going through travel agent is worth it?

[smusiak]

We a family of 8 people
2g and 6 kids
is it worth going through a travel agent to get all the
flights and tickets
or should i just try it my self

 

[Indiana Scott]

We have found no monetary advantage to going through an agent.

 

[cijay]

My cousin is a travel agent and she can't get me anything cheaper than my darling Flight Centre Disneey specialist (he's so sweet and I use hom for all trips but visits with him are twice as long as we both love Disney and Broadway/West End) nor can I find anything cheaper online.

The advantage I've found is that twice things have gone horribly wrong and they got me home while the people travelling privately probably are STILL trying to get home (in jest I say as it was about 10 years ago.) One was when Canada 3000 folded while I was away. I was only in California so if worse had come to worst I could bus it home but the other time I was in Ethiopia and had to get home quickly. There is no "quickly' in Africa and I could wait 2 months til my ticket home was valid (but dad may be dead) or 6 months til they could get me another (by then my visa would be expired and almost $1000 to get me another AND they wanted my laptop to help pay for it.) I could do nothing but cry but I got an email from my travel agent that said "get to the airport 5:00 tomorrow!" 10 hours later I was in London. (Not only easypeasy after that but I've got dual citizenship so I joked that even if I they couldn't get me home from theere - I could get a job.) LOL

 

[elphaba91]

My aunt is a travel agent and I don't think it was any cheaper going through her. However, I have often been with her at her beach house on weekends when (usually right before we are going to leave for the beach) she has received a phone call that a client has broken their leg skiing in Japan, etc. and she has had to and has been able to get them home ASAP. One of her clients was even on the news a couple of months ago when flights from Bali were cancelled due to an ash cloud and one of her employees was able to get the client home via Thailand (unfortunately they cut the agency's name out of the report though!). So no, there's no real advantage to using a travel agent, but it is helpful if something goes wrong. It's therefore up to you to decide how difficult and how necessary it would be for you to get home - if you're not in a foreign country, in a place where there are frequent flights home, etc. then I don't know that I would bother.

 

[loves to dive]

I would think it would depend on how comfortable you are researching and doing it all yourself. I've used them for work and used them every once in a while for dive trips (dive specific agents) but only one for Disney and that was about 20 years ago. If you know how to research airlines, resorts and tickets, go for it yourself. My stepdaughter is a Disney agent and I've always been able to find better deals for myself than she has.

 

[3Gsandme]

I am too big of a control freak to leave my vacation planning to other people. So, it wouldn't be worth it for me.