Originally Posted by milepig

My only recent TA experiences have been with corporate travel, and the one benefit I've seen is that they will actually proactively contact you when flights go bad to make other arrangements. The down side is that they mess up my frequent flyer details on my reservation EVERY TIME, and it can take me hours to get it all untangled to be sure that I get the miles in my account, that I get my premium seat I'm entitled to, and to be sure it is actually linked to my account so I can get pre-check, etc.

They also tend to go by rote and not listen. A recent experience "I need a flight that leaves after 2:00pm since I have meetings in the morning, there is a flight on UA at 2:15 and a flight on AA at 2:30, both are the same price, either is OK and here are my 2 frequent flier numbers. The response back is a booking on Delta, at Noon, and costing more money. Hopeless.

For hotels, I've mostly given up on the various web booking sites, and just go directly to the hotel sites and book there. They increasingly have the same pricing, and very often will have additional room categories and promotions that don't show on the other sites. I'm also able to add a note like (at the FRA HGI) "high floor, outside room, facing away from the airport, please" and these requests are almost always accommodated. I may do a little sniffing around on various sites - I like Kayak and Travelaxe - just to see who seems to have the best pricing, but then make the actual reservation directly with the hotel.