DebbieAllen

Personally, if "Penny" is still out there, I'd LOVE To know if she's still a travel agent. She had quite a chip on her shoulder.

Perhaps we should lay bets as to whether she's still working as a TA, or got laid off/shut down?

kayb1

Yes she is still a very sucessful Travel Agent.

Hitoo

I’ll reveal to you exactly how travel agents are paid, and how to use this .... to save even more money on your ticket that airlines don't want you to know use a travel agent or not. That is the question. In my experience, having traveled extensively, I find most travel agents are not as knowledgeable as I can be with a few clicks of the mouse on the internet. Most less...read more

---------------
HItoo

http://www.vacationtraveldeals.org - Travel Deals

isplumm1

Hi,

Thought I would chuck in my two penny worth - I am from the UK, so have experience of using travel agents in the UK.

When looking to book a holiday, I tend to use a mixture of shop travel agents, online travel agents like Expedia, specialist on-line travel agents (say dealing on China only) and direct with the hotel / airline / attraction / car hire company.

I tend to use a shop TA when it is cheaper - so for example a few years ago we went to Italy in August - because of the buying on the national travel agent (Thomas Cook I think), they were able to get it cheaper than I could going direct.

But I have also managed to beat TA but a lot of money. For example - in 2000 I went on my honeymoon to the US. TA quoted me £500 each for flights & £500 for car hire = £1500. By booking direct, I got flights for £350 each & car hire for £300 = £1000 total - a saving of £500!!

With the onset of the Internet, I think it is perfectly feasible to do everything yourself. But of course this all takes time - so I suspect that people still use TA because it is easier to go into the shop, than do the research yourself.

Mark

jumbonav

I travel a lot and have many years of 100+ days per year on the road for both work and pleasure. Frankly, using a travel agent would only slow me down. I don't use a travel agent for the same reason I use an online discount brokerage. Not slighting your vocation in the least bit, I'm sure some folks need and benefit greatly from using a travel agent...

dutyfree

After flying for over 35 years as a flight attendant I find that most travel agents don't do much beyond cruises,Disneyworld and the Carribean. The ones that I have encountered do not seem to have a great sense of geography.I know "back when" before the internet they were very good at what they did but somehow the internet and young people wanting" deals" as a travel agent have changed the game.

Craig

Amazing - this thread started in 2001.

isplumm1

Wow, never noticed date!!!!

It was Hitoo doing some free advertising!!!

Mark

suze

<Remember without a travel agent you are on your own>

DUH

cynthia_booker

Remember, you are "on your own" sounds kind of threatening. I am much better off 'on my own' thank you very much. I am careful, make plans on how to handle emergencies or problems, have a back-up, and do pretty well, 'on my own'.
Would not suit everybody, but suits me very well indeed.

suze

I never understood the supposed advantage to a travel agent who is sittin' in her office back in the US when I am in Europe.

And I've yet to find a problem I can't solve myself. Now that I mention it... as above, because I'm an extremely careful planner, I haven't had ANY problems so far (I've taken ~35 trips outside the country, all self-planned, start to finish)!

GreenDragon

I've never used a travel agent before, but not for want of value. I know how valuable a good agent could be in times of trouble. My problem is that aforementioned anal-retentiveness.

I LOVE researching travel. It is one of my favorite hobbies. I spent literally hundreds of hours (over the course of 2 years) researching all aspects of my last Scotland vacation for 6 of us. I researched airfares, B&Bs, locations, car rentals, concerts, drive times, etc. It is great fun to plan! I throw a lot of that out at the end, but I love knowing I've done my best to find everything I could want to see, and pick the best in my limited time. I find a great thrill in booking a great deal, like the $750 airfare last summer from Florida to Scotland

I, unfortunately, am unwilling to pay the amount of money that would require someone else to do this exhaustive research for me. Hundreds of hours would mean a lot of money - and I still wouldn't trust that they had done it as intensely as I would, so would do my own research anyhow. So what would be the point?

Taking care of problems while traveling is a good part of the service agents offer. And I would be willing to pay for that - but I get travel insurance for a good part of it, and my own pit-bull mentality for the rest (I have stories...)

So, while good travel agents are great, and I would use them for areas I am clueless (i.e., cruises, or a trip to Asia), I will continue to do my own unreasonable amount of research

Debi

I travel extensively internationally for work - and all my travel is booked through the Travel Agency our company uses. They are actually great. Because I have some fairly strange itineraries (Ireland/Italy/Spain/Poland/ Peru/Argentina was one), you can run into problems. The travel agency we use is very large, but maybe because we have established a fairly personal relationship with them, they have done amazing things for me when disasters occur in my traveling. In my personal life, I tend to book all my flights myself - directly through the airlines since I try to focus on a couple of airlines, have status, and use alot of points). Because I've traveled so much (and no, I don't actually think that's a good thing), I tend to know what routes to go, what airports to NOT use, and how much time do I feel comfortable leaving between flights - it's just easier. For cruises - whole different story. I've been on 3 cruises - 2 booked through travel agents - which were SUPERB, and 1 we booked directly with a cruiseline. We will never book directly again - we didn't know all the little things we could/couldn't do, and frankly, I get tired of following up on all the cruise details. We have an excellent travel agent for that - will always use her (she specializes in cruises, and she's a tiger for details - anal in a VERY good way). We once went on a 3 week French Polynesia trip, and we used a travel agent who was FABULOUS, and had everything set for us. She did things for us on that trip that we would have never thought to do for ourselves. A good travel agent is fabulous, and we will continue to use them except for just regular/easy travel - I'll track a flight and a hotel, but I don't want to spend any more time on anything else....

cynthia_booker

Booking for business is entirely different than booking for pleasure. If I were taking a business trip and the business had a travel person - very good. Let them take care of everything.
But my personal travel is another matter. Plus, like GreenDragon, I enjoy doing the research so much. The anticipation is delicious!!

suze

Absolutley I would be thrilled to use a decent travel agent for business trips paid for by a company.

It's the pleasure vacations that I figure I care more about the outcome than anyone else possibly could, and have more experience in certain destinations that many professionals... so then I do-it-myself.

annw

I've been using the TA to book plane tickets, and I just pay the $100 per ticket. I buy an upgradable coach ticket and upgrade to business with miles; my agent is more likely to snag the upgrades than I (she puts the 335 days ahead into her computer) and also to figure out alternatives if we can't get the upgrades. Also, when she ticketed me with a 45-60 minute connection at CDG, she got an airport assistant to convey us from one gate to the other and bypass lines etc.

travelgourmet

I despise using an agent. I hate using them at work and I don't use them for personal travel. Given that nobody knows me better than me, the best way to ensure that I get what I want is to handle the booking myself. Travel agents are just another wasted step.