What should I ask a Hajj agency before booking?
The short answer. Ask for the Hajj Group Organiser licence and the HOAP number, the Mina camp category, the hotel by name and its distance, how many pilgrims are under one group leader, the Munazzim's name and licence number, what is excluded, and the cancellation terms. Ask for all of it in writing. A real organiser answers every one of those in a single message.
Families often arrive at our desk having already paid somebody else, and the conversation is always the same: the questions they wish they had asked. So here they are, in the order they are worth asking, with what a straight answer sounds like.
Print this, or send it to whoever you are speaking to. Any organiser worth booking will be pleased you asked.
About the company
1. May I see your Hajj Group Organiser licence? A photograph within the hour, with the number typed out. Anything else is the answer. How to check it is in how to verify a Hajj travel agency.
2. What is your HOAP membership number? A number in the form on the certificate, which you can look up in the association's own directory. Ours is 4207/K.
3. What is the registered company name, and is the bank account in that name? These two must match each other and match the receipt. Money to a personal account is the end of the conversation.
4. How many years have you sent Hajj groups? A specific answer, and usually a story.
5. Who is the Munazzim, and what is the licence number? A name and a number, not a title. We print both on every Hajj package.
About Mina, which decides the hard days
6. What category is the Mina camp? This is the question most people never ask and the one that shapes the hardest days of the journey.
7. Where does the camp sit, and how far is the walk to the Jamarat? A distance, and ideally a description of the route.
8. What is in the tent? Beds or mattresses, how many people, air conditioning, how the food is served.
9. Where do we stay in Arafat and Muzdalifah, and how do we move between them?
About Makkah and Madinah
10. What is the hotel called? A name. Not a star rating, not "near the Haram". With the name you can look at the map yourself.
11. How far is the walk to the Haram, and is it the same hotel for the whole stay? Some packages move you partway through, which is not wrong but should not be a surprise.
12. How many people share the room? And what the price is for each option, because this is one of the largest differences between two packages that look alike.
13. What is the Madinah hotel, and how many nights?
About the travelling
14. Which airline, direct or with a stop, and what are the dates? Group dates are fixed by the organiser, so ask early if your leave is fixed.
15. What transport is included inside the Kingdom, and what is not?
16. Is Ziyarat included, and which sites?
About the money
17. What is the total, and what is excluded from it? Ask specifically about food, internal transport, the Qurbani, Ziyarat, laundry and anything bought at the airport. The excluded list is more useful than the included one.
18. What is the payment schedule, and what is the receipt?
19. What are the cancellation terms, in writing? What you lose, and when. If an organiser will not write this down before you pay, you have learned something important. Ours are published on our cancellation and refunds page.
About the people
20. How many pilgrims will be under one group leader, and is that leader your own staff? There is no single right number. There is a very large difference between twenty with a named person and two hundred with a phone number.
And the one that is worth more than the other twenty:
Tell them about your family and listen to what comes back. Say that your mother is seventy-four and cannot manage stairs, or that you are travelling with a small child. A good organiser will immediately start talking about the Mina category and the hotel distance, and may tell you that the package you were asking about is the wrong one. A salesperson will say it will be fine.
What the evasions mean
| What you hear | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| "Walking distance from the Haram" | They do not want to name the building |
| "Standard Mina camp" | There are categories and this is not the better one |
| "We will confirm the hotel later" | It is not booked yet |
| "Everything is included" | Ask for the excluded list in writing |
| "The paperwork is with my partner" | Ask again tomorrow, and note the answer |
| "This price is only for today" | Urgency without writing is the oldest signal there is |
After the questions
If the answers are good, get them in writing before you pay, and keep the message.
If you would like to see what a full written answer looks like before you ask anybody else, our current departures, with the inclusions, the exclusions, the payment terms and the Munazzim's name and number, are on the Hajj packages page. Send us your questions and we will answer them one by one, including the ones where the answer is no.