Booking one seat is easy. Booking forty — with a roster that keeps changing, deposits due before names are final, and someone’s aunt who has to fly a day early — is a different job. That job is what we do.
MSK Tour Groups is an independent travel agency, not an airline or an airline’s official website. How we work
Every group has one thing that will go wrong if nobody is watching it. Knowing which one is most of the job.
Fixed dates, large numbers, and a departure that cannot slip. Usually one lead organiser holding a list of names that is still being confirmed a month out. We hold space on the deposit, collect names as they land, and issue when the roster closes.
Repeat departures on the same routing, guides travelling ahead of the group, and a costing that has to hold for a printed brochure. We quote so you can price your product, and re-quote when the airline moves.
Guests booking individually over six months, from a dozen different cities, all needing to land inside the same window. We keep a shared itinerary so the couple can see who is confirmed without chasing anyone.
Minors, chaperone ratios, consent paperwork and a finance office that pays on its own schedule. Airline rules on unaccompanied and accompanied minors differ sharply — this is the group type where getting it wrong at booking is most expensive.
Excess and oversized baggage is the whole game. Instruments, kit bags, equipment cases. We confirm the carrier’s policy and the per-item charge in writing before the team commits to a routing.
Everyone has to be in the room by 9am, everyone leaves from somewhere different, and half of them will change their return once the agenda firms up. Flexibility on the return leg is worth paying for here and nowhere else.
Five stages. You will know at every point what is confirmed, what is still open, and what is due next.
Rough headcount, the cities people are coming from, and the dates that cannot move. We do not need names yet — a range and a date is enough to start.
Usually two or three routings with the trade-offs spelled out: what each costs per person, what the bag allowance is, how much flexibility you are buying, and where the group would connect.
Where the airline offers group space, a deposit secures seats before every name is final — which is the single most useful thing about booking a group properly. Deposit terms and the name deadline are confirmed in writing.
Names as they appear on passports, dates of birth, and anything special — wheelchairs, meals, minors. We read the list back before we ticket, because a name correction after issue costs real money.
Every traveller gets their own confirmation; the organiser gets the whole manifest. If the airline changes anything before departure, the organiser hears from us first.
Individual fares need every name at purchase. Group space, where the airline offers it, lets you hold seats on a deposit and fill in names up to an agreed deadline. For a parish trip or a school tour, that is the whole point.
Individual fares move daily. A held group rate gives you a per-person number you can put in a letter to parents or a brochure without having to correct it three weeks later.
Booking forty people individually frequently splits them across two flights, because inventory runs out mid-purchase. Group space is allocated as a block.
Not a queue, not a ticket number. The planner who quoted your trip is the person who answers when a flight moves two weeks out.
Group terms — minimum size, deposit amount, name deadline, and what a change costs — are set by each airline and differ by route. We confirm yours in writing before you commit to anything.
Even a rough outline is enough to start. Most groups get a first set of options back within one business day.