricing will tend to be higher. summertime you'd want to be reserving in late fall, probably no later than November, December, if at all possible. And again for low season, not summer, not spring break, not Christmas, much more flexibility. Joy Owens: So for a group rate, how do deposits and payments work? Nathanael: so overall on average varies a lot with airline, but if we're able to get a true group for your team, we can usually have a deposit of anywhere from fifty to fifty dollars to twenty percent of the rate, depending on the airline, which is taken up front. Sometimes it applies to the final payment, sometimes the airline holds it, refunds it later. then usually around the three month mark is when you have to have your numbers whittled down. Again, this varies with airline. Some airlines make us do it at the beginning now. But most of the time about three months, you need to refine your numbers and be within about 10% of your final number. And then around the six-week mark is usually when you need to have all your passport copies to us and your final payment in. And then one of the advantages of the true group rate is we they usually allow us to make a name change. So if you have a kid drop out of your school group, you can usually swap somebody else in their place with that. Joy Owens: And then there's the also advantage of knowing what the ticket cost is going to be and having Nathanael: Exactly. Yep. Joy Owens: time to fundraise for it. what about if you have groups where people are coming from different cities? Is it better to get a group rate from one city or to just do an individual rate? Nathanael: Great question. we see this a lot with tour operators in particular, tour groups. a lot of times if you, you know, go online, you're looking at some package tour, you'll see, it includes air from New York. And that has personally really annoyed me for quite a few years it encourages people to do one of the riskiest things in the business, which is a same day split ticket connection. here at Butler Travel we really, really work hard to avoid those. We've had many people completely lose their international trip because their first flight got delayed, they missed their connection, and the onward ticket says, Well, you didn't show up, you lost your ticket. so when I'm working with groups, I really, really discourage them from booking all from one city. I don't believe it's a good way to set things up. It's very risky and it tends to actually increase the cost for everyone. Flying from New York or Chicago to Africa, for example, can be cheaper. But once you purchase a ticket to that domestic city from your home city and you factor in bag fees, you're usually paying more and you're adding risk. So for these types of groups, I look at numbers and where they have people coming from. If you have a core group from one city that's actually, say, from New York, they're all in New York, you got 20 people. could still look at a group for them, but for other people coming from other cities, we need to book them individually from their home city on through fairs. We can still often line them up with your core group, but they need to have through fairs. So if there's a delay, they'll be protected. If your group is scattered from all over the country, no core group, then we need to wait until you kind of have everybody lined up, know all the cities where they're coming from. And then our team specializes in looking at the big picture, take your priorities into account, is your biggest priority time, lining people up, cost, and then we figure out what's best for your team for everybody from all their home cities. Joy Owens: We definitely don't want people getting stranded because they their first Nathanael: Yes. Joy Owens: flight got delayed and so then they didn't get that flight to Europe or Africa. They're going on. Nathanael: One one of the saddest ones that I recall on that was a group that we had booked out of a city. Most of them lived there, but one person did not tell us or the group leader that they lived somewhere else. And they just bought a ticket on their own and we got a call from on that day. I missed my flight. we had no idea they had booked themselves in too tight, flight got delayed, they missed their flight to the mission trip and they had to just turn around and go home. They never made it. Joy Owens: So why should a group leader use a travel agency like Butler Travel for organizing their tickets? Nathanael: so there's a lot of reasons. one of the biggest can be just the time and experience factors. when you go to deal with a group, even if you've been used to booking your own travel individually yourself, it gets a lot more complicated when more people come along, when more numbers come along. There's a lot of things that can go wrong or just factors that you might not have thought of in booking individual travel yourself. so our team can save you time. and bypass a lot of those issues before they even become a problem. And then if there is an irregularity or something happens, a major schedule change before departure, instead of you having to sit on the phone with an airline for two days trying to sort out your entire group that just got messed up with a schedule change, we know exactly what to do and we're going to handle that for you. In most cases, too, the reality is that it doesn't cost. much if any more to work with us. If you go directly to an airline, they're going to charge you a ticketing fee on top of the fare. It may not be quite as much as ours, but the difference is very, very minimal and you're going to get massively better, more personalized service working through the travel agent. So it's basically a no-brainer. You're not spending any extra and you're getting a lot better service. Joy Owens: and if you have a situation like being in Peru when COVID comes, you definitely want someone who has has the experience Nathanael: Yes. Joy Owens: to get you out, right? All right, let's talk about humanitarian fares. who can use a humanitarian fare and what are the benefits and are they always the better deal? Nathanael: So humanitarian affairs definitely are not always the better deal. our team is trained to always compare them for anyone who's eligible. the eligibility is pretty it's not real strict. basically anyone who's traveling for primarily a nonprofit or religious humanitarian, medical, anything like that. You're not traveling for vacation, you're traveling for some sort of really nonprofit is the bottom line reason. It's completely fine if you want to go do your nonprofit trip and then have three days of vacation afterwards. That's totally allowed. if you want to go to Africa, do a mission trip, then stop in Europe for a week and enjoy Switzerland on the way home, totally fine. You're still eligible for the humanitarian fair because that's the primary purpose of your trip. Some of the benefits in some cases the fares can be more flexible. that's changed a lot since COVID. About half the time it's more flexible, about half the time it's less flexible. additional baggage can be a benefit. this is limited to certain routes, certain cities, certain airlines, not always available. but in some cases we can get you three 50-pound check bags per person. those would be the main benefits. Sometimes the pricing can be lower. There's cases where, especially if you're needing a very unique itinerary with a one-way leg, I can see pricing at 2,500 published and the mission rate will be 800 bucks. That can literally happen. But that varies so much, and in many cases a published fare can be lower. So our team takes all of what you need into account. And this is why it would be really important if you're calling a request into us to give us all of the info. Even if it's info that maybe you don't think we need, go ahead and give it to us anyway, because sometimes factors that you might not think affect the end result actually make a difference in what's best for you. Joy Owens: So, at Butler Travel we know that you don't offer basic tickets usually. But do you ever personally buy a basic ticket? Nathanael: for myself personally, no. I was around when the airlines first started doing that, and I hated it immediately and I still rebel against it in principle. I have flown I actually flew Frontier once within the last year and I specifically went I specifically bought their fare level that was not the basic one. It wasn't the full, but it was, you know, up one. I did the same thing on Air Asia when I flew them. So yeah, I don't do it just on principle. I would consider doing it under the exact same circumstances that I would consider selling it to a client. And that is if the fare is at least changeable. some basic fares like Copa are changeable. They usually will have a fee. but at least if something happens, you're not just throwing your ticket in the garbage can and walking away from it. Joy Owens: Yeah. Awesome. Well these are some really great information about group and humanitarian affairs. Thank you for sharing with us. To close, I just have some rapid fire questions. Window or ILC? Nathanael: man. I'm becoming more isle. I was window for many years. I still like the window, but I'm I'm transitioning. Joy Owens: You're transitioning. Okay. One item you never travel without, n not counting your passport. Nathanael: Camera. Joy Owens: Favorite airport? Nathanael: man, I'd have to say probably Portland, Oregon. That was my home airport most of my life. Joy Owens: Do you take snacks or you just eat the airplane food? Nathanael: You should just eat the air airplane food. Joy Owens: Alright, so lastly, one thing you'd like to share with someone who is thinking about taking a mission trip or needs help with tickets. Nathanael: well the biggest thing I can say is definitely call Butler Travel. we're more than happy to help you. If you're thinking about going on a mission trip, it's absolutely worth it. there's something about it that can just can expand your view of the world. and it's you know, don't have to start doing a mission trip every year or every six months or anything like that, but just go on one, go somewhere else, help people that are in a totally different culture, totally different language than you, and your worldview. will never be the same again. Joy Owens: And lastly, where can our listeners find you? Nathanael: so you can always find me obviously on our only email address which is info at butlertravel.com. but you can also find my photography on nature by nat.com and there's links there to Facebook and Instagram. And when you go to my website, don't miss my deep sky astrophotography. at the very top of the site you'll see a link that says deep astro or deep sky, sorry. Just click that link and I'm here in rural Utah with very dark skies and this has become one of my primary hobbies. Joy Owens: Yes, definitely go check out his website. His pictures are phenomenal. And we'll definitely put that link in the show notes. Thank you again. Nathanael: Thank you.