To wonder how travel agents stay in business

[rookiemere]

So on recommendation of a mumsnetter we are hoping to go to a specific destination next summer and do a bit of traveling round. On the basis we haven't been before and that it would be nice to have everything organised at once I rang up a specialist travel agent for a quote.

The call went on for quite a long time, but she did gather good specific information about what we wanted, but then said she would ring back when she had the hotel prices to talk me through the quote. I missed her call so when I called back yesterday she wasn't in. Asked to have the quote emailed to me, but had to get a specialist to talk me through it instead . Eventually I had to ask him to stop as all I really wanted to know was the price and then once I'd digested that I could think about the other aspects.

So he grudgingly sent through the details and my goodness the price is ridiculous. Granted it's an exotic location and they've included a number of trips, but a bit of quick googling shows I could price up the same trip for at least £3k less and probably more like £5k. I expect the travel agent to make some margin but I thought they'd get some of it through suppliers and the cost to the customer would be a few hundred more than what you'd pay independently.

I'm now avoiding calls from her - has left a number of calls on the answering machine - as there is no point discussing it. If there was a way I could email her that to let her know I'd be happy to do so , but it's so weird to have a phone based model in this day and age that I don't want a protracted discussion about it.

I feel awful to say this as it wasn't my intent, but the itinerary is rather good so I'll probably nick that and book it up myself . Is this other people's experiences of travel agents or do I have unrealistic expectations ?

Travel agents, like many services, just do the work you could do yourself.

You pay for someone to do the work of putting it together for you, you may also get extra cover for a package due to any memberships the agent has.

You could build a computer out of parts bu would you? Most pay the extra 20% and get a pre-built one.

I have used Scott Dunn a fair bit and find them super helpful and fairly competitive.

We are doing a big trip next year and their quote is what I thought.

You also tend to get free room upgrades etc when using them.

I travel extensively and spend a fair bit each year

I use a virtuoso agent for done hotels as they get a better price/add ins but typically book myself

Last year I needed last minute air tickets £800 with airline and less than half that through Amex travel

I did this with Audley last year - utterly ridiculous price, and didn’t even listen to specific requirements about flights and places to visit.

TRavelbag are often massively cheaper to Asia as well

(Freedom Africa/Freedom Asia, on the other hand, I have booked great holidays with,)

I'm feeling guilty now and I honestly rung them and got the quote in good faith. I was expecting it to be a bit expensive than DIY but just shocked by how much more it is.

The itinerary isn't particularly unique - I guess it's more they offered a good location to stay when we arrive which I hadn't thought about, and its helpful to have the timings printed out. I do already have a book about the destination and I planned a big trip for this year pretty well.

Thinking about it I also went to a travel agent ( again more of an airline booking place) to see about flights to where we were going and they weren't able to offer anything better than I could get online and were a bit unhelpful about choosing our overnight hotel in transit - basically allocated us something they had available and refused to look at other options - so again ended up doing it myself.

The other thing is I'd be happy to have a discussion about price and where it could be trimmed, if this could take place online rather than over the phone. I find that I have very little patience on the phone these days as can convey what needs to be done so much quicker in writing, but I guess a lot of these places deliberately spend time building rapport, so that the people who find that sort of thing important will pay the premium to book with them.

The last time I went to a TA they quoted me about £2k over the price I eventually got online, but they used the same flights/hotels as I did . I can't see what they were offering me for that extra money, there were no exclusive offers/deals, it was exactly the same as the online companies, but more expensive.

When I was a teenager I wanted to be a Travel Agent as it seemed so glamorous, but it must be something that is dying out now as a business.

Old people who don't know how to use the internet. That's how.

Weve done two road trips recently (California and New Zealand)
First one was with an independent which was run by an extremely knowledgeable but elderly man, he gave us an excellent itinerary.

Went back to him 2 years later for another roadtrip and he was gone, but his dd had taken over. She really didnt know what she was talking about so we ended up with trailfinders, again we ended up with an excellent holiday.
For a normal one place holiday i would just use internet, but the travel agents both independent and "name". For both holidays we did actually go and sit down with them for a couple of hours for the initial planning.

AnAC12UCOinanOCG Funnily enough when I was in the travel agents last year one of the poor assistants spent about half an hour assisting a man with arranging bus transport in the USA (which they didn't even do) as the man seemed unable to check on the internet.

Then another elderly man came in to thank them for booking their cruise, so yes older people are perhaps their target markets.

We looked at having a tailor made tour with a specialist UK company - with driver and car for the week etc. Then realised that they would outsource the actual tour to a local tour company. So we went online and found the accredited (by their government) local tour companies. Contacted one of them and they put together a tailor made tour for about 3k less going to the same places. Did forgo the Atol?abta? (Can't remember which is which) so insurance was important (not that I was needed) but they were great at dealing with adapting to local hiccups such as flight arrival times completely changing. Was very happy to do it that way - and I did it all by email.

Like you I also ended up ignoring calls from the UK specialists...

OP, I'll do you a holiday for £50.

Airbnb, TripAdvisor, Wikipedia, skycanner. Bang.

I think if you're doing somewhere a bit unusual then a small independent tour operator is great. If you need flights and a hotel for 2 for a fortnight.... Probably not worth it.
We're going to India soon and booked via someone we found on responsibletravel.com. he has been really helpful sorting out of itinerary/ guides/ rooms suitable for our children. Its worked out cheaper than a big name operator..... We probably could have booked the separate parts cheaper on the internet but having someone help us work out a plan and suitable hotels has been invaluable.

I use small independent travel agencies for tours that are in countries where I wouldn't feel confident managing things myself and I've always been pleasantly surprised at how reasonably costed they were considering the skills and knowledge that went into it. Just simple things like working out flights and ensuring that we did it in the most relaxing way possible.

Have you tried lonely planet and trip advisor forums for the countrys? That was where I found information about local accreditation and where to find lists of local tour companies. (Though you do have to watch out for guides touting for business

We usually do our own thing but last year booked with a travel agent which specialised in the country we were visiting- 3 flights, 3 hotels, a ferry and some onward transport in a couple of places. They came in cheaper and with better hotels than we could do ourselves. It all went like clockwork too. We booked with them again this year and again they came in cheaper and got us into a specific hotel we wanted which was showing as fully booked on all the sites we wanted.

So it can sometimes work out better.

Jasper I've looked at trip advisor and i've got the Lonely planet book. I just thought that it was worth trying a specialist flights/ tour operator to see what they could offer.

I had a similar experience - got a quote for 5 people N. America, 2.5 weeks, travelling around.

First quote was £24k!

I booked it myself in the end - we have just come back and the total cost including spending money was £13k.

i have used my local travel agency many a time for big holidyas. They know their stuff and have been a great help advising us what to do and what not to do, yes they are a little more expnsive but you are paying for a service. My one also allows you to pay a deposit and pay off money bit by bit which helps me big time. When fully paid off everythingis printed off and arranged in a nice pack, Any issues are dealt with imediataly. It depends on what type of hiliday you want and also how much time you have to be able fo do the research

I used to work for a TA like this one OP - we had to add on at least 10% commission but ideally as much as we could get away with. If we didn’t, we would be in serious shit both financially ourselves (we would get a tiny fraction of the commission) and with our regional manager. I didn’t last long!!

I've occasionally asked a travel agent to quote me a price for hotels as it's often touted that they can get you a deal but I've never found they quoted anything I couldn't find cheaper myself. Like many sales related jobs, it will be annoying to bed she hasn't closed the sale after putting in work but quite honestly any experienced salesperson will know that's the way things often go - sometimes you win, sometimes you dont!I usually source local transport and trips through TripAdvisor reviews, rip itineraries off Intrepid Travel and the like, book hotels through booking.com and get very solid insurance! It's usually £2-3K cheaper that way so no, not surprised!

Bed?! How did autocorrect change know to bed!