Travel Agency Recommendation?

Tall task to do all of that during this air traffic control event but could be possible. First suggestion- prioritize where he wants to visit from highest to lowest. Confirm with hospitals those dates then move onto the next one. Does he live near a major airport where he can fly nonstop or is he going to have to connect everywhere?

Other suggestion would be to leave a buffer zone between destinations in case he does get stuck or flights get cancelled. Wouldn't be good to have to cancel on an interview if he gets stuck at a previous interview.

Third, are there potential spots where he can knock out multiple interviews in the same trip? Like DC, Baltimore, philly, NYC for one trip?

Why do you think a travel agency mitigates any issues by virtue of being a travel agency? You could just book all travel through the Amex or Chase portals, and that's a "travel agency." Under ZERO circumstances should he rely on Expedia, Travelocity, etc.

The bigger the plane (PAX), the less likely it is to get cut on the schedule. Flights from one alliance hub to a different alliances hub also are on the first to cop list. It's not hard to check historical on time data for any route, on airy airline.

His biggest risk is probably going to be Birmingham, since it's a small market. His backup plan will likely be driving to Atlanta if his connection gets delayed or cut. Probably won't have any issues with LAX, but a lot of this is going to depend on what tiny town he's flying into from each of these airports.

ChatGPT

Prompt the holy hell out of it

Cuse has great advice. My general take, I think its probably just as easy to use chapgpt and google flights to search options, then book. Even using a travel agent or service, the day of changes will still be more efficiently handled by your son, either in person, on phone, or by app.

I think you posted a few months ago about advice on picking a single carrier to maximize points. My opinion, unless you are in a hub city for the foreseeable future I would be carrier agnostic and pick flights on direct flights, early morning departures, and refundable with back-up flights booked ahead of time. That will cost more, but with a tight schedule better to be safe that sorry.

Good job of what? Handling irregular travel interruptions? Third party bookers other than Amex at least always seem to drop the ball during irregular ops.

This means he has to call Expedia, to call Delta/American/United to try to find a flight that is not a penny more than the authorization given to the airline for cost, and all other kinds of fun restrictions if a change needs to be made. Whether a shift ran long, or ended early, etc.

You can always recognize the people that used third party bookers, they're usually either crying, turning red, or shouting into their phones at the airport, hotel, or car rental check in counter.