purchasing plane tickets

Jane if just asking for personal experiences I will say I haven't used a travel agency for at least last 15 years.. Where I live ( may be different where you live) they started charging a fee for booking air tickets so I just started booking my own online. Its pretty straight forward. I am not sure what type of "experience " you want though, I just want good prices and schedules.
I don't mind investing a bit of time to research the times and prices, I shop around and get the deals if I can.. For me personally I just look at several airlines that fly out of one of two airports near me ( I go with cheapest and best times, but have two different airports to choose from so have to enter both into search boxes to see which is better deal). Many people swear by using kayak ( an airline search engine ). You can start with that and see where it leads you.

We have always used a very good local travel agent. She charges thirty-five dollars to book a ticket. We have looked at buying our own tickets, but in every instance she has been able to find something less expensive that we have. She can also give us instant help if we get snarled up overseas, somehow, as she is always just an email away. When we need tickets within the western states we book our own as there isn't much difference.

Thanks for the help and experiences.

If, like Monte, you can find a travel agent who will do a search for you and field your phone calls in an emergency and do it all for $35, you might want to go that way if you don't mind paying someone else to ease your mind. But seriously, there are no shopping tricks in the airline industry anymore. There is nobody who knows somebody who knows somebody who has a suitcase full of tickets they are trying to unload at bargain prices. Buying a plane ticket today is about as complicated as buying a blender from Amazon.com, and no one would pay someone else to do that for them. There are numerous search engines to use to scan fares. I prefer Kayak.com Once you find a fare you are comfortable with, buy it direct from the airline's own web site. Then you have a provider with something at stake in making you happy. A ticket middleman has no motivation to make you happy or fix any problem for you. As for WHEN will tickets be at their best price, that's anyone's guess. Prices change almost every day - sometimes significantly, sometimes not. The only thing you can do is know what an average price is and what qualifies as a bargain. When you find it, buy it & spend the rest of your time planning your multi-thousand $ trip any not worrying about whether or not you might have been able to save another $50 by waiting for a better deal. Good luck!

In over a dozen trips over the past ten years or so, I have booked lots of plane tickets on both major carriers and budget ones. I have never used a travel agent.

I agree with others that a simple ticket purchase doesn't require a middleman (the only way they can get you a great deal is if its bundled with something else and they can take advantage of blocks of tickets). The more experience you get doing this on your own, the better you'll get at it (I would even say it's fun!) In addition to Kayak, check out Ita Software by Google (http://www.itasoftware.com/ -> click airfare search) - a major pro of this is it allows you to search within a month timeframe (if you ask for it), so you can get a very good feeling of what dates/weeks are best. There are also options on various websites to set e-mail alerts once a ticket price decreases below a certain level, so that's also an option.

In the last 20 years of traveling, I have always booked our own flights. This is the first year I've gone with a travel agent - she charged us a $50 fee. It was very stressful for me this year because we have to fly into Heathrow, spend a bit of time in London, fly from there to Copenhagen (in time for a family reunion in Sweden) and back to SFO from Copenhagen. And our 2 granddaughters will be with us. For some reason I was having trouble coordinating these flights and finding fares I was happy with. So, this year the travel agent made sense, and I feel she's done a good job.

I also have not used a travel agent for 20 years or so. It is so easy to search for flights and purchasing is simple. Since I am picky about what kind of flight I like ( non-stop, or how long I'm willing to have a layover etc) I doubt I could find a travel agent willing to put the time I do into finding just the right flight. But, then, it is fun for me to track flights to different airports, different carriers etc. I search a lot so I usually know when I find something good. You could just do a quick search and buy online, without the extensive research. I would guess that is exactly what a travel agent would do.

Again, thank you all for your help. I have usually bought my own tickets domestically, but was overwhelmed by the flight options, especially connecting cities. I wll give kayak and the itasoftware a try. I have travelled extensively in the U.S. over the past 40 years, not so much to Europe.

Beware when buying from online ticket sites. It may result in a ticket with a lower fare class code than buying directly from the airline. The lower the code, the less protection you may have if something goes wrong. You might be less likely to get the seat you requested. Or you may not get full mileage credit. You may even have to check in for a boarding pass for each and every flight segment. This has happened to me. From now on, I buy directly from the airlines.

Self or travel agent? Have you ever read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? I read it when I was 17, it's not about Zen as much as a philosophical question about "quality". The very short version is quality comes from caring, and caring comes from having to live with the consequences. I could also bore you some more with my "Decision Making" class in my MBA program. Step one is define the "decision maker". Bottom line, no Travel Agent knows my preferences as well as I do. They don't know what value I put on flying in and out of alternate airports, changing days/times of day, buying extra legroom, or whether I'm willing to pack light to save some money. When I do my own planning/purchasing, I can weigh the price differences and decide which itinerary meets my wants/needs best. I consider all my options carefully before I book; a travel agent would be driven crazy considering the choices I look at before buying. That said, if you have no flexibility - just want to get to a certain place at a certain time - a travel agent can book you easily enough.

"...a travel agent would be driven crazy considering the choices I look at before buying." Brad, thats the real reason I avoid travel agents. It is in their best interests! LOL!

Nicely stated Brad.