Travel agent or not?
 

I never have used a travel agent since the internet was born. Now I'm getting kinda scared to use one for our luxury trip to Hawaii / Maui. Mainly because the agent can get me more perks in the 4 Seasons hotel (same fare as 4S's website). But I'm just not sure about the whole air + car + hotel package. I could have booked the same fare on NWA.com + bonus miles, so I kept feeling like I can get more by booking everything myself.

What do most people think?

We used a travel agent once and they almost made a mess of our trip. We asked to be booked into certain hotels on Oahu and Maui and they had us in totally different hotels and not even near the parts of the island we wanted to be. That was years ago and now we book our own trips. We just got home from Maui and Oahu and it was all the best hotels. (Halekulani, Ritz, Westin and Four Seasons) What are these extra perks at the Four Seasons? It is so easy to book your own trip these days and YOU have control over whats going on with your itinerary.

Have a great trip and happy planning. (planning is half the fun of the trip)

How long have you known the travel agent? Get references. If he/she claims she can "get you special perks" at the Four Seasons, then perhaps the agent is being incentivized by the hotel and isn't working 100% for you.

A really good, experienced, honest travel agent is wonderful but rare. I don't use them any more because I find most are less well-informed than me, impose charges for doing things I can do myself with a lower error rate, and too often are working their own agendas in addition to mine. I got tired of explaining to agents that WAS is not an airport, but IAD and DCA are two different ones, etc... :rolleyes:

Be careful and cross-price everything they offer you against your own best quote research.

Travel Agencies have to provide one of the worst customer services of any service industry. The people there just don't seem to understand what it is that is being requested of them, and happily book you up for what has not been asked for. Often I can detect the hand of additional sales commissions for certain airlines, hotel groups, rental companies, etc coming into play. And so much of the "advice" they offer is laughable nonsense.

Typical example from the Business agency we use on booking London to Kuala Lumpur recently (which I handled myself entirely because of the nonsense they peddle to my secretary). "There are 3 Malaysian Airlines flights for you on Saturday, at 1200, 2100 and 2200. Which departure time you want?". To which I reply "But the 2100 stops at Langkawi and gets in to Kuala Lumpur long after the 2200 one does". Answer "er.....oh, yes".

So I use them from our office for accounting reasons, but I always check the details of what I want to do first. Others in the office don't, and all sorts of nonsenses happen. But we've changed agencies several times and it is always the same.

Well, here's a view from the other side- I am a travel agent who just went from a full-service agency to a very specialized niche agency, which I love. I couldn't wait to get out of frontline retail, because it was darn near impossible to please everyone and still make ends meet. Everyone wants it all now, and for a buck .99... most of us go into the industry because we love travel- we continue to acquire knowledge, and absolutly love to use that to benefit our clients, but many people treat us like we are scam artists for wanting to make a profit to keep ourselves afloat.

I know what you mean about the bad agents- I see them all the time! For some people, they are "sales junkies", and could be selling shoes for all that they care about travel. However, I have never known someone to ignore a specific hotel request and put you exactly somewhere else- that sounds bizarre! Agents do have working relationships with suppliers... this is what gets you those upgrades you want, and also helps pay the agent- most agents (well, the good ones) will go outside that box if you just ask for what you want... remember, we are not pyscic! I used to get calls all day "I want to go to Hawaii". And I would ask qualifying questions as to who is going, how long, what time of year, interets, hotel tastes and get as a response "I don't care, I just want a cheap deal"... Now, who is to blame if you hate your buck 0.99 hotel, your agent who should have been pyscic? And airline food... you know, we are repsonsible for that too- and we always seat you by the large person with a baby just for spite!

Seriously, if you know the hotel amenities and flight times more than the agent, that agent may not be right for you. All agents ahve their specialities, and it will become more and more the case that noone is truly "full-service" anymore- there is too much for one person to know it all.

And yes, You, the traveller, are the best one to plan your own trip. If you find a good agent, they may be able to help you- I used to regularly quote $500 European airlines to shocked people who could only find $1000 on the net... And lastly... I always say, if you don't want to work with a travel agent, then Don't! I personally dislike house painters, and would rather do it myself, as a result of a bad experience- but I wouldn't go around saying that house painters are Evil!

A travel agent is not for everyone, and may help you for certain types of trips but not others. Now, I work with very specific types of travel- it's promoted through the internet, yes I still receive phone calls all day who just want to talk to an expert. So it's OK if you don't want an agent, because enough other people do.

happy travels!

TAs offer a service. You can do the same work and maybe save money by not paying a fee. But if you do not have the time to put into a complex itinerary, then go with a TA. Your money will be well spent.

I rarely use one, but do when I have a complex travel arrangement - multiple flights, rentals, cruise, that sort of thing. I deal with A to B with single airline, rent car and stay in hotel. Then I find that I have more flexibility.

So, it is possible for a TA to get cheaper first class plane ticket than those listed on website?

Sure, some can book consolidator/bucket shop fares that undercut the airlines' rack rates. There are plenty of websites that can do that too.

IMHO you have to watch it when a TA is insistent that you fly on a certain airline, or leave at a certain time, or leaves out options you know exist. I once worked for a corporation whose travel-arranging vendor was just awful this way. You'd sit in Seattle and tell them you had to be in New York at 900a Monday morning, and they'd insist the ONLY WAY was to leave SEA at 730a Sunday morning and fly SEA-SLC-ATL-LGA on Delta. They HATED it when you'd look up flights on the web, read them out and insist on them. Either they weren't even trying to scope options or they were being spiffed by DL.

Like with Realtors, I think probably 10 percent of TAs are hard-working pros -- the other 90 percent are in it for the free yellow blazers and the chance to see in other peoples' bathrooms. Oh, that's Realtors. Well, you know what I mean.

I can actually tell you the names of the places we requested and the places they put us. We requested the Hyatt on Oahu and they had us booked into the Hilton Turtle Bay on Oahu. We then requested the Westin Maui and told them that it was on Ka'anapali Beach. They booked us into what used to be the Westin Maui Prince. We were very specific in what we wanted and if not for our diligence and making them book us into what we requested, our trip might have been very upsetting. The wierd thing was that the Westin Maui Prince had already been sold if I remember correctly.

If you want a "luxury trip" it is best to go with a travel agent who is a member of Virtuoso (hard to become a member of).

www.virtuoso.com

These are agents who specifically specialize in luxury travel.

Sometimes for a trip, it can be the case that I can end up dealing with 3 travel agents in total.

1. One for a discounted F/J ticket to Asia (an ethnic Asian agent/consolidator)

2. Another (mainly Virtuoso) for a luxury hotel room (because the Asian agents usually offer cr*p hotels, and the luxury agent won't deal with the Asian agent for the discount F/J ticket and insist that such "discounts" don't exist). Or if I can find a better rate online (Leading Hotels of the World website etc.), then I book it there.

3. An "inbound tour operator" at the destination) for things like transfers and city tours (which the Asian travel agent is reluctant to do and tries to steer you to their 7 day "escorted tours and stay in cra*p hotels", and the luxury agent who tries to sell you overpriced Abercrombie and Kent land packages with hotels that you don't necessarily want to stay in).

A good travel agent can be advantage. They may be able to get better first class fares if you are booking a package through a supplier that has negotiated rates. If they are with an agency that does a large volume and has good relationships they may be able to obtain extras for you such as discounts on tours, food and beverage credit, upgraded rooms, etc. For Hawaii, a package is usually the better way to go. No agent can book you into a hotel without your permission. Many people on this website are better educated about travel than the general public and therefore may be able to book their own travel quite expertly and also use miles and points to help the price. For the general public, I would definitely recommend a professional agent with a large company behind them for financial stability. I would interview agents and ask my friends to recommend agents.

Whenever you book online, you are working within the confines of a computer program and the program is only showing you what it has been programed to do so. A good travel Agent can manipulate this raw data to come up with better routings and prices--they also have more clout with the suppliers and can have space open up on sold out flights. A good travel agent is worth their weight in gold.

Because we live outside the US we have to have a travel agent make reservations if the trip involves many different airlines. We have a good one, who is a member of Virtuoso, and pay her a separate fee of $30 per ticket as she doesn't get airlines commission from some of the airlines anymore. If you have a good one, they are valuable as I can research and she can do the actual work with fares etc. But they are not all good, and I sometimes think I know more than a lot of them do. They don't travel enough anymore so aren't familiar with a lot of hotels,airlines, different situations.

TAs are generally unable to offer an one-stop service (point well outlined in daniellam's example). If you have to do lots of shopping around for a TA for the particular kind of travel you are after and use 3-4 for one trip, you might as well try shopping around for the actual travel products you are interested in buying.
The TA I was working with when I was in Greece had recommended me to book my hotels through the web as she said she'd never be able to match some of the quotes (no priceline stuff- proper website prices for defined rooms in defined hotel) I was giving her. :rolleyes:

From personal experiences, in terms of booking airfares and getting travel insurance I would say travel agencies are the way to go. However in regards to Hotels most hotel websites can offer specials cheaper than the agency, however just shop around for the best offer