Would you book a holiday just now ?

[llm24]

The travel industry has been one of if not the most hard hit industries since the start of the pandemic

January / February is normally one of the busiest times of year and every travel agent looks forward to these months with a lot of money going into preparing and advertising

My question is simply

Will you book a holiday for Summer 22 over the next months ?

If not , why not ?
If yes , will you be booking through a Travel Agent ? If not why not ?

Help a Travel Agent out

@CrumpledCrumpet

Of course agents do holidays off the beaten track
Many of my colleagues specialise in bespoke holidays and wouldn’t know where to start with a bucket and spade holiday 😂

[quote llm24]@Tequilamockinbird

What is MLM travel agents ?[/quote]
Multi-level marketing companies. Inteletravel is the main one I think.

In over 20 years of travel never heard of them 😂
Doing a quick search online and yeah I would avoid them too x

most people do not have the time from working long hours and shifts to schlep down to their local high street which may/may not even have a travel agent certainly the one in my town has gone. it is just not convenient for the vast majority of people when you can easily book from home whenever you desire. these days it would never be the first port of call for a holiday unless you were maybe very elderly and not computer literate

I had a poor experience with a travel agent. She gave me lots of duff info for what was to be a once in a life time holiday (i.e. you don’t have to pay for business class with Emirates, they’ll email you a week before and offer you an upgrade for £100. Don’t go for ocean view - ask at reception desk when you arrive) Thanks to the internet I knew better than to rely on her advice. I can see why that puts people off. We still had a fab holiday.

To balance the bad experience, we booked long haul with Trailfinders for 2020. The advice and service was amazing, and when we had to cancel due to Covid restrictions, got all our money back in 7 days - they proactively contacted us and offered cancellation.

I’d also booked a trip to Canada in 2019 and did that diy. Airline refused to refund and we had the hassle of reclaiming against the credit card. We also had to negotiate separately with accommodation and car hire.

We always book ski trips with an agent- too many elements that can go wrong.

Generally, I’d recommend using an agent for the cover but some of them don’t really have the knowledge and experience to justify the charges. I’d thoroughly recommend Trailfinders.

Not booking anything abroad for 2022 as we already have carry overs that are likely to be cancelled (Feb half term skiing).

I tend not to use TAs as the few occasions I have tried to use them - flights to NZ and a trip to Costa Rica - they were more expensive than what I could price up myself and did not seem to listen to my stated need not to share a bedroom with our teen DS.

Interesting. I get Which? Travel magazine and they are insistent that packages are usually cheaper but I've never found that. Maybe for flight and a fortnight in a resort hotel but we don't want that.

I always book direct as I'm very particular about where i want to stay plus I can usually get what i want far more cheaply than using an agency.

I twiddle around with dates to get the best flight prices, usually Easyjet, occasionally Ryanair if desperate. We want two to three bed apartments, very centrally located. And car hire.

I use Booking.Com a lot as you can only review after you have paid and checked out. Unlike Trip Advisor.

We never do flight and beach so any holidays would be 'tailor made' and much more expensive.

An example we went to Iceland in 2020. We went in August though i had originally booked for April. We went for a week, four adults, and stayed in two lovely apartments and one lovely hotel. The whole lot, including snorkeling, glacier hikes, a zodiac boat trip and the Blue Lagoon, and all food and drink and petrol (and two jumpers for DD) came to under £5,100. Travel agents were charging massively more.

I have a few trips that are 'oven ready' planned pre Covid. One was for a week in Sicily in mid September. The total for flights, accommodation in Lipari and Taormina, transport and big trips such as a guided tour up Etna and a boat trip to Stromboli was £3,270 for 4 adults. I doubt a TA could offer the holiday for anywhere near that.

I've never booked anything through a travel agent. Just can't afford what they offer at the bespoke end, and high street just don't offer what I want. We need space (separate bedrooms) as my daughter has ASD and I can't afford that on resorts which is all I have been offered by agents. We either do Eurocamp or book a cottage/apartment. I would love to be able to walk in somewhere and have someone do the work for me but my fussy family and limited budget don't seem to work with resort type holidays.

Sorry, meant to say that any bookings for 2022 will be very last minute.

It hurts because I've aways booked about a year in advance previously so that i can get exactly what i want. But that has gone by the wayside now.

Oh yeah, that was it, I told him we wanted a separate bedroom for DS, he was adamant that would be out of our budget. Told us to take a cheap buggy and DS would snooze happily while he had a nice meal out. DS has ADHD, sleep is a struggle and we needed to get him down in a dark room. He also considered free ice cream readily available to be a big selling point for AI resorts. I have yet to have a holiday in Spain where we struggled to find ice cream or found it a holiday expense worth talking about. AI is absolutely not the holiday for us but it was all he wanted to sell.

@whiteroseredrose your Iceland trip sounds amazing. It's somewhere I would like to go to so I wonder if you could post or PM the apartment you stayed at and any other top tips.

We have a trip for Costa Rica built up that we were meant to be doing in July 2020.TA was going to charge £11k, I had it costing about £6k. One of the issues appeared to be that the TAs only use hotel chains so were unable to source places with separate bedrooms. Not sure if we'll ever do it now as DS gets older and less likely to want to go away with us, and the whole point was that it was a combination of exploring and adventure activities (for him and DH).

Who is your usual cliental do you think OP?

It seems most people posting here aren't the real audience for a TA. I'm now curious which demographic uses one now.

My rich uncle does. He has a local TA and travels multiple times a year and doesn't worry about the bookings or cost. He's paying for convenience I think.

I know when I was much younger people booked package holidays through a TA nit that was pre internet explosion when people can do that themselves.

Is it mainly bespoke/convenience and higher incomes or older people?

Hi @rookiemere. It was a fantastic trip and long awaited. I'd been wanting to go for 30 years!

In Reykjavik we stayed in Old Charm Reykjavik Apartments. They have 2 and 3 bedroom apartments and are a couple of minutes walk from Hallgrimskirkja (and have parking). In Vik we stayed in Vik Apartments owned by Hotel Vik. Very modern and glossy with a view out to sea.

In both places we made packed lunches and ate in some nights to save ££. I liked Kronan supermarket as it is a bit like Sainsbury's.

Our last night was at the Northern Light Inn (all in 1 room) very close to the Blue Lagoon (and a power station which was a shock!). We used Blue Car Rental as recommended by Trip Advisor!

Only our 2 late teen DC did the snorkeling between continents but we all did the Glacier walk, Lava Tube and boat trip. We used Tröll for snorkeling and Glacier. They were a bit cheaper than other operators and were fabulous. Boat and Lava Tunnel booked on their website.

The drive to Jökulsárlón and back from Vik was very long. Ideally we would have stayed there for a night but I didn't really want too many accommodation changes. Hence 3 nights in Reykjavik, 3 in Vik and 1 in Northern Light Inn.

Top tip is that the weather is a major factor in Iceland so keep plans flexible.

Tröll are very good in that you can cancel up to 24 hours before for a full refund.

Other top tip is to keep an eye on beer prices if you go to the great craft beer place in Vik. I think DH's beer was over £20. Alcohol is very expensive there.

I think we were lucky to get August for April prices but no Northern Lights in early August. Apparently there is a chance for late August.

Costa Rica is on our list for our 25th Anniversary. My DC are now 18 and 22 and have assured me that they will continue to come on family holidays if the destination is interesting and we are paying!

That's brilliant thank you @whiteroseredrose . Sorry OP for so shamelessly subverting the purpose of your thread , which appears to be extolling the virtues of TAs.

We are forced to use a travel agent, Redfern, when booking travel for work. They're a total nightmare- inconvenient, rude, expensive, etc.

For most leisure travel I book through Jet2 as I've had so many good experiences. I love being able to read reviews, filter according to my preferences, shortlist things, share links with DH and book at my leisure. I can't see how using a TA could possibly help with any of that or make the experience better.

The exception for leisure travel when I would use a specialist travel agency is for skiing as they can put together a good package in my experience. I also intend to use Much Better Adventures for a kayaking trip which I think would qualify as a TA.

I do hope you find your audience and expand your client list OP but I'm not giving up on convenience just because a local TA would appreciate it.

@NotJustACigar

I wasnt asking anyone to give up convenience and book with a TA , only pointing out the benefits of a TA and getting rid of any myths many people have

To be honest your comment, is uncalled for and quite frankly I don’t think I would want business from a customer who is rude like yourself . This comment is one where the customer is NOT always right

“They're a total nightmare- inconvenient, rude, expensive, etc. “

Haha OK agreed as I wouldn't want to be a customer of a TA who gets upset so easily! Do you work for Redfern then as that's the TA I was ta about? They are so bad they cause loads of stress to the travel team at work as well as those of us who travel with them so I stand by what I've said about them 100%.

@NotJustACigar

I’m not getting upset just think there is no justification in generalising all TAs as being rude and inconvenient

No I don’t work for Redfern never even heard of them tbh , you have obviously had a bad experience and are very bitter

I aslso stand by what I said TA don’t need people like you in fact you have done us all a favour by not booking with us

And I think you have made the point of why people don't want to book with TAs brilliantly yourself- what an own goal . Well done you ❤

@NotJustACigar

What a lovely person you are , you must be a joy to be around 😂

thanks to everyone for your feedback on my thread ❤️ and for constructive criticism

BUT as always on mumsnet there is always one individual who can’t say anything nice

We booked a multi-stop trip to Malaysia via aTA several years ago - spur of the moment decision after seeing an offer in their window. It was a great trip and I’ve gone back for similar holidays since - I like the fact the headache of rejigging things sits with them if flights are cancelled or something changes with a hotel. Both of those things have happened to us more than once. I find it works best if you do your own research in conjunction with the TA - if you don’t come with ideas they tend to offer common denominator-type itineraries, so if you have a particular interest in seeing a secondary city or sight rather than moving on to the next popular stop, you need to have done your homework. On one trip I knew exactly what I wanted so planned everything myself in advance and then just took it to them to book and offer some alternative hotel suggestions.

I wouldn’t bother with a TA if I was going somewhere likeCroatia for a week (because I’d be picky about where I was staying and TAs don’t have access to all accommodation) or touring around by car or public transport, but if you’re doing a number of different stops linked by plane it’s a good option. You can also leave days out of the itinerary if you find a better option yourself - we did this with halong bay in Vietnam. Found a trip that suited us better and was far cheaper than the TA option so we just weren’t covered by them for those days. Some holidays just don’t work well with TAs either - we were thinking about driving around Costa Rica and found this is only possible following set routes with the TA we use. So we’ll wait until after the pandemic and just sort a hire car and hotels ourself.

I am actually thank you for noticing ❤

Never booked through a travel agent in my life but mostly because cant afford packages or hotels. We just do Air BnB and sort out our own flights

No, not until the rules aren't changed at the drop of a hat, already been burnt when we lost out deposit in 2020 for Austria as we cancelled because we didn't want to end up stuck there if the rules changed.

This year like last we will be going away loads in our touring caravan in England, not even Scotland or Wales as they have different rules to us and we don't want to end up somewhere where the site facilities are closed so just England for us for the foreseeable.