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Travel agent vs DIY flights?

Passepartout

Passepartout

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We are wanting to take a fairly convoluted trip next Summer. A mix of long haul and short haul flights at each end. If one wants to book business/first class for the intercontinental flights and is OK with coach for the short hops what's the big deal with on-line TAs? We are now wondering if engaging a local TA is wiser than doing it online.

Jim
 
I use Skylux travel for intrernatuonal business first class etc
They have created me well over the years
I use sky scanner for last minute one way and international flights
 
I've never wanted to spend the money for higher class airfare, but I also can't imagine "just letting someone else do it for me". I'd have to check over everything enough to be sure they actually did the right thing that I might as well book it myself. Look at some of the threads here on TUG of issues getting the correct thing booked via a travel agent.
 
I usually do a mix of international business class award flights (to get overseas) and then short haul flights to the final destination cities. I know I can always find inexpensive connecting flights once I have the award tickets in hand. All of my bookings are DIY.
 
The only time I have found an agent useful is for niche travel. And even then, agents tend to do what is best for agents and not what is best for their clients.

For instance, find one who will voluntarily disclose that it is FAR less expensive to fly to Nairobi and book your own safaris directly with the operator. Nope. They will cheerfully utilize a string of middlemen. Every time a new pair of eyes sees the itinerary, your price goes up. So what you could do yourself for a few thousand and a little legwork in one of the most pleasant cities on the entire planet now costs $20K. That's the cost of letting others do your homework.

When I finally make my trip to Tibet and the Xinjiang Highway, I will necessarily be required to go through an agency. China insists. Otherwise, my strategy of "get there, armed with some knowledge and strike out on your own," has yet to let me down.
 
ScoopKona said:
my strategy of "get there, armed with some knowledge and strike out on your own," has yet to let me down.
Click to expand...
That's been our strategy in the past. We have just eased into booking business/first on the long hauls, and found one guy who had on problem booking us on coach+ for the domestic flight and Business- offset with miles bonuses- on the long hauls, but when we talked to him for this upcoming trip he's like he doesn't know how to do this?????

Yes, it's just a matter of spending the money or not, and we'd rather not.
 
I have never used a travel agent to book any part of any trip.
However, a dear friend uses a TA for simple cross country annual trip.
(I've considered offering to do it for him, but for what it would save him in $, I don't want to jeopardize our friendship if anything out of my control were to happen.)

I just spent an hour looking at best possible combination of cities to get to HNL from Nashville using frequent flier miles. I'm already holding a SFO to HNL ticket, but have added this trip to Nashville just prior to my departure date to Hawaii. I'm one of those who find the challenge fun.
 
I typically book it myself directly with the airlines.
But for flights on small, foreign airlines, I will use
Expedia. They saved on bacon on a cancelled flight
They also seemed to have good code-share options.
.
 
Even with Google flights, I find it doesn't give me all the possible routes that might suit us. For anything new I go to the airport websites of the region I'm travelling to and see who flies direct to there and then work back from there to somewhere that I'm more familiar with and then go to Google flights and play around with options.
If I had to sit with a TA to go through that with them it'd be deadly boring, but I can do it when I'm having a break or while watching TV.
 
Airlines do not pay commission to travel agents - so most agents will not just book airfare for you, and the ones that will are likely to tack on a fee for there time since the airlines do not pay them.

Agents earn their money from commissions paid by hotels, cruise lines, tour operators, etc.
 
We have only used a Travel Agent for one trip. Shortly after retiring 13 years ago we were going to on a 4 week trip - PDX to LAX, LAX TO Auckland (2 weeks in New Zealand); Auckland to Hobart Tasmania (1 week); Hobart to Sydney (1 week); and, return to PDX. All Flights had to be on Alaska Air or Alaska Air Partners. At the time Alaska Air was not part of One World but had individual Partner Airlines.

When I looked at the individual Legs there were lots of Seats available. But when I tried to Book on a single multi leg Ticket there were no seats. I tried many times with no luck. We finally gave up and used a Travel Agent. However the Travel Agent made several mistakes that we only discovered a few days before Departure. Names were mis-spelled or Dates of Birth were incorrect. These all had to be corrected before Departure. Then as we were checking in at Auckland we discovered they had applied for 2 entry Visas for me into Australia. This could have resulted in me being denied entry to Australia. Luckily the Airline was able to straighten this out before we Boarded. Never again.
 
I have recently started using chatGPT to help me book flights, you can tell it where you want to go, when, what type of fares you want, how many stops, etc. and it will search all the common booking sites (or the direct airline sites if you prefer) for the lowest fares and can tell you if booking one way flights vs. round trips is cheaper. You still have to book it yourself but it will tell you exactly what flights to book. I have not used a travel agent but booking this way has saved me both time and money.
 
RebelR said:
I have recently started using chatGPT to help me book flights, you can tell it where you want to go, when, what type of fares you want, how many stops, etc. and it will search all the common booking sites (or the direct airline sites if you prefer) for the lowest fares and can tell you if booking one way flights vs. round trips is cheaper. You still have to book it yourself but it will tell you exactly what flights to book. I have not used a travel agent but booking this way has saved me both time and money.
Click to expand...
Re: chatGPT. I haven't dipped my toes into this water (yet). I'm reluctant to get into the 'brave new world of AI. Maybe this could get me off the fence.
 
Passepartout said:
Re: chatGPT. I haven't dipped my toes into this water (yet). I'm reluctant to get into the 'brave new world of AI. Maybe this could get me off the fence.
Click to expand...

You might try out the Vacay AI for an itinerary. I've been messing around with it and it has come up with some decent suggestions.

Bill

Home

Welcome to Vacay, your one-stop platform for personalized, intuitive travel planning. Experience a better trip planning experience with our AI-powered platform, designed to provide tailored advice and unique travel recommendations.
www.usevacay.com www.usevacay.com
 
I like to book flights myself because I will check 10xs a day even after booking for any price drops and will rebook if they do. I usually am booking for a group of 5 so even small drops in price can mean hundreds in savings...
 
Hindsite said:
Even with Google flights, I find it doesn't give me all the possible routes that might suit us. For anything new I go to the airport websites of the region I'm travelling to and see who flies direct to there and then work back from there to somewhere that I'm more familiar with and then go to Google flights and play around with options.
If I had to sit with a TA to go through that with them it'd be deadly boring, but I can do it when I'm having a break or while watching TV.
Click to expand...
I do something like this using skyscanner.com
You can enter a city name with the to/from of "everywhere" to discover lowest cost to depart.
 
Pennytx said:
I use Skylux travel for intrernatuonal business first class etc
They have created me well over the years
I use sky scanner for last minute one way and international flights
Click to expand...

I am also a fan of Skyscanner, but when I find the flight I want, I also try booking it directly on a carrier's own website. Often the price is close to their consolidator, and sometimes identical.
 
I traveled a lot for work and we had our own travel department. However, after having a few travel disasters, I developed my own travel itineraries. I had to comply with our travel guidelines, but I had few problems with my trips. I'm the one who has to live with any consequence of screwups, not the travel agent. I now typically check alternatives online and book directly with the airline or hotels. I signed up for all airline and hotel loyalty programs when they first came out, so my travel priorities were based on schedule, comfort, and cost policy guidelines.
 
We used a TA a couple of times for flights because I didn’t want to do the work knocking my brains out.
 
Passepartout said:
We are now wondering if engaging a local TA is wiser than doing it online.
Click to expand...
My TA said just do it yourself and save me the time... Seats.aero for reward flights it our tool.

It is crazy how dates change the points cost, also using airleins directly for dynamic pricing can really trigger deals.

Best of luck...

If you post cities and months/days +/- I'm sure someone will offer ideas for the major parts of the trips. For the small stuff we usually just pay cash and done with it. YMMV.
 
Passepartout said:
Re: chatGPT. I haven't dipped my toes into this water (yet). I'm reluctant to get into the 'brave new world of AI. Maybe this could get me off the fence.
Click to expand...
I generally use different models, but haven't tried this yet. Given I pretty much always now end up booking direct with the airline after finding rates on skyscanner or whatever consolidator it wouldn't be an issue. I would then also probably catch any hallucinations of the model.
 
I like to book everything myself, but I haven't had to book a trip with a lot of different legs like this one. Since I'm retired I have the time to look around, make reservations and changes as needed. My family calls me their "travel agent" as I enjoy doing all this. We only used a travel agent a couple of times and this was years ago. We would use a women, who was a work friend and did travel on the side, to book flights and car rentals to Maui. Since we had the timeshare we didn't need her to book lodging.
 
TAs still exist? Who knew? Well, I guess I knew there are cruise specialists, then maybe there are safari/Africa specialists, but otherwise ...
 
WaikikiFirst said:
TAs still exist? Who knew? Well, I guess I knew there are cruise specialists, then maybe there are safari/Africa specialists, but otherwise ...
Click to expand...
There aren't any (or many) that will bother to book flights. There are many travel agents still, as noted they tend to specialize but can still often book just about any type of travel. All-inclusive packages are still big for travel agents. All those online companies like Expedia, Cheap Caribbean, Costco Travel or Vacation Express are also considered travel agents.
 
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