Let me preface this by saying I am in no way trying to be an a hole. This is just something I cannot understand and am hoping for some enlightenment.
In the age of the Internet, why do you go to a travel agent to book a trip? I have never used one, and so I am curious what the reasoning is. Do you pay them a fee in addition to paying for all the booking (flights/hotels)?
TIA
coldasice217
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Re: Travel agent question
Sometimes TAs are able to get better rates for hotel rooms, or are able to book room classes that show up as sold out on the hotel website itself or the travel websites. Also, peace of mind that someone else is responsible if things go horribly wrong lol.
For example, we used a TA for PR...and our hotel reservation ended up being canceled somehow. It was her fault. Luckily we were able to get the same room class, or even a room period, since they were running a packed house that weekend.
Needless to say, we were a little scared off by that, and might just be doing it ourselves for Greece. Only thing that concerns me with that is it's a really logistically difficult trip with connecting flights, ferries, etc., so if something goes wrong I'd rather have the TA to blame than ourselves
ETA: we did not have to pay a fee, and we used Liberty. I probably wouldn't use them again though. And I visited AAA and DEFINITELY wouldn't use them because they charge a premium, and it would have been cheaper to book directly.
FuTuRe MrS MaZz
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Re: Travel agent question
I think they may have some insider deals at places... And also, they are good to use if you dont know much about an area or exactly where you want to vacation
FutureMrsG
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Re: Travel agent question
The travel agents fee is usually built into the package price. I have not used a travel agent in about 10 years. I have received quotes a few times and I was able to find much better prices myself on line. I do not see any reason to use a travel agent anymore. You can still take out trip insurance if you use a site like Travelocity. I have never had a problem with canceled reservations and Dh travels a lot although we always bring the conformation information just in case. We always make the arrangements...I love booking.com for hotels b/c you can cancel without penalty and you often do not have to pay for the room in advance. As for problems with connecting flight they can be solved with a phone call to the airline who will assist you with pleasure for FREE.
luvabul
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Re: Travel agent question
i used one for my HM because we went to 4 different places, and i could not possibly coordinate the timings and hotels all myself,
but other than that to take trips within the U.S or even the Caribbean i would NOT use one..i dont get it eitehr...but hey whatever works for u
JamDancer
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Re: Travel agent question
We used one for our hm to Mexico..I found a super cheap deal on honeymoonsinc.com but it's not a well known website so I was iffy about booking on it...so Liberty Travel price matched it for us....and yea it was just someone to take care of anythign should something have gone wrong...we also got free transportation from teh airport to the resort through them and went through Olympus Tours down there who were associated with Liberty who were excellent.
Any othe trip I probably wouldn't use them but we managed to get a ridiculously good price by the price match and peace of mind
oh and we didn't pay them anything
springsandra
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Re: Travel agent question
The only trip I have ever used a travel agent for in my life was our HM and I did it because of the complication of our trip. We were flying into Geneva and out of Paris and those flights when booked separately can be so ridiculously expensive -- she actually got us a normal RT rate for it which immediately saved me so much money. She didn't know anything about the other two cities we were staying in in France (Annecy and Avignon) but when it came to Paris she was really an expert! (Which was great since I knew nothing about it!) She booked the hotels for us and got us a really good rate at all of them -- much better than I found online. And with the Euro to Dollar rate fluctuating so much, it's worth saving money there if possible. We had train tickets we needed and I was having difficulty despite a pretty good fluency in French with navigating those websites to purchase good times and trips. Plus I knew nothing about the different train 'classes.' Also, for our rental car, I really didn't have any idea how to do that and her rate was half of what I found online.
We paid her $25 per 'transaction' but she saved us probably a few thousand dollars, so it was definitely worth it in the end.
I don't know if I'll ever use a travel agent again, but it was a worthwhile splurge when it came to our HM. If you're not doing something complicated, though, and are very internet savvy, I could see how you could do it all yourself.
geegee827
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Re: Travel agent question
I have an amazing TA!!! I can't say enough good things about her.
I was always of the 'do it yourself on the internet' belief until I found her. She is paid a commission by the hotels - I don't pay her anything.
She is able to get us upgrades that we wouldn't get otherwise. Also, when you go to a hotel's website and there are no rooms available, she's usually able to get them for me.
She gives great advice about where to stay and what to do. After every trip I've booked with her she calls me and asks what I liked or didn't like - would I recommend the hotel, etc.
For 'little' trips - like going to Disney I don't bother booking through her, but I use her for everything else.
chicky724
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Re: Travel agent question
I've only used one twice - once for a trip to Mexico and once for our HM. We basically went there bc we weren't 100% sure where we wanted to go, and since they've been so many places they know what's good and what's not.
Plus with the HM since we booked it so far in advance I didn't want to have to worry about flight info being changed or anything like that - they just watched it for us and let us know if anything changed. And we didn't have to pay anything for it.
julesrbf
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Re: Travel agent question
Some very valid points ladies! Thank you for sharing. It has never occurred to me to use a TA, even with our multi-city European honeymoon, so I wasn't sure why people WOULD use them at all - but I get it now. Thanks for the enlightenment!
KittyGags
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Re: Travel agent question
We went to Italy and Greece for our HM and flew JFK to Venice, took the train from there to Rome, stayed in Rome for 3 days and then flew to Athens, to Mykonos, took the boat to Santorini, flew from Santorini to Athens, had a trasfer to the hotel and then back to the airport the next day to fly home...
I priced out the travel myself and it was a bazillion dollars, she saved us a FORTUNE everywhere and did all the legwork, all I did was pick hotels from trip advisor...
geegee827
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Re: Travel agent question
oh yeah forgot to add that even though I've been using her for years, I STILL always check prices on my own before I call her. She always beats what I find on my own.
I priced our our HM online - it was going to be over $10,000 for just hotels, interisland flights and rental cars - final price from Barbara.... $7251!
