travel agent or book yourself

[Rebecca P.]

Final point on the subject!

This is more for package vacation....a TA can take a deposit and the final payment 45 days before the vacation. On line agencies are paid in full up front.

If you have a problem on your vacation do you think the agency that blew that vacation out at virtually no commission is going to go to bat for you? No, because alot of times they are a subsiduary of the wholesale company. I get alot of clients back that way....get burned with a terrible room or no notice of flight time changes or property changes you find out about at the airport....in the carribean .......once and you'll happily pay a few more dollars to make sure those problems don't happen again!

I also sell travel insurance and out of country insurance for less so the total cost is often about the same as an on line company.

To each his own.....I've built a nice little outside sales job for myself for people who are happy to have help. I also book Southwest and the discount airlines, but include a small service fee. Not everyone is on line when the DING happens!

Rebecca

 

[tone.def]

Final point on the subject!

This is more for package vacation....a TA can take a deposit and the final payment 45 days before the vacation. On line agencies are paid in full up front.

WRONG!

Online agencies do the exact same as a TA (because that's what they are) - take a deposit and the final payment 45 days before the vacation. You are required to pay in full if you are 45 days within your holiday departure date.

WHOLESALERS such as expedia, selloffvacations, etc, are paid in full up front.

 

[Rebecca P.]

Yes, by on line I mean Expedia, sell off etc. But they also charge $20 to ship tickets!

I say, do whatever works for you! Vacations shouldn't be stressful.

 

[Teresa Pitman]

In the past, I've always researched and done all the booking myself - and enjoyed doing it. But it is time consuming. I'm a single parent, I work more than full-time hours, and I came to resent the hours spent surfing the net or waiting on hold to get through to Disney Dining. I think that's especially so because so many things changed over the past year: ticket structure, dining plans, AP arrangements, etc.

So for this trip I'm going with a travel agent. I like her a lot and she's been very helpful. We've made several changes since our initial booking (we changed the dates, then had to cancel and re-book once the AP "best price" rates came, then added some days, then cancelled and re-booked those once more "best price" rates appeared. She was able to get me quotes for all these different deals and give me suggestions about what we might do and book tours and meals for us - and all it took was a couple of emails each time (no trying to make calls from my cellphone at 7 a.m. while driving to a meeting).

She's even created a helpful spreadsheet for me with all our bookings, tours, meals, etc. right there.

Based on this experience, I think I'll be using this travel agent in the future!
(Of course, we haven't even gone yet, but she's sure made the planning very straightforward.)

Teresa