By which I mean, I am looking for advice on whether a travel agent could help me with my airline booking problem.
We are planning a holiday in Sept-Oct. The plan is to fly to Barcelona, from Newfoundland, Canada, and spend 5-7 days there. Then fly to Athens, take a Greek island cruise (the one we want goes from Sept. 28-Oct. 5), then fly from Athens to Crete, spend and couple of nights on Crete, and fly home.
Yes, I know Barcelona and Greece are not a common pairing; long story, not relevent to my current problem.
Here is my problem, for anyone patient enough to read and offer advice.

When I try to book online:
The only international carrier that flies out of NL is Air Canada. Booking through the AC website (in addition to being $300 more) will not let me book Barcelona to Athens (pop-up, you cannot book this leg of your journey online). Then it won't let me book from Heraklion to Athens, and it won't offer a flight from Athens late enough (i.e. after 9 am) to let me fly from Heraklion to Athens. So the security of booking through an airline is out.

None of the consolidators I've tried (Travelocity, Expedia, Kayak) will offer a flight from Barcelona to Athens. They all offer flights through random places (FCN, FRA, etc) that take 7-10 hrs and cost $300-700, although both Iberia and Aegean fly from Barcelona to AThens.
So, my current option seems to be: book through (e.g.) Expedia for St. John's-Barcelona, and Heraklion - St. John's, then book Barcelona-Athens and Athens-Heraklion separately through Aegean. AND, the options all give me about 90 min. for changing in London--which my memories of London suggest as possibility for major issues.

NOW, the question (If you've ploughed through all this). Is there any point in taking this to my local (small town) travel agent? Will they be able to improve the situation, or would I just be paying for them to come up with the same problem? Would they have a chance of getting more workable suggestions for the same price? Price is important to 2 retired schoolteachers who've never won a lottery!

Any smart Fodorites with suggestions?

There's no way to know if your local TA is an expert at complicated air bookings. <i>Most</i> TAs in North America have never learned the required computer "language" needed to interface with the airline "global distribution services" like Amadeus or Sabre; this reflects the realities of the travel industry, i.e. nobody pays commissions except cruise lines and a few airlines - but only for full-fare premium bookings. You might phone them to see - if they are skilled, then support your local businesses and all that.

However your problem really isn't terribly complicated. You can't see the cheap flights (e.g. BCN-ATH) on Expedia et al (which, by the way, are NOT "consolidators," just travel agents) because they're operated by "low-cost" airlines, sometimes subsidiaries of major airlines, sometimes not. Not all of these (only a few actually) list their flights with the GDSs that TAs can see, so Expedia is blind to them.

In the case of BCN-ATH, those flights are operated by Iberia's low-cost subsidiary, Vueling. You can simply go online with Iberia and book the flights yourselves.

For your route I'd simply book an open-jaw itinerary through Air Canada online, YYT-BCN//ATH-YYT, and purchase the BCN-ATH ticket separately. I'd also buy ATH-HER-ATH (round trip - around $160 via Expedia) separately, giving yourselves plenty of time (maybe overnight) in Athens on the return.

Trying that online I don't see any routings that would involve short connections at London, although remember if it's all on one ticket the airline will "protect" you in the event of a misconnect. Still, it would be a pain.

Well, the issue with the BCN to ATH flight is that it is a very lightly served route nonstop. Only Vueling and Aegean serve the route and it looks like neither flies daily, so usually you have to choose whoever is operating that day.

FWIW, I see both flights being sold on Expedia.com, though the ticket for Vueling is sold with an Iberia flight number.

Otherwise, Gardyloo largely has it nailed. The only thing I would consider adding is that you could also fly to and from both destinations via Newark with United. Normally, I prefer to fly directly to Europe and connect there, but doing so will involve changing terminals at LHR and I'm not sure what the timing will look like, so it is probably worth looking at United.

Enjoy your trip.

Booking Barcelona-Athens and Athens-Heraklion separately makes a lot of sense to me. Those are separate trips - you aren't connecting to or from another flight, so no protecting would be necessary. You can book directly with the airlines that operate the flight if you want. Deal with them directly if you have to make changes, maybe face-to-face at a city ticket office.

Getting BCN-ATH and the Heraklion flights on separate tickets means that you can change or throw away those flights without having to mess with your intercontinental trip.

Instead of ATH-HER-ATH roundtrip, I'd consider getting two one-way tickets just to keep my options open. Stuff happens and you could miss the ATH-HER flight - then buy a new one or just kiss the HER-ATH ticket goodbye and hang out in Athens until your trip home. But protect yourself, as Gardyloo suggested, by having plenty of time or an overnight, to make the connection in Athens. If I wanted to make the connection on the same day then I would book a flight that had at least two other flights after it that would make it to Athens with plenty of time to catch the flight home.

I think I will probably take Gardyloo's advice. Travelgourment, I thought about United, and did try their website. They're useful for US trips, but because there's only 1 flight per day, in addition to adding a layer of immigration/security, we'd be adding 5-10 hours outbound, and 25-30 hours return, including the 20-22 hour layover in Newark. Too much of a marathon for my taste.

nfldbeothuk - Gardyloo is the god of knowing airlines, rules, costs and anything else airline related.

Wise advice has always come from him.

Except that TAs don't need to have learnt the computer language of the GDS anymore & haven't for many years, it's no longer necessary (due to interfaces) & TAs don't make their money on commissions either. North American TAs are generally not skilled at anything to do with international & TAs in general are not skilled in putting together bespoke itineraries.