Travel Agents
- Thread starter Cy4Patriots
- Start date
If you’re organizing a big event, like a destination wedding I think it’s useful. But otherwise, I’d probably pass.
We used one for our honeymoon a couple of years ago. Neither of us had ever travelled outside of the country so it was nice to have someone to walk us through. I can't remember exactly what it cost us, but it wasn't much..I think like $50.
I would use one again. I'm guessing the majority of people saying travel agents are dumb probably travel frequently. For somebody like us, it was nice to have to peace of mind knowing everything is taken care for not that much additional cost.
I would use one again. I'm guessing the majority of people saying travel agents are dumb probably travel frequently. For somebody like us, it was nice to have to peace of mind knowing everything is taken care for not that much additional cost.
Not that I've used one, unless you count Disney World, but I think a travel agent would be helpful with international travel.
Last edited by a moderator:
I think a lot of times it doesn't even cost more.
I have never used one but if it creates a job and either I'm paying the same to Marriott or a local person, it's no skin off my back.
Last edited by a moderator:
I used one in 2017 to travel to Mexico. She had experience of what all-inclusive resorts people liked. She also got us a room upgrade and several discounts on adventures.
id 100% use her again if we wanted to go to an all-inclusive again
id 100% use her again if we wanted to go to an all-inclusive again
I started using one for a trip but needed 3 rooms and she only gave me two. I went on my own got 3 rooms for $3,000 less than what she quoted me for two rooms. Same exact place! I did lose around 6 hours of my life getting set up. But in the end it will be worth it. I also got the insurance package.
Some people are just not comfortable with making their own trip plans and prefer to rely on someone with experience to get what they hope will be the best for a vacation.
The best thing about using a TA is if you have trouble on the vacation, like the hotel does not have your booking or in the case of a good friend, the airline he was flying back on went bankrupt while they were in Mexico. His TA already had another flight on a different airline booked when he called.
We have never used one but are thinking about one when we go to Hawaii in 2024.
The best thing about using a TA is if you have trouble on the vacation, like the hotel does not have your booking or in the case of a good friend, the airline he was flying back on went bankrupt while they were in Mexico. His TA already had another flight on a different airline booked when he called.
We have never used one but are thinking about one when we go to Hawaii in 2024.
Have used one for several years for travel to Mexico, Jamaica, and this year to Europe. Have received upgrades each year when we have traveled. Last year family trip was cancelled a week before we were to leave due to Covid. Agent did the cancelling of lodging and transfers and helped with a new booking in the US. Also helps with travel insurance. The travel agent service doesn't cost anything and they will price match if you provide a current screenshot.
I actually read that for certain things, such as cruise, etc it is advisable for the first timers to do so as there are a lot of intricacies.
So I wouldn’t hold anything against people who are not comfortable arranging trips by themselves especially if it’s overseas travel. Plus some travel agents actually don’t charge more and give you a cash back for certain packages.
I personally don’t use travel agent to arrange my trips except twice. Once to Spain but it didn’t really count because they only provided list of hotels and we got 5% cashback if we stayed at least 3 nights in the same hotel. Other than that we arranged our own itinerary. The second one was to Alaska because the agency had rooms allocated to them in Denali and Seward. We knew our itineraries and just used the agency to book hotels in those places.
There are certain countries where you might want to use local travel agents because of safety and security. If you go to most of Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia etc you won’t have to use local travel agents. There are certain countries where the local travel agents are able to advise you regarding flights, airlines etc.
So yeah I wouldn’t call anyone under 80s using travel agents morons
Last edited:
Every travel agent will price match. Six minutes of research when the itinerary is set will do it. Six hours? Silly.
Three family members living in different places with small airports. Connecting flights were horrible to set up, two pretty much have to be on red eyes. Like I said it was worth it and saving three grand on top of it.
We just got back from our honeymoon in Italy, and we used an agency that only does Italy trips. We went to 7 different cities, and our agent was able to book our hotels, car service, train tickets, and any excursions we wanted ahead of time. We added some things in while we were there on our own, but also had our agent available to suggest a replacement when our boat tour got cancelled. As it was our first time there, it was nice to not have to worry about setting all those things up / figure out the timings needed.
Would I use an agent for every trip? Absolutely not, but certainly for specific trips for sure.
Would I use an agent for every trip? Absolutely not, but certainly for specific trips for sure.
Been to Mexico/Jamaica 7 times in the past 16 Years-
I have used a Travel Agent Every Time---
A. I'm Cheap-
B. I kind of like researching Travel- looking dates, searching flying on a Tuesday vs a Saturday, checking rates out of DM, KC, Omaha, searching the cheapest time to go (Fall is the cheapest)etc, etc
I will scour numerous sites over a numbers of weeks to find the best deal.
Each time I find a deal that I think "the travel agent can never match this good of a deal".......They always DO. (almost makes me mad, that I can't beat them....
)
Sometimes they only save us $35-40 a person, or just simply get us cheaper Transportation; but a few times it has been a couple hundred bucks...
None the less, it has always been cheaper with my travel agent.
They are 7/7 for finding better rates, so I should stop trying (But, I still like searching the sites for fun!)
I have used a Travel Agent Every Time---
A. I'm Cheap-
B. I kind of like researching Travel- looking dates, searching flying on a Tuesday vs a Saturday, checking rates out of DM, KC, Omaha, searching the cheapest time to go (Fall is the cheapest)etc, etc
I will scour numerous sites over a numbers of weeks to find the best deal.
Each time I find a deal that I think "the travel agent can never match this good of a deal".......They always DO. (almost makes me mad, that I can't beat them....
)Sometimes they only save us $35-40 a person, or just simply get us cheaper Transportation; but a few times it has been a couple hundred bucks...
None the less, it has always been cheaper with my travel agent.
They are 7/7 for finding better rates, so I should stop trying (But, I still like searching the sites for fun!)
You don't usually pay extra for an agent, and they do a lot of the hard work for you.
I’ve used one for international trips. We didn’t know exactly where we wanted to go for our last two, and she provided good recommendations based on cost comparison and her actual experience being at the local resorts. An agent takes care of the hard work for you, can help if something goes wrong with flights, etc., and they don’t cost any extra.
We use Destination Travel in Clear Lake. They can handle everything via email.
We use Destination Travel in Clear Lake. They can handle everything via email.
We use one when we go on a cruise. For whatever reason you can't just call up Royal Caribbean and book a cruise, the make you go through a travel agent so we just use somebody local. If I've got to pay somebody anyway for a service I'd rather keep my money local.
We're doing an Alaska cruise next summer partially to celebrate my mother in law retiring and we're using a local agent to keep track of 6 or 7 different families going. She makes it really easy.
We're doing an Alaska cruise next summer partially to celebrate my mother in law retiring and we're using a local agent to keep track of 6 or 7 different families going. She makes it really easy.
So how are the travel agents reimbursed? Do they get a cut from the hotels, airlines and tour companies?
