DIY trips or Using an agent/Agency?

Cindi
I prefer to pay my travel agent a fee to book the airline tickets for an overseas trip, while I do the land arrangements. I like having someone tracking my flights, who I can call if there is a problem or I need to change something.

I like to do it all myself.

Why pay somebody to screw it up....... ........when you can screw it up yourself for free?

"when you can screw it up yourself for free?" Ed, I love it! Seriously, though. Agents make their money on commissions. No agent is going to book you into a small Gasthof or get you a Bayern-Ticket. The best accommodations don't give commissions, so agents won't book you there. And they can't make a commission on Länder-Tickets. They're going to book you into overpriced international hotels that they can access, or, at best, something they find on Booking.com, which, IMO, are also overpriced. And the best they can do it get you a railpass, which is rarely cost-effective, or tickets from RailEurope.

We use a local travel agent to get our tickets to and from where we are going. She is excellent at finding reasonable prices, and the cost last time was thirty-five dollars a ticket. We like somebody "at home" who can help us if we get in a pickle overseas. We find all our hotels ourselves using online searches and deal directly with the hotels. We tried a booking service one time and that was enough. Once on the ground we enlist the help of TI offices to help with hotels or else we just show up and ask if they have room for us. Only once in all our trips did we have to get back on the train and go to the next town to find a room.

I enjoy the planning part so I do it myself. My first couple of trips I used an agent for the airline tickets, but then it seemed to me that the price the agent found was no better than what I could find on my own. Since then I have planned everything myself without any problems.

We use a local travel agent to get our tickets to and from where we are going. She is excellent at finding reasonable prices, and the cost last time was thirty-five dollars a ticket. We like somebody "at home" who can help us if we get in a pickle overseas. We find all our hotels ourselves using online searches and deal directly with the hotels. We tried a booking service one time and that was enough. Once on the ground we enlist the help of TI offices to help with hotels or else we just show up and ask if they have room for us. Only once in all our trips did we have to get back on the train and go to the next town to find a room.

I agree with Ed. I do it all myself. Last time I used a travel agent (1989) she made a huge stupid mistake that really screwed us up.

Just curious....been to Europe 10 times and take travel about 40 trips a year in the USA for my job. I book all my tickets myself and have never had a problem I could not handle. When there is a minor problem like a flight delay or cancelation, it is something that has to get sorted out at the airport by the gate agents or by calling the airlines 800#. What do travel agents do for you that can't be done for yourself? I am just trying to imagine being in Europe for my return flight to the USA that leaves at 9am, which would be 1am in the USA. Could I really call a travel agent at 1am? I am not trying to be sarcastic, I am just really curious to hear some examples of how paying extra for them to book a ticket really pays off.

Well for instance, say you are in Ukraine and there is terrible weather causing flooding. You cannot make it to the airport at Kyiv because the roads are washed out to the north. You need to go south to another airport. You email the travel agent and have her arrange another flight for you. Internally, you can do it on your own, but it is my belief that if in a foreign country where a person has limited communications ability my way of doing things is best. This scenario is not far fetched at our travel agent got a couple out of a similar circumstance several years ago when they were some where in eastern Europe. I'm talking about halfway around the world, not California to New York.

Cindi, I do it all myself.. I don't trust Travel agents to get me the best deals, and they never seem to know the hidden gems . I haven't used one in at least 15 or more years..

DIY always. I have never used a travel agent. I have also taken two tours, one in China, and one in Costa Rica. But even those I booked myself and arranged my own transportation.

I used a travel agent only once on a trip a few years ago when I and someone I didn't really know were flying to Belgium to participate in an archaeology program. I wasn't comfortable booking $1,000+ plane tickets and having this person I barely knew, owe me that amount of money. But as some other posters have experienced, the tickets the agent found weren't any cheaper than what I could have found. Aside from that, I've never used an agent because I enjoy planning my own trips - it's half the fun of traveling.

I can see the value in using an agent for the airfare, however, we do it all ourselves. I know exactly what I want so to me it's just an extra step to tell the agent what I want, look it over, give him/her payment info, etc. I am also on the same page with many others here who say that planning the trip is a big part of the fun. I enjoy emailing the B&B hosts and hearing back from them about their accommodations. My husband and I enjoy planning our route and picking just the right place for our budget and location.

I believe a traveler's preference is based on their actual travel experiences and their experiences within the travel industry. In this day of being able to research and book your own arrangements many folks opt for the independent method.
Others prefer to leave it to the professional who has the training, knowledge, expertise, a rolodex of contacts, and access to databases non-agents will not. Do you need guidance to understand what it is you want to experience on your travel? Do you know what you'll need for this experience? Can you troubleshoot unforeseen situations which can arise?(flight cancellations/delays, booked a room only to discover on arrival the hotel has construction occurring or other unknown factors, unforeseen accidents and tragedies, etc) Do you have the time to do all research, compare the pricings, review the current status of the lodging-restaurants-attractions, to make informed decisions? Did you have a negative experience with an agent and decided not to ever try this method again? I do it both ways. It depends on my budget. It depends on the destination. It depends on my schedule. It depends on my knowledge of the destination. It depends on if I know someone there or have contacts there. It depend on what I want to experience there. Whichever one I chose I do purchase trip insurance on my air-lodging-tour portions (Europe, any Land/Cruise Tours, RS Tours). Insurance is a safety net and I've had to use it more than once. No one wants to lose their dollars. For myself to answer if it's easier to use a travel agent? yes. Is it better to use a travel agent, sometimes.

Cindi, For me, the planning is an enjoyable part of the trip. I do it all myself.

I love making all the arrangements myself. It's fun. I think my husband is relieved he met me. For many reasons, but one is that he loves to travel but hates booking it. He likes to let me sniff out the deals.

I have stayed in some great little hotels,,, and I know that no travel agent would have booked me into them, ,probably at a Best Western or Marriott or whoever pays them commission... Also TAs have not been to all the places they book people( would be impossible unless they specialize in only booking certain places), but by using these and other forums I can "chat" to real people who have been to anyplace I am interested in going to.. and getting a real "man on the street" assessments of where to sleep, eat and what to see.. guide books can fill in the history..

I go to Europe every summer and do all the booking myself and the only problem I ever had was when NWA cancelled a flight and transferred us to another airline when we showed up at the airport for the NWA flight. Now until I have some real problems, I will continue to enjoy the planning myself. I do have unlimited time being retired. I think if I was in a big hurry I would probably use a TA.

I'm with most and do it all myself. I think a big part of my trips are the fun I have planning them. I've only had one time where a missed flight caused me some grief but it was quickly resolved with a call to the airlines. Considering it was late in the evening, I doubt anyone would have been available to help me at my local TA. That being said, people need to go with what makes them comfortable and if that is using a TA, then do it. My choice for not going with one is not do to a bad or poor experience but, that I don't think they would put in as much time looking at different options as I do. And, as I said, for me that is part of the fun.

I do it myself. There's no way I could communicate all my preferences to a travel agent: -I prefer direct flights, but I might do a four-hour connection if I saved a few hundred dollars. -I prefer flying from the airport closest to home, but for a good savings I'm willing to drive up to a few hours to get to another airport. How far will I drive? It depends on the savings. -I prefer flying open jaw, but if there's a special on a round trip, I can add a low cost European flight or adjust my itinerary to take advantage. - Speaking of open jaw flights, I also check the price starting at one end vs. the other - as well as testing different dates and nearby airports.
-If I'm planning on flying into Rome, but there's a great flight deal into Venice or Milan I'd probably change my itinerary to take advantage of that. I now set up alerts for a myriad of flight options and take advantage of the best deal that works for me. I may make dozens of judgment calls when I'm setting up my trip, none of which a travel agent would make. They will simply book a flight for you based on the direction you gave them. And that's just the flight...

Probably most of the folks who frequent the RS Helpline are DIYers - which is why they are here. I use an agent when I have difficult connections. Most places I want to go to are simple to book on my own, but from Israel, there are limitations. I gave up years ago (before the internet) on using an agent for lodgings. They never had better deals than I could find for myself. I've taken a few organized tours, either because I didn't think I could visit the destinations on my own or because the guides were exceptional in their fields.

I've never had someone else plan a trip for us and am unlikely to do so UNLESS it's to an area where I have very little confidence in my own abilities to do the planning. So far, that hasn't happened, largely due to the great help from the RS books and this website. As so many have said, the planning is part of the fun. Another part of the fun is to have the freedom to change those plans at a moment's notice or to not plan some things at all. I don't see a TA spending the time to plan our typical month-long trip complete with finding just the lodging in the right location at the right price. I can't see them working things out for us to make all the side trips that we do for my husband's racing obsession, because we would have to tell them how to do it. There's also only so much serendipity that's possible when someone else plans a trip for you, even if free time is included. And what if you're sick or just need a down day or, or, or? We do enjoy having local guides show us stuff so long as the group is small, but that's something we can research and set up for ourselves. Unless a TA is an absolute expert on the place(s) we are going, I wouldn't consider having one do any planning for us.

I've never used a travel agent for any booking (I'm 40 and tech savvy if that matters at all) and only went on one tour (an RS Village Turkey tour - only because it was more efficient to go to some rural and urban sites with a small group of nice folks, and I appreciated the knowledge of the guides). I loved the tour - it was worthwhile because of the logistics and location and being able to meet new people. But 99% of the time I travel solo using my own devices. Travel has been completely democratized by the internet, open online reservation systems, and peer reviews - so no gatekeeper really has more info at their disposal than your average joe anymore. The only thing of value they could give you is a break owing to bulk rates or having negotiated rates with hotels or attraction packages - but there are already online versions of bulk sellers like booking.com, priceline, hotwire, etc that are freely available to individuals and are a good enough substitute for an agent.

Why pay a TA to book a trip for you to a destination where the TA probably has ZERO personal experience? The days of the TAs are over and the people that still use them probably have a false expectation of what a TA can actually do for them in time of emergency. Save your money and do it yourself. You'll probably make fewer mistakes, too.

I'm not sure if anyone here has read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"? A good friend suggested it when I was about 17 (My first reaction was, "I don't want to read a book about Zen!"). It's actually a philosophy book. The short version is: quality comes from caring, caring comes from having to live with the consequences. Applied to this topic, you will do a much better job planning your own vacation because it's your vacation (and you care). If it's not right, you suffer.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I honestly didn't realize travel agents even existed anymore?