Bert and Anne

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Principal professional interests

Bert & Anne are both retired since about 2011-- but they maintain some interests and contacts in their former professional fields.
  • Bert's former professional interest: computer technology, especially as applied to the travel industry

Anne Raphael was a travel consultant. Using her skills as a former research librarian, she maintained extensive files (that still occupy half our kitchen) of information about almost every travel destination in the world, to supplement the knowledge she had gained through extensive personal travel experiences. She helped plan complex, leisure trips and "adventure" travel, as well as all kinds of cruises. She has sent clients sightseeing in India, on safari in east Africa, trekking on Mount Everest, and sailing in a faluka down the Nile. Operating as "Raphael Consulting", Anne is maintaining a membership through 2014 in the Cruise Line Industry Association (CLIA), so she can still advise about, and sell, all types of  criuses to friends and former clients. 

About Travel Insurance

Anne strongly recommended the purchase of travel insurance for all trips, but especially for foreign trips for seniors whose primary medical coverage may be through Medicare. You can compare different policies yourself online by looking at an excellent web site, www.insuremytrip.com. 

Air Fares

For simple air itineraries, almost all travel agents will come up with exactly the same price. However, subtle differences in routing, time or day of travel, number of stops, etc., can have a big impact on the resulting fare. Also the same flight may have different fares depending on the reservation system or on-line service through which it is booked.Travel agents no longer receive any commission for selling air tickets, so most travelers are best off using comparison-shopping websites such as kayak.com.       top


Bert Raphael is a former computer scientist and manager at SRI International and Hewlett Packard, where he led research programs in Artificial Intelligence and robotics. In 1990, he joined Anne full time managing their travel agency, Compass Point Travel in Mountain View, California, and also became a specialist in Scriptwriter Plus©, a scripting language for the Focalpoint© airline reservation system from Galileo International®.

TRAMS

TRAMS, Inc. is a Los Angeles-based company that provides software systems to aid in travel agency management. Its original product, later called "TRAMS Back Office" (TBO), was a comprehensive system for agency management and accounting. Bert was a "Trams Certified Consultant" (TCC) for more than a decade, and taught TBO-using agencies how to benefit most by effective use of their computer systems. Trams Inc. was subsequently acquired by Sabre Holdings, and Bert stopped participating as the TRAMS product line evolved.

 

"Scripts by J&B"

script package screen This suite of scripts, which Bert co-developed, marketed, and supported for many years, provided a user-friendly, menu-driven way for agents who used Focalpoint and TBO to interact with their workstations. (Here's what the main script menu looked like.) 

These scripts were sold to about 25 travel agencies in the US and Canada, many of which are still using them. Since retiring, Bert is no longer supporting these scripts, but refers inquiries to other "Trams Certified Consultants".

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for more information contact: bert@raphaelconsulting.com