Anyone booked a holiday without using a travel agent or am I just green??

[Fireflyfairy2]

I booked a holiday for this year through our local travel agent, car hire, flights etc were arranged through them.

We have had our holiday & had a great time, but was want to go again next year. When pricing the holiday we discovered it would be much cheaper to boo it straight from the brochure [Keycamp].

It works out at about £300 less than the TA quoted us That included bed linen ets that the TA hadn't quoted for.

I'm just afraid to book it now for next year incase the flights are full when they come out.. or can I pre-book easyjet flight? I am scared if I book for next July, when the flights come out at Xmas time [roughly] there will be none available or none on the day I have booked it for

Do I make sense? I've only been on this holiday this year, so I'm a little bit scared of doing this on my own & making an arse of it

We always book independently now ff. I always do the flight first and have never had trouble finding accomodation. It does work out loads cheaper.

Are you going outside school holidays fireflyfairy? You shouldn't have any trouble booking something after Christmas (and tehre are usually special offers to be had, you should also get a loyalty discount). And there are probably other companies that offer the same campsite/mobile home. Canvas Holidays, Thomson Al Fresco, Eurocamp etc etc. Or the site's own accommodation.

I've never used a travel agent.
I just go down the list of where i want to go (it's a long one) buy a Lonely Planet,read from cover to cover, then book flights and accommodation meself.

Always book independantly these days, check www.skyscanner.net for example to compare cheap flights. I use the internet to research most things. eg last 3 years have used autozug (motorail) rather than flying...think outside the box. OK, have to admit that for me a big part of the holiday is the planning of it (sad I know).

Thanks

We want to go at the start of July.

I guess that's outside of the school holidays to you guys, but our kids stop here mid-june.

We want to go back to the same camp site we were at a few weeks ago in Berny Riviere which is why I was booking early as they were fully booked when I went to book late for my sister this year

We will probably fly with Easyjet as they seem to be the only airline that leave Belfast & fly to CDG.

I'm going to check out that sly scanner site though!! Thanks!

we stopped using travel agents ages ago. Worry is always whether you can get flights/ferries and accomodation to match. We usually find that you can provisionally hold accomodation for 24 hours (or whatever the company/individual's policy is) so you can then check out travel options, and if you can't get flights, cancel without penalty. Alternatively, if you are going somewhere where there is tons of accomodation (e.g. Costa del Sol/Algarve etc) just grab a cheap flight - but be prepared to be flexible on your accommodation. I've seen a couple of threads where people actually enjoy helping people find cheaper hols!!

And Skyscanner shows that Flybe go from Belfast Harbour to CDG..it's a great site