Another piece of advice. Use an experienced safari travel agent to handle the airline paperwork. I’ve used TWG and Gracy. Both made traveling with guns easy. DIY at your own risk.
To the contrary, you might not want to use an experienced travel agent whatsoever. A few reasons:
A.) They won’t be getting your 4457 for you. You have to do that yourself.
B.) They do not file for some airlines. For example, Emirates is self-service and you must log in using your information.
C.) Countries like Zimbabwe, you fill out your own permit paperwork and you get your permit at the port of entry…your travel agent doesn’t do that for you.
So in the above example, zero benefit provided by a travel agent.
I’ve used one of the travel agents advertised on this site twice for Africa. In one instance, they gave me wholly incorrect advice and my rifles were missing for 3 days. They didn’t sort it out, a bribe of $500 sorted out their recovery. (The travel agent told me the guns would check through, they did not.)
Many of the things people believe you will get from the travel agent are actually not included and are instead provided by Henry at riflepermits.com . If you need help with SAPS, a meet and greet, or counter to counter assistance, It’s Henry’s team that does that for a fee. If you need guns secured for an overnight in Jo’Burg at Afton House or elsewhere, it’s AFton House or Henry’s team that sorts out their secure storage overnight.
Other non-value-adds of travel agents include:
1.) You pay a higher price for the fares than booking direct With many carriers
2.) You pay a service charge for the travel agent
3.) Using miles for upgrades is either the same or harder
4.) Supersaver fares are not always presented to the travel agencies, including signficant Discounts on biz class fares. I bought my biz class tickets for as much as a $1000 cheaper via sales and coupon codes on the airline website the travel agent could not get.
5.) The illusion of the single ticket. I was told by an advertiser on this site that in exchange for the $700 more I paid to use their agency, all my flights would be on a single ticket and in so doing, the prevailing carrier’s rules would apply, and I would not need to check my guns in and out multiple times. It was not true. The gate attendant swore my guns were aboard as well….lost several days of hunting with my guns. No refund of the $700 overcharge paid For bad advice.
Where you might want or need a travel agent is when you wish to play with fire. Flying through Europe. Laying over in Frankfurt/London/Amsterdam, then on to a sanctioned African nation…yeah, that could go pear shape very quickly. But for USA to Africa single carrier flights that begin in the USA and end in Zim or Jo’Burg RSA? Not a believer.
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