707 Virginia Street East, Suite 1035, Charleston, WV 25301

Travel Agency in Charleston, West Virginia: Vacation Packages, Cruises and Tours

Ellerstead is an independent travel agency. It arranges trips and places them with the companies that run them. Every trip on this sheet is sorted by one number: how many separate companies have to agree before it happens. That number decides how a trip cancels, how it fails, and whether you need an agency at all.

The number this whole sheet is sorted by

A trip is not one purchase. It is one, two, three or five contracts that have to line up, each with its own company, its own cancellation rule and its own idea of what it owes you.

Count them and everything else follows. A one company trip is safe and you can probably book it yourself. A five company trip is where the work is, and where an agency stops being a convenience.

One company

one company

A single contract. If you can book it yourself in one sitting, you probably should.

4 trips

Two companies

two companies

Two contracts that have to line up. The join is where trips break.

4 trips

Three companies

three companies

Three contracts, three cancellation rules, one itinerary holding them together.

4 trips

Four or more companies

+four companies

Four or more. This is the work an agency exists for, and the tier we earn on.

2 trips

Look up a fare yourself

This lookup is run by a booking service that is not this company, on a subdomain of this address. Press the button and you are with them: they take the booking, they take the payment, and their conditions are the ones that bind the ticket. On the count this whole sheet is sorted by, that is one company, dealt with directly, and this office is not in the chain at all. If a booking follows, that service may pass this office a slice of the margin it already keeps. What you are quoted is theirs and it reads the same whether you arrive from here or from anywhere else.

No fare figure is printed anywhere on this site. Numbers come back from the service running the lookup and they move without telling anybody here. What this lookup does sets out what leaves your browser, what is refused before anything leaves, and what happens to the eleven month limit.

Every trip

Every trip, and how many separate companies have to agree before it happens
The trip	Companies	Length	Per person
Ireland Escorted, Eight NightsOne tour operator holds the coach, the hotels, the guide and the entries.	one company	8 nights	from $2,180
Alaska Cruise, Seven NightsOne line sells the cabin, the meals, the entertainment and the moving between ports.	one company	7 nights	from $1,390
Caribbean Resort Week, All IncludedOne resort company sells the room, the food, the drinks and the ride from the airport.	one company	7 nights	from $1,240
Rhine River, Seven Nights AfloatOne line carries the cabin, the meals and the daily walk ashore.	one company	7 nights	from $2,420
Mexico Beach Week, Flight and ResortAn airline and a resort, bought separately so the fare can move without the room moving.	two companies	7 nights	from $1,120
Costa Rica Lodge WeekA flight and one lodge that arranges its own guides, so the count stays at two.	two companies	7 nights	from $1,560
Iceland, Six Nights, Small GroupAn airline and a ground operator, and nothing in between for you to arrange.	two companies	6 nights	from $1,980
Lisbon, Five Nights: Flight and Hotel, Two CompaniesA flight and a hotel. The smallest arrangement on this sheet that still needs joining.	two companies	5 nights	from $890
Japan, Ten Nights, Two CitiesA flight, two hotels and a rail pass that has to be bought before you leave.	three companies	10 nights	from $2,340
Kenya Safari, Nine NightsA long haul flight, a safari operator and the small aircraft between the camps.	three companies	9 nights	from $4,180
Scottish Highlands, Nine Nights by CarA flight, a set of hotels and a hire car with the insurance already inside the figure.	three companies	9 nights	from $1,720
Rome and Florence, Eight NightsA flight, two hotels and the train between them. Three contracts and one timetable.	three companies	8 nights	from $1,640
Southeast Asia, Sixteen Nights, Three CountriesLong haul air, regional air, hotels in five places and local operators. Five contracts.	+four companies	16 nights	from $2,960
Peru and the Amazon, Twelve NightsInternational air, internal air, a highland operator and a river lodge. Four contracts.	+four companies	12 nights	from $3,480

What this office does, and what it charges for it

The work: Working through fare conditions, establishing whether a hotel advertised as being in a city actually sits in it, spotting which joins will give way, and producing the document you travel with
What you pay for it: Nothing. There is no line from this agency on any trip, in any tier
Source of income: a slice of the companies' own margin, released once you have actually travelled and not before
Recipient of your payment: each of them in turn, and their names are what show on your statement, one per contract
What this office ever holds: None of it. No card field exists on any page here

Where we are

Trading name: Ellerstead
Legal entity: Ellerstead LLC, formed June 9, 2021
Filed with: West Virginia Secretary of State
Office: 707 Virginia Street East, Suite 1035, Charleston, WV 25301
Telephone: +1 (304) 346-2140
Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 9 am to 5:30 pm, and Wednesday until 7 pm, Eastern Time
Written: enquiries@travelundercost.com

Nine claims, answered yes or no

The nine things this trade puts on a front page, answered yes or no
Claim	Here	Why that answer
A figure worked out at no charge	Yes	Stated. Everything before you commit is billed at nothing, and ask us prints that as a list of zeros.
Nothing added by this agency	Yes	Stated, and narrow on purpose: this agency adds no line of its own to what the companies charge. What they charge is broken out on prices, company by company.
Somebody answering at any hour	No	Somebody is here Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 9 am to 5:30 pm, Wed to 7 pm Eastern. Outside that nobody is, and no page says otherwise.
Licensed and bonded	No	No travel agency is licensed in West Virginia at all, and no bond was ever purchased here. Search this site for a license number or a bond number and neither exists.
Registered seller of travel	No	Four states keep such a register: California, Florida, Hawaii and Washington State. This name is on none of them, no traveler money is held here, and no registration number is printed.
Industry accreditation	No	Nothing of the sort is held and no association badge appears here. Those organizations sell memberships; a license comes from a government, and none of them is one.
A price match	No	A match is a promise about a market this agency does not run. What it offers instead is the split: which company charges what, on every trip.
Flexible cancellation	No	There is no single rule to be flexible with. A four company trip has four rules, and they are printed separately for exactly that reason.
Offices in several states	No	One office, in Charleston. It books for travelers anywhere, which is a different sentence.

Ask what your dates come to

Your name it has to match the passport later, so give the full one

Where the figure goes used for that and nothing else

Telephone, if you prefer rung only if writing cannot settle it

How much joining up you want us to do this is the question that changes the shortlist

Roughly when a month or a season is enough to start

Who is going ages of anybody under 18; it changes the room and sometimes the fare

A figure not to pass the real one. It decides which tier we look at first

Charged nothing, not for the figure nor for any of the work behind it
Committed nothing on either side, and that holds after the figure lands too
Card fields here zero, on this page and on every other one

These boxes are checked here in the browser before anything moves, and that check is switched off, so the button is too. Send the same details as an ordinary mail to enquiries@travelundercost.com and they land in the identical place. Six lines do it: who you are, the address to answer, an approximate month, everybody coming plus the age of anybody under eighteen, and a ceiling you would rather stay beneath. The telephone works too, +1 (304) 346-2140, whenever somebody is here: Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 9 am to 5:30 pm, Wed to 7 pm Eastern.

Every box above has its own entry on the privacy page, saying where it goes and for how long. The terms set out what binds whom, which before a booking is nobody.