In our August edition of Indian Trails Express, we invited past and current group charter customers to take a short survey and enter a random drawing for a $500 Amazon.com Gift Card®. The lucky winner: The University of Michigan Club of Greater Flint.
The club’s entry was submitted by Adele Karas, who serves on its governing board and arranges the group’s charters with Indian Trails. So it seemed only natural to ask her about their experience with us over the years. Here’s the scoop:
Real-Life Charters: U-M Club of Greater Flint
“We’ve been using Indian Trails for at least 20 years to book charters, and the service has always been excellent,” says Adele Karas, who arranges the mostly sports adventures on behalf of about 200 active club members. “This year it’s Penn State for football and I’ve booked charters for a basketball game in January and a hockey game in February.”
There’s likely no better person to make the arrangements than Karas. She’s a dyed-in-the-wool Wolverine, having earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at U-M, and served as the club’s first female president, as well as director of U-M Flint’s Annual Fund Campaign.
Upon retirement in 2004, she was honored with the establishment of the Adele Karas Scholarship Fund. At age 82, she still serves on the board of governors of her club, and works part-time at the U-M ticket office. “I go wherever they need me.”
Karas plans charter trips for her club three to five times a year so members can attend at least one away football, basketball and hockey game. “We’ve had very good luck with Indian Trails,” she notes. “We once tried a different operator and that didn’t work out very well.”
The club, which is part of the U-M Alumni Association, plans to use the $500 gift card toward the pep rallies it hosts for football games. “We invite alumni, provide light refreshments, have door prizes, and hold a raffle for football tickets—it’s a tradition,” says Karas.
Working with Indian Trails is easy and straightforward, she notes. Club members like it because they don’t have to worry about parking at sports events, the drivers are courteous, and the “buses are always clean” and equipped with WiFi and DVD players.
“The drivers usually wear a Michigan cap when they pick us up,” she says. “They’re well aware of the excitement of the game and make certain we enjoy the trip even when our team is not successful.”
Club members also appreciate our drivers’ expertise. Karas remembers one harrowing trip to a hockey game when the roads were beginning to resemble an ice rink. “We were all frightened by the slippery roads, but our driver was calm and made everyone feel comfortable.”
Advice on chartering a bus for the first time? Karas highly recommends scheduling your trip well in advance. “We plan our football trip a year ahead of time because we need to reserve the buses and hotel rooms.”
She also advises getting all the costs together—transportation, meals, lodging and event tickets—so you can provide a realistic per-person cost to your group for the trip you’d like to take.
“Overall,” says Karas, “Indian Trails goes the extra mile in terms of quality and service.”