Vacation package prices from Kansas City: $1,890 to $3,760 to reserve a week

Every week in the catalog is quoted as a starting figure, per person. The lowest is $1,890 and the highest is $3,760. This page sets out what puts a week at one end or the other, what the figure has inside it, what it leaves out, and who pays this office. Flights are inside none of them.

Where the range comes from, and what puts a week at each end

Vacation package prices from Kansas City are printed here as a starting figure, per person, for the week exactly as its own page describes it. The catalog runs from $1,890 at one end to $3,760 at the other, and four physical things decide where a given week falls between them.

Nights come first, because a bed costs what it costs. Where a week runs longer than the ones around it, those extra nights show up in the figure directly.

Beds come second. A week spent in one house means one arrival, one set of keys and one supplier to deal with. Move three times in the same week and there are three beds to hold, transport between them and three lots of correspondence, so the figure sits higher for that alone.

Distance from a scheduled service comes third. A village an hour past the last bus has to carry its own transport, and there are fewer people out there letting rooms at all.

Season comes fourth, and it is the item on this list that nobody here controls. The same room in the same house carries one figure in the month the locals consider quiet and another in the month they do not. Suppliers set both, and this office reports them.

A week near $1,890 tends to look like one base, a town you can walk into, and dates outside the local high season. Near $3,760 the description reverses: several beds in a row, a long way from a station, in the weeks everyone local wants. Most of the catalog sits between those two pictures rather than at either edge.

Three things are already inside the starting figure

There are three, and they are the same three on every week.

First, the accommodation for the nights that week's page states, at the level that page describes. What is written there is what gets reserved, and the figure covers the room for those nights.

Second, the local arrangements named on that same page. If the page says a driver meets the train, the driver is in the figure. Two dinners at the house, named on the page, are in as well. A guide for one day on foot is in when the page names the day. Named on the page means paid for. Not named means not paid for, and the pages are written so that you can check line by line before you ask for anything.

Third, the work done at this end: reading your dates against the week, writing to the supplier, coming back with the exact figure, keeping the correspondence in one place, and sending you the written confirmation once it is done. None of that is billed to you, for the reason set out further down this page.

What the figure leaves out, and flights are the first of them

Air travel is not included in any figure on this site. Not one week in the catalog contains a flight, a fare or a seat. This office does not arrange air travel, holds no contract with any carrier, and cannot obtain one on your behalf. Reaching the country and getting home again is yours to arrange, and each week begins at the point its own page says it begins.

Meals are the second gap. Only the meals named on the week's page are paid for. Everything else you eat is bought where you eat it.

Anything bought on the ground is the third. Entries that are not named, taxis you decide to take, drinks, tips, the afternoon boat you hire because the weather turned. None of it passes through this office and none of it sits in the figure.

Travel insurance is the fourth, and it is a flat refusal rather than a gap on a shelf. This office does not sell insurance in any form, through anyone, on any week. The same holds for visas and for passports: not sold here, not advised on here, not handled here, for anybody.

Nothing is held open between this page and the reservation

The number on a week's page is where that week starts. It is not a quotation and it is not being held for you. Nothing on this site expires, counts down, or sits reserved in your name while you think about it.

When you send dates, the office writes to the supplier with those dates and that number of people, and the supplier answers with a figure for them. That answer is confirmed in writing at the moment the reservation is made, and from that moment it is the figure rather than a starting one. Between this page and that moment there is correspondence and arithmetic, and nothing else.

If the answer comes back above the starting figure because of the month you picked, you see the number before anything is reserved, and you can say no to it. Nothing is reserved on your behalf without that step.

The supplier pays this office, and asking costs nothing

A supplier pays a commission once a reservation is confirmed. That is how the office earns, and it is the whole of it. You are not billed here at any stage: not for asking, not for a written figure, not for a second one when the dates move, and not for deciding in the end to stay home or to arrange the week yourself. Changing your mind carries no fee at all.

Nothing is ever charged here. There is no checkout, no basket and no card field on any page of it. Money moves later, with the supplier, on the terms written into the confirmation, and no card is taken at 6317 N Antioch Rd, Suite 108, Gladstone, MO 64119 either.

This is also why every week prints its honest number, including the weeks where that number says you could put the whole thing together without us. Some readers do exactly that, and the number has then done its work. If you would rather go through a figure aloud before sending anything, speak to a travel agent at +1 (816) 414-3106. Requests that arrive through the form are answered within one working day.