As someone with over 30 years experience in the moving industry (upper management level) and 5 of those years dealing with TV Relo, here are some facts and what I personally would do.
Facts: TV does NOT get kickbacks/rebates from movers (illegal.) They DO get a percentage of RE commission (legal.) There are 3 categories of customers, in order of importance: 1) Military/DOD/Other Gov't, 2) Corporate, and 3) COD (everybody else.) If you go through TV Relo, you are considered a corporate customer vs a COD. IF you have to move during mover's peak periods (Memorial Day through Labor Day, the last Friday of every month, and whenever schools are out - Christmas break, for example) that bump in service level is critical. You could book your move months in advance, do everything right and by the book, and still get dumped like a hot potato the day before your move if you are COD and the mover can drop you in lieu of a desperate last-minute COD they can make more money off of. A corporate customer will not get dumped.
All that being said, I would do my own thing IF I could be flexible and/or avoid peak periods. Which, BTW, is what I did and I had no problems at all.
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