I have booked tickets to Hong Kong and the U.S. this month (with my son) and I had been thinking of moving this trip to May because I don't feel like going back to the U.S. at this time of the year.  

I eventually forgot about rebooking my tickets because I got busy.

Yesterday, while jogging by the river, I overhead a group of people making plans to travel to Hong Kong. That's when I remembered I had to rebook my flight to the U.S. and Hong Kong. I thought, "Wow, what a coincidence!" but I knew it was the universe that reminded me that I have something to do.  

Last night,  I also thought that it would be nice to bring my son to Hong Kong Disneyland so I thought, "Maybe I should just use our HK tickets and rebook the U.S. ones so my son could see all his favorite Disney characters." It was just a thought, and then I fell asleep. 

Today, my cousins who had been planning a trip to Thailand this April suddenly changed their minds and decided to go to Hong Kong instead because "they wanted to go to Hong Kong Disneyland".

I was surprised, as they had been sharing their plans to go to Thailand for days now and they were obviously very excited. Take note that my cousins are not kids anymore -- their ages range from 18 - 31. So this sudden urge to go to Disneyland literally came out of nowhere. 

Knowing that I have a son, they invited me if I want to go with them to Disneyland with my son.  I go so excited that I started to plan the trip. Eventually, my brother also wanted to go, and two other cousins. 

Here's where it got better:

Whenever I travel alone (which is 99% of the time), I usually book online for my airfares and hotels and I don't do tours. I like to roam freely. But since we are traveling as a group (9 of us), I thought about using a travel agency and have a solid and organized stress-free itinerary for all of us. 

Since I used to own and operate a daily deal website (similar to Groupon), and we used to feature travel getaway deals around Asia and Europe, I became well-connected with the biggest travel operators in Asia. I called some of them and told them to come up with a one-week itinerary to Hong Kong and Macau for 9 people. 

They came up with something so much better and a totally organized 8-day itinerary to Hong Kong, Macau, Zhenzhen and Zhuhai that includes airfares, airport transfers, coach transfers, hotels, restaurants, city tours, Disneyland trip, and visa applications to China. All we need is to pay them and we're good to go. 

And, guess what? Since I had done business with this tour operator before and we gave them so much business in the past (around 5,000+ bookings per quarter), they decided to give the tour package to us at a wholesale price (without any mark-ups), which is 45% cheaper than if we had to pay for the face value of each item in the itinerary.

I also got to talk to one of their senior officers and they asked if we can work together again but I told them that I have a different business now.

And as if things are not yet enough, they decided to throw-in one free night stay for 9 people at Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong on our last night as a way of saying thank you for thinking of them again. 

So, what was just a thought last night became a reality literally overnight. And the fact that I THOUGHT about using an agency this time and not book online means the Universal Mind was working literally all the time to give me the best version of my thought without spending an arm and a leg! :D 
 

Last edited by Vera (3/03/2016 10:12 pm)