How do you book your trips, TA or yourself. please share your experiences.
 

Hello all,
Investigating and planning a trip to Paris for this May. Long story short, I invited 2 friends along and one of them wants to book with a TA. Her reasoning is that if we encounter problems, there will be a point person to help.
This will be only my second trip to Europe but all trips state side have been on my own. I love it.

The local travel agency is liberty travel which is turning out to be as flexible as a piece of granite. Every suggestion has been met with an attitude.

How do most fordorites book their vacations, do you use a Travel agent or go it alone? for those who have book themselves have you encountered any snafus that you couldn't handle yourself?

Thanks,
Eliza

I have been doing all my own trips for the past 10 yrs. The internet makes it super easy to research hotels, plan itineraries, book flights, rental cars, etc.

We have yet to encounter any "snafu" big enough that we couldn't handle on our own or that a TA would have been any better at solving anyway.

The key is good planning and where you think could might be a problem, have a Plan B.

You got lots of response on your other thread. Even though it was on the other forum -- the answers won't be much different here. I know you were advised to re-post, but you got a lot more activity on Travel Tips than most threads do over there.

Basically, as most said on your other thread, for an easy peasy itinerary -- like your trip to Paris there is no reason at all to need a TA.

Remember - you will be many time zones from home when you are in Paris. If your TA is uncooperative now, just <i>imagine</i> what it will be like when you phone at 03:00AM her time to get something fixed.

IMO most travel agents book "set" trips. It is not worth their time and usually do not have the expertise to do individual trips. If they do book specially planned trips where they know the area, they charge significally for it. That is well worthwhile if they are experts on the area and will find hotels, towns, restaurants better than the standard tour books and general knowledge. I doubt that someone at a franchise travel agency would fill that requirement. Go on Expedia, or an other web booker and based on your research, book for yourself. My only requirement is that I can cancel without penalty at hotels. Sorry, that is not possible with cheap airline tickets.

On my own always. Started in 2003 with Ireland for 15 days with my 15 year old daughter. Paris 3 times (once with the 3 kids). Italy last year for 18 days with my husband. This year in March we are back to PAris for 2 weeks because we just love Paris. Planning is half the fun for me.

Usually on our own including getting FF award tickets, travel insurance, car rentals, rail reservations, etc....haven't used a TA for years

I have used a TA a few times when traveling with someone who really wants to use theirs. IME, even a personable TA is an exercise in frustration because, as Elainee said, they operate with set partners and trips. The one area where I occasionally have found a TA useful is in purchasing airline tickets - but that's because I have a limited amount of patience to find the best fares!

Paris especially is quite straightforward to do a self-planned trip. And you'll find loads of helpful information by searching the Europe forum here, and Fodorites will be happy to provide more!

I would use a travel agent if I could find one who was interested in travel. I certainly wouldn't use Liberty or Carlsson Wagon Lit, whom we used when I was still traveling for business. They can do an ordinary business trip faster-better-cheaper than a business executive or his AA.

But there are interesting independent travel agents who do everything from booking standard stuff to putting together their own packages.

For some travel, they are just about the only way to go since they can handle odd places. I want to go to Iran, for example. I want to go to Iran a lot, and it seems that certain London travel agents can book Americans there and to Libya. Actually, I want to go to Persia, but it isn't available any more.

So now I will have to spend time finding these folks rather than surfing on my own!

You're writing on a travel forum. In my experience the people who write on travel forums are not the people who generally use travel agents.

I use them for one purpose - to help me gather the information I need to plan my own travel. I pick their brains, read their brochures, marvel at the prices others are prepared to pay, then do it myself. On rare occasions I have purchased air tickets through them when that proved to be the best choice.

If you want security, maybe they are better, I can't really say. But sometimes security comes with rigidity.

Actually, I usually spend many months planning my trips. I enjoy the planning nearly as much as the travelling :)

Cheers, Alan
http://loraltravel.blogspot.com/

<i>Her reasoning is that if we encounter problems, there will be a point person to help.</i>

For the reasons janisj indicated, this sentiment may be false security. I'd also add that TAs aren't the only resource if you need help. I have found the customer service at hotels.com to be very good when I've spoken to them on the phone - including when we had to reschedule our entire trip this spring because of the Icelandic volcano eruption. And my experiences with Expedia and Travelocity over the years have left nothing to complain about...

IMO, one other reason to use a TA is when your travel is imminent and you don't have time to research and book for yourself. That is clearly not the case with your trip - and I too am in the camp that planning is half the fun! Certainly makes the waiting for vacation to start that much easier. ;)

After trying to work out a Round the World ticket by myself (Cairns, Queensland to Italy to Canada to home), I gave up and went to a travel agent. She got me sorted in no time, and with a less expensive fare.

Aside from that time, I usually book my own return flights to Italy or Canada, and definitely do my own research for accommodations.

Hello Yvonne

Next time have a look at these two sites:

www.oneworld.com

www.staralliance.com

I haven't used the latter because I tend to prefer Qantas, but I've used oneworld three times. The first and third were a one-world-explorer ticket and the second was a Global Explorer ticket.

We wanted to see lots of places, so they were perfect for us. For example, the air sections of first trip were Coolangatta-Sydney-LA; San Jose-Nevada-St Louis-New Orleans; DC-NYC-St Thomas-Madrid; Granada-Madrid-Nice; Paris-Dublin-Edinburgh-London-Singapore-Melbourne-Coolangatta. All for under AU$3000. The price would be about AU$4500 now for the same trip.

If you don't need that many legs KLM, Continental and others have cheaper rtw trips. Air Canada are part of Star Alliance but AA, which is in the one-World group, flies into most major Canadian ports.

The last two times we used a travel agent for a portion of our trip,the only problems we had were with their bookings. That was years ago. We book everything ourselves as it's so simple to do online. Paris is incredibly easy to plan and book. This Forum can be a great help to you.

Liberty Travel is very useful for booking trips to Disney and basic package trips abroad. I think if you ask a few questions of the "TA" you are working with you will find s/he has never been to France - and really knows nothing about it. Additionally - since air, hotel and rail don;t provide commissions to agent you are left to pay for the time of the agent yourself.

If you want a mid priced trip you are much better off doing the work and making the decisions yourself. You will get what you want and pay less in the end.

If you want a very upscale trip and guidance from an expert I would go to the web site of Travel & Leisure or Conde Nast Traveler and get the name of an expert TA. They will charge a fortune - but will get you special deals at very upscale places and may be worth the money.

In the olden days I had a great travel agent at the main AmEx office in Manhattan. She had traveled extensively in europe, provided wonderful advice for our independent trips, found us great hotel deals, car rentals, restaurant recos, etc - but this was 20 years ago. those TAs no longer exist. (In her case she was getting divorced and needed to get a job with a salary that supported her - not just paid for her clothes.)

We now often use a corporate TA - who has never been anywhere but has access to long lists of deals that we couldn;t get anywhere else. We do all the work upfront, then shop their list of bargains before we finalize the trip. They don;t do any planning at all (no experience/never been out of the country).

What exactly does your friend want a TA to book? Flight and hotel or other things?

Since you're only going to one location - Paris - I can't imagine what could go wrong. I guess worst case the plane could be delayed (such as happened with the volcanic cloud last spring) but the TA could not possibly do anything about things like that.

I would choose a flight and hotel and book on your own. Let your friend use Liberty Travel to book the flight and the third person could do whatever she wants. I'm guessing you'll be getting a triple room so only one person has to book that. That way your friend can't be upset with you if the flight is delayed.

If the TA has an attitude I'm not sure why your friend wants to use them.

Earlier this year we were trying to organise a more complex set of flights from Australia, and were tired and in a hurry - and went back to a travel agent who had arranged some business flights for us many years ago.

The fees that the company now charges were high - and added a lot to the costs - so we did not go down this path and went direct to Qantas and then Finnair - no problems at all. I managed to work out the Oneworld site and this made life so much easier.

As we are platinum fliers the airline service was excellent and a lot more flexible - and they listened to our requests.

We also noticed that the agent was not all that willing to take our directions when it came to choices of flight routes or times, even though we indicated we did not mind if this increased the actual fare.
I think this only served to remind us that we can get things done without an agent and unless we decide to travel to more challenging destinations this is how things will remain.

Maybe you can get your friends involved by reading some great trip reports and looking at reviews and the like?
Many of the really wonderful places we have visited as well as great accommodation places have been 'found' on this or similar sites.

I am not sure where you are travelling from but Paris seems to be pretty easy to get to for most of the posters from the USA.

I'm with HappyTrvlr, the last time I used a travel agent - and it was years ago and we travel a lot - the bits they booked were stuffed up and the bits I booked were fine. If you do your research and ask questions on this forum you should be fine. Remember to take printouts of all your bookings and any emails, we've found this handy on occasion when the agreed price was disputed.

Just because you book through an agent doesn't mean they will be able to help you with problems anyway and as has been pointed out, they will be on a different time zone. I'd much rather be the one in control of MY booking, not some person with hundreds of bookings and not much interest in my trip.

Kay

KayF wrote: "Remember to take printouts of all your bookings and any emails, we've found this handy on occasion when the agreed price was disputed."

That is a great tip. On each of my trips I prepare two folders using A4 plastic clear sheet protectors. I print out duplicate copies of each hotel booking, each transport booking and any other important emails so that any disputes can be settled on the spot. I also include a copy of the travel insurance details, any medical matters (I carry a doctor's letter noting my various afflictions and meds; useful in security at times) and any similar useful stuff.

I assemble those in cheap plastic covers. One is the "Primary" which travels in my carry-on and the other is my "Emergency" which travels in checked luggage. I've rarely needed them, but on those rare occasions they were lifesavers.

I usually print locality maps on the reverse of hotel bookings; very useful for giving to cab-drivers.

I add printouts of useful info about the places I'm visiting, such as sights to see, local attractions, different country currency exchange rates etc, to the Primary folder.

For a trip of a week or two that may seem like overkill. My trips are rarely that short, but even when it was only a week in New Caledonia or Fiji that folder came in useful :)

Cheers, Alan
http://loraltravel.blogspot.com/

No I have never used a travel agent. I have never run into any major snafus or anything I couldn't easily handle myself. That said my trips have been fairly straight forward... going to major cities in Europe (5 times), islands of the Caribbean (6 times), Mexico (20+ times), Hawaii (5 times). Same method each one, book plane tickets, book hotel room & go!

If you were asking about a more complex trip, with lots of destinations or more exotic or less-traveled places, then I could see where a GOOD travel agent could be helpful. But for going to Paris? No.

Eliza--There ARE trips where I might consider using a travel agent (whether I would actually do it or not is another question). But for a simple Paris trip? No way. There are simply too many resources, even more than this forum, to justify that.

So I think your real question is: Is my friend crazy or is it me?

Consensus: She's nuts. :)

In addition to printing out all confirmations, I make sure I have email confirmations or have printed things to pdf and emailed the file to myself. I have a yahoo email address, which I can access from any computer with internet access - gmail and hotmail work well too, and others I am sure. That backup comes in handly - like the time I spilled all over the folder with our confirmations ;)

To play the devil's advocate and give the other side of the argument.

First, to respond to Elainee, Expedia is a travel agency. If you book through expedia, travelocity, hotels.com, venere etc, you're giving your business to a travel agency but not getting anything from them in the way of advice, hand holding, or expertise.

Second, to respond to Trav_Eller, can you really in good conscience pick the brain of a TA (in other words, use the time of a professional), and then book yourself. If you at least tell the TA what you would like them to book for you, they can at least be compensated in the form of a commission from the hotels you're staying at. A TA is a professional trying to earn a living.

Finally, to respond to nytraveler, some "expert" agents do charge a planning fee. They are in demand because of their expertise and connections. As everyone who contributes to this forum knows, planning travel can be extremely time consuming. If you enjoy it, that's fine. But others may want expert help, and if you want someone to invest hours of their time on your behalf, helping you avoid simple pitfalls that the inexperienced traveler can often run into, I'd argue that the time of a professional is an investment that may be worthwhile to you.

"Those TAs no longer exist?" Well, actually they do. But as this is a non-commercial forum, this is not the place to refer great TAs. There are values out there - especially in the realm of luxury hotels - that you can get through well-connected TAs, many of whom will make those bookings for your without any fees at all.

"Second, to respond to Trav_Eller, can you really in good conscience pick the brain of a TA (in other words, use the time of a professional), and then book yourself. If you at least tell the TA what you would like them to book for you, they can at least be compensated in the form of a commission from the hotels you're staying at. A TA is a professional trying to earn a living."

I have no problem with that at all. I always tell them up front what my intentions are and invite them to quote for any part of the itinerary they believe they can offer a better deal or tour for. They are given my full details and email address and invited to follow up.

On rare occasions that has led to using that agent for airline ticket purchases (my first one-world-explorer ticket) or cars (my first Eurodrive Renault). But usually they can't offer anything better. However we always part amicably and there is no deception.

I accept that Expedia, Octopus, Priceline and similar are a form of TA, but it is a very specific form and I use them in that specific way. I doubt there is one I haven't used; there are a couple I'll never use again.

Cheers, Alan
http://loraltravel.blogspot.com/

I plan and book our trips myself. Once I used a AAA travel agent to book a Pleasant Hawaiian package tour because I didn't have time to plan. Chances are, if I encounter a problem while overseas...my travel agent would probably have been asleep in her bed anyway, considering the time difference! You aren't really on your own when you travel independently...if you make sure to stay with hotels or b&bs or guesthouses known for excellent service, they will help you when you encounter problems. Many travel agents don't make much money anymore...the truth is some of them can't afford to travel all that often...there are folks on this forum who travel a lot more than travel agents do. We also like booking a private driver or tour guide for 1 day or 1/2 day when its helpful...we have had excellent results using drivers or guides recommended in the Rick Steves guidebooks. Ok that's my 2 cents worth of advice!

Because I have an interest in travel and don't mind spending the time reserching, I can find the information and options that interest me. My last use of a TA was booking a flight to Africa, whci I probably could have done anyways, but I was going with others and it was an easy way to coordinate us all on the same flights.

With Expedia, Travelocity, Kayak, etc... I think I can find flights and hotels as easy as the TA can. IN fact, I am currently looking to see if I can squeeze in a trip to Paris this year.

Look at the of the threads here specifically related to Paris. Does a TA know which arrondissement to stay in and the pros and cons? Which travel passes to buy? Where to shop for kitchen stuff? Where is a nice area to walk,Ile st Louis? Waht about jazz clubs? Who has the best cassoulet? Any place to watch an NFL game? Are the Catacombs open again? Any good restaurant recommendations? What can I do with my kids? I hawe limited mobility, how will this affect my trip? I don;t speak french, is this a problem? I hear french people are rude, is this true? I'd like ot do a day trip, what are my options? Where can I propose to my girlfriend? I want to renew my vows, how do I do this? Last of romantic restaurants?
Any small museums I can visit? Any exhibitions I can see while there? How do I get from the airport to my hotel?

Give the above to your TA and see what they say/do. All of these have been asked and answered here regularly. Unless your TA posts here...

Paris is an 'easy' one to plan. I can see no advantage to having a TA, unless it is to coordinate flights from diffrenct cities to get everyone there at the same time. Everything else can be done...here or on the internet. By doing this, you can create YOUR visit, not some package the TA might feel comfortable offering.

Venere, Travelocity, Hotels.com are NOT "travel agencies"...all of these, especially Hotels.com are simply booking engines and this latter is one which hotels use to unload unsold room space at below-advertised prices.

Dukey,1, they certainly ARE travel agencies. They sell the products of hotels, airlines, car rental companies, etc. They make their money either from commissions received from those vendors or by negotiating NET pricing and marking it up. (All of the pre-paid rates are marked-up NET rates). That's what travel agencies do.

If you use the hotel's own website, or by calling or emailing them, you're booking directly. If you use a third party, that party is a travel agent.

I would argue that you might as well use a third party who can get you perks and give you advice, especially if it doesn't cost any more.

In most cases, TAs don't know any more than you do about a destination unless they have been there themselves. I tried using TAs a couple of times hoping to save some time and effort, but the TAs knew less than I did about my destinations, and they didn't know squat about any accomodations except big chain hotels and what came with package tours.

I forgot that I DID use an Egyptian travel agency in Egypt (Michel_Paris' entry reminded me). And I would do that again. Our pre-trip planning time was non-existent, my time in the country was short and I had to do lots of in-country flights, bus, ship connections that required split-second timing and language skills I certainly didn't have. Now THAT was a good investment into services. And it was quite inexpensive considering how individualized our trip was.

But I sure booked my own flight TO Egypt. There was no way the little Egyptian agency could beat the deals I could find.

That is not to say that there are not travel agents who could have found a better deal. Wendy Perrin, renowned travel specialist, annually lists travel agents who are professionals in the highest sense. Here is the latest list:
http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/11147

What makes this so interesting is that Wendy gives the reader an idea of what makes these specific agents so valuable. I think reading that gives one the idea of how one could best utilize professional skills.

and booking with Liberty travel ain't one of them!

I think hotels.com is not a travel agency, but Travelocity certainly is. As is Expedia. To me, that means you are selling more than one thing (not just hotels).

In any case, I agree that for a trip to one city like Paris, there is no need for it. And for a good one for a complicated or high-end trip or to exotic locations, you pay for it, and it can make a lot of sense. But not to Paris.

There is little trouble of any kind that can occur on a trip to one city, and possibly a travel agent could help if something weird occured in the hotel or plane booking, if they made them. I am very independent and just handle snafus myself, whatever they are. I am sure I know more about what to do in Paris than any travel agency would (or some other places, as I do research).

Aside from confirmation letters, call me paranoid but I do actually have a backup list of a couple hotels on me to call that I would like just in case something happens and I don't get my reservation as planned. That way I'm not at the mercy of a hotel or have no idea if something did go wrong. I've only had a booking not honored once (due to overbooking at the hotel or some guest wouldn't leave). That hotel had already arranged for me to stay at a similar level hotel within one block at the discounted rate, so it was okay with me. I was only there one night, so didn't care that much and actually knew where the other hotel was located.

No travel agent will be able to solve minor problems with local transportation, etc.

I prefer to be self-sufficient. If I arrived Paris and something went wrong with my hotel reservation, like Christina I would have a couple backup plans (other hotels in the neighborhood) and calling a TA back in the US isn't one of them.

I generally book all my personal travel myself. For business, I use the corporate TA, but that is strictly due to work requirements.

To my mind, I would say that there are a few reasons to use a TA:

1) For certain destinations, they can offer better deals and better access. These deals, however, tend to apply to popular package destinations - beach destinations, Disney, etc.

2) There are specialist TAs that are a logical choice for certain more difficult to plan destinations. I would consider a TA next time I want to go to Tibet, for instance.

For simple trips, though, the internet has made it pretty darn easy to book on your own.

Regarding Liberty Travel... I would not hesitate to use them for trips like scenario #1, but only for savings. However, you will not get the kind of support and advocacy that your friends are looking for from them.

AlessandraZoe wrote:
"I forgot that I DID use an Egyptian travel agency in Egypt (Michel_Paris' entry reminded me). And I would do that again. Our pre-trip planning time was non-existent, my time in the country was short and I had to do lots of in-country flights, bus, ship connections that required split-second timing and language skills I certainly didn't have. Now THAT was a good investment into services. And it was quite inexpensive considering how individualized our trip was."

That shows how varied experiences can be. My Egyptian trip was one of the rare times I used a local agent. My experience was a little different to yours, to say the least. As a consequence I will happily never visit that country again.

Agent report here (I write as loralgt on Tripadvisor): http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...any-Egypt.html

Trip reports commence here: http://loraltravel.blogspot.com/2009...egyptians.html

Cheers, Alan

I find that much of the fun of traveling is planning the trip, and especially on this forum. The downside, depending on your friend, could be a hiccup and there could be "I told you so". I have never used a travel agency except for company travel department, and many times they make me angry. Go for it, many here to help. We took our best friends to Paris and Provence a couple of years ago, I planned the entire trip and except for my navigator have some mini strokes, we were fine.

We used a TA in the early days of our travel when the internet was just a babe. We purchased air fare for a trip to Ireland, then later booked a decent package to Paris, hotel and air. Booked the same for our son and DIL a couple of years later. Now, there is no reason not to do it ourselves.

Expedia and similar sites serve a purpose

Hit submit. GRRR...

They are an excellent point of comparison for fares. But they are not all-inclusive. If I want to go to Vegas, they don't work with Southwest, which is a good airline to take from here to Vegas.

Now I do my own research for airfare, hotels, B&B's, you name it. I book my Ireland flights through Aer Lingus and make all other reservations myself.

Last year our snafu was the volcano. No TA could have helped us with that.

Trav_Eller--Oh believe me, I was scared to death to use mine. But "Casual in Cairo" aka Debbie, was quite helpful in telling me what to look for when evaluating service/package, and again, I think the only other choice I had given my time horizons was some big company package thing.

After reading all the advice from the pros on TA, here and elsewhere about using Egyptian agencies, with trepidation I more or less made a list of "needs" in an email and sent it out to whatever Egyptian agencies my investigation Excel sheet indicated as "may be trustworthy", asking them to send back an itinerary and a bid. Some didn't get back, some got back with such CHEAP pricing that I was really scared, one came back over the moon in cost, and two or three had very different in schedule but similar in cost proposals.

As you know, it's just so hard to sift through all those fake posts/evaluations on TA and elsewhere. The agency I ended up using didn't get a lot of fabulous reviews but they didn't get "don't ever use this company again" things. Husband and wife--and I think I liked that aspect, too.

Could things have been better in places? Yeah. Were we ever deserted anywhere? No. Were we ever part of a "cattle car" tour? Never. Did we have a least one GREAT guide? Yes, our archeologist guide, with whom we spent three whole days, was such a dear man. My daughter and I absolutely loved him, and there was another guide, a young woman in Cairo (plus her really cute driver there) that we'd adopt in a second.

So again, I think what I paid was dirt cheap for services I could not possibly duplicate.

Which brings us back to the OP's original question. I showed my sister (also rather independent traveler) and she said, "Heck with the TA question. That girl better ditch the traveling companion now. Bet you she'll also be the type to insist on buying any transportation passes online before she goes OR she'll insist that she's heard it's unsafe to ride the Metro in Paris."

I think my sister nailed it!