Questions before you reserve a trip from Kansas City
Sixteen questions arrive here again and again, and four of the answers are refusals. Three of those will never change, whatever we are asked. One of the answers tells you when this office is not needed at all. They are written down so that you can check them before you write to us, rather than after.
The same sixteen questions, written down once
Most of the questions before you reserve a trip from Kansas City are the same sixteen, asked in slightly different words, and it is quicker for everybody if the answers sit here in writing.
Four of them are refusals, and not one of the four is a gap we mean to fill later. Read those now rather than after an afternoon on this site. Nothing below is an argument for reservation. Where the answer is no, it is written as no, and where the honest answer is that you can do this without us, it says that too.
What this office does, and the edge of it
Etre Super Travel arranges holidays. It flies nothing, owns no rooms, runs no boat and employs no guides. The work is talking to suppliers, holding dates, reading the small print and writing a confirmation you can hold somebody to. That is all of it.
No money moves here. The site has no checkout and no card field, and could not take a payment if you insisted on giving one. Etre Super Travel Reservations LLC publishes the site from 6317 N Antioch Rd, Suite 108, Gladstone, MO 64119. If an answer below is two sentences long, that is because two sentences is the whole of it, not because we are being careful with you.
Questions that come back every week
Why does the site ask me three questions instead of just showing me the list?
Because thirty-two weeks across thirteen countries is not a decision, it is homework. The three questions are the ones we would ask you on the telephone anyway, in the same order, and each one halves what is left. Three of them leave four weeks standing in front of you. If you would rather not be asked anything, the whole catalog is laid out flat at /every-week/, and nothing on it is held back from you.
There is a number on every week. What is it counting?
How much of that week you could have arranged without us. One means all of it: rooms that can be held from a website, and a map. Two means most of it. Three means the hard half needs a telephone call, usually to somebody who does not answer email. Four means it does not exist without an introduction. It is drawn as a rule of one fixed length cut into that many pieces, so the length never changes, only the number of breaks.
Is a four better than a one?
No. It is not a score, and there is nothing to be won by reservation a four. The number measures one thing: how much of the week needs somebody who already knows the people at the other end. A one can be the week you talk about for twenty years. A four can be four days of walking you would have found dull. It describes the work, not the holiday.
Why would you print a number that tells me I could have reserved it myself?
Because it is true, and you would work it out in an evening anyway. Nineteen of the thirty-two weeks are marked one or two, which is well over half the catalog. Some people read that, close the page and go and do it themselves, which is the number doing its job. Others decide the evening is worth more to them than the arranging. The supplier pays us after a reservation is confirmed, so printing the number costs us nothing.
Why is your catalog so short?
Thirty-two weeks is what this office can hold in its head. We know which rooms face the road, which walk is longer than it reads, and which host will move a date without a fuss. A bigger reserve would be a search box with our name over it, and then you may as well type the search yourself and skip the middle of it.
What if the place I want is not in the thirty-two weeks?
Ask anyway. The catalog is where we start, not where we stop. If it sits near work we already do, we will price it and say so. If it is somewhere we have nobody to call, we will tell you that rather than guess, and you will have spent a day rather than a deposit. We would sooner turn a request down than take one we cannot do properly.
Is the flying part of what you arrange?
No. This office does not arrange air travel, holds no contract with any carrier, and cannot hold a seat for you. Getting to the country is your own arrangement, and no figure printed anywhere on this site includes it. Every price starts on the ground, at the first night of the week. We will tell you which airport a week is built around and how long the transfer takes. The flying is yours to reserve.
Do you sell travel insurance?
No. That is permanent, not a gap we mean to close later. We do not sell cover, we take no commission on it, and we will not recommend a provider or a type of policy, not even in conversation. Put the question to a licensed professional. What we can do is read you the cancellation terms attached to your own reservation, because those terms are part of the thing we wrote.
Can you help me with a visa?
No. We do not advise on visas, entry rules or documents of any kind, and we never will. This is not modesty about what we know. Being wrong about it costs you the whole holiday, and the rules change without warning in ways a reservations office has no business tracking. Take the question to the relevant authority for the country you are going to.
What about a passport?
Same answer, and just as permanent. We do not check passports, we do not tell you whether yours has long enough left on it, and we do not chase an application for you. Take that to the relevant authority as well. The one thing we need from you is the name spelled exactly as the document spells it, because a supplier will charge to change it afterwards.
Do I pay you anything? What is your fee?
There is no fee. Nothing for planning, nothing for asking, nothing if you read the whole site and reserve none of it. The office is paid a commission by the supplier once a reservation is confirmed. That is why a week marked one is still worth our time, if you would rather we did the arranging. What you pay, you pay to the supplier, on the supplier's own terms.
If I send the form, have I reserved something?
No. The form is a request and it binds neither of us. Nothing is held, nothing is charged, and no date leaves anybody's calendar when you send it. A person reads it, checks whether the week is genuinely open on your dates, and writes back with a price and the terms attached to that price. The reservation exists once you have read those terms and said yes in writing.
Do you take card details?
No, and we could not if you wanted us to. There is no checkout on this site, no card field, no payment page, and no account for you to make. The form has six fields: what you are after in your own words, which week or shortlist you are asking about, roughly when, your name, how to reach you, and one more you will never see, which is there to catch machines. Money moves later, with the supplier.
How quickly does a request get answered?
Within one working day. That is the only promise we make about time, because it is the only one we can keep. The form itself takes messages at any hour, so there is no wrong moment to send one. What comes back is a reply from the person who would handle the week, not an acknowledgement with a reference number sitting at the head of it.
What happens if the week I asked about has gone?
It happens, mostly in the months running up to a school holiday. We say so in the first line of the reply rather than the last, then tell you what is actually left: the same week later in the season, the same idea in another country, or nothing at all, if nothing is the truth. We do not hold a substitute over you.
Can I telephone instead of writing?
Yes. The number is +1 (816) 414-3106, and it reaches this office rather than an answering service. A call suits a short question, a change of dates, or wanting to hear whether we have actually been to the place. Writing suits five people with five different constraints, since we would only ask you to put that in an email afterwards. If nobody picks up, the form is the surer route.