America’s Vacation Center/ American Express is offering a new way to book travel that combines the
affordability of travel Web sites with the service, support, and expertise
of a full-service travel agency. AVC’s system connects
travel consumers with professional travel agents, based on agent expertise,
saving customers time and money, without sacrificing customer service.
  “For nearly ten years, customers have called up major travel sites,
only to be put on hold for long periods of time and then routed to an
order-taker who knows less about the product than the customer,” said Brad
Anderson, co- president of America’s Vacation Center. “But with our system,
callers are quickly connected with a travel professional who is an expert
on the product and destination the customer is interested in.”
  The process starts with live customer care operators instead of an
automated phone system. Callers are never subjected to an annoying, never-
ending list of pre-recorded options. Instead, phones are promptly answered
by customer-care operators who will assess the customer’s needs and route
them to an available specialist.
  America’s Vacation Center has hundreds of professional travel agents
for customers to speak with, many of whom have been selling travel for ten
to twenty years (or longer). And by using their proprietary Agent Power
software, AVC is able to quickly connect customers to the travel
professional who is best-suited to answer their questions and find them the
vacation of their dreams.
  “Before now, travel consumers had to decide between low cost and good
service, but AVC’s focus on delivering the best value means that customers
get a great price, amazing service, and the vacation of a lifetime,”
Anderson commented. “Add to that the fact that our customers are supported
in their travels worldwide by more than 2,200 American Express travel and
foreign exchange locations in more than 140 countries and it’s clear that
nobody offers a better value than America’s Vacation Center.”
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