Thailand - travel agent or organise ourselves?

[rookiemere]

Hi would really appreciate any advice on this.

DH and I are thinking about visiting Thailand next year, probably November once DS is (hopefully) off to Uni.

I used to love organising our holidays but we've never been to Asia and we're in our fifties and I just think it might be easier to do an organised package with a few stops, rather than trying to do it ourselves. But I just wonder if I'm being silly and wasting lots of money that way. Anyone got any advice please?

I don’t think we’re going especially low budget. We could have saved a lot of money if we’d been willing to compromise on hotel location, flew via China or booked the most basic rooms in the hotels that we did book. Our hotels aren’t luxury but they are well reviewed and very well located. I think your idea of “rock bottom” may be different to mine. Flights are expensive at the minute but the exchange rate was very favourable when we booked our accommodation (in yen) so it was a fair bit cheaper than we were originally budgeting for.

Thailand is cheaper anyway so less difference between DIY and tour company.

Fair enough, that may well be true. Sounds like OP found less difference in price than I would have expected.

sounds similar to what we are looking at.
The guide price - flights not yet finalised - is £5200. Flights per person cost about £1100 each, I priced hotels up on booking.com at £2700, that only leaves £300 for internal flights and transfers.

I'm happy I did the exercise as it shows that the package is good value as well as saving us the effort.

We've just got back from Thailand yesterday. We're in our fifties and we've been several times to various Asian trips all done ourselves. I'd think about a few days in Bangkok then combine a trip North to Chiang Mai maybe plus a week on the beach. We always go Phuket cos we like a particular hotel there. November is the tail end of the rainy season so you might get rain showered or overnight storms but they pass quickly. Phuket is very touristy with some very tacky resorts so chose carefully. Old Phuket town has some pretty streets though and we did a great food walking tour this time.

Qatar have flights from Manchester via Doha to Bangkok. And they also have flights from Phuket which if you end your trip there saves you having to schlep back to Bangkok. Economy with Qatar is the best we've been on.

The first part of this.
We go next week ( in our 50's) originally booked via a travel agent then they contacted to say they had changed dates etc so we cancelled.
We are flying into Dubai, staying 1 night then flying to Phuket.
Booked into 3 very different hotels.
Joined all the FB groups, looked through all social media and picked where we want to go/see etc and booked private guides, the islands we want to visit, do we want to go see the elephants etc ( for me only in the wild or a really ethical sanctuary).
We have saved about £1500.
The time we have spent doing research has added to the fun and excitement, it was also worth doing, finding the best time of day to visit and not being part of a huge tour etc.

@Ezzee we aren't doing a guided tour and will organise our day trips ourselves, as I agree it's not much fun going in a big group.

I think I've lost my planning mojo, organising it all ourselves seems like an insurmountable task and I don't want to not go or for it to feel like a chore.

@Hobbesmanc the flights are with Qatar. We flew economy with them to NZ, and I agree it was excellent.

We did Thailand this year. Simple to plan yourself

I also have a passionate hate of travel agents.

We flew with Saudia from Manchester via Jeddah. Cheap as chips.

@TizerorFizz I do understand what a package holiday entails..🙄 The Aubry website explains it all..you're picked up by your guide, taken x,y ,z.

That's what's bland to be, being shuffled around, I'm not knocking those who want that, but it's not my idea of a good holiday.

The internet has made everything so easy now, I can't see the point of choosing it all yourself and then just asking a travel agent to book it. Travel insurance is available, but if you book flight with a major airline, very low risk anyway.
Really it's just booking flights, accommodation, working out transfers. But I appreciate I like to travel and the moving around a country independently I find fun. I like trains, I enjoy seeing a country and I don't want to be shuffled around by a guide.

@grass67 ? You views are very odd! We talk to Audley about what we want. In Japan we were doing our itinerary at our pace. Just us. We asked for Odori theatre tickets and our cookery class. We had a fabulous guided walk and also hiked the Nakasendo highway. We had an itinerary worked out between us and Audley. Every single element of an Audley holiday can be bespoke if you want it to be. All it means is that they get the JR pass, someone meets you to collect it and off you go to the hotel and follow the itinerary. Do pass on your hotel bargain details as we want to visit Japan again.

As everyone here is talking about booking.com, I’m interested in how you paid in yen. Even if you book direct, your credit card will charge for conversion to £ for your bill.

There’s a huge amount of self congratulation on DIY holidays. Frequently they are not comparable. Lots of extras to find. They frequently don’t save much money and travel companies do have good rates with hotels. Not always and not always the best selection but we have suggested hotels and they have been added or we have booked our own on occasions. We have found companies try hard to please us and we have used many companion flights with arrangements made by Audley, Discover the World and others after we get there. I research hotels fully. We have stayed in great places but we don’t do cheep and cheerful.

We haven’t been in a high street travel agency for decades. We pick up the phone and our travel consultant does it all for us. However we have pretty much full control.

My views are not odd, I just enjoy different things to you. I like flexibility and control. I appreciate you enjoy that type of holiday, but I don't. Maybe you can't understand the difference between travelling and holidaying. There's a real satisfaction with being independent in a foreign country. Last year i did a tour of Scotland, did I need a guide, or package..no.

Scotland is not Japan. Plus how can you be flexible if you book hotels in advance? What flexibility does that give? It doesn’t make sense. Other than you have one base and sit on a train every day! If so, it’s more like holiday commuting. I see you won’t name the hotels. I certainly understand travel but I still want an itinerary I can follow. We had a guide for one evening in Japan. I’m actually talking about making arrangements so experiences can be included. I do prefer to know where I’m going and what I’m doing and where I’m staying in advance. I’m not backpacking or doing interailing just to “travel”. I want to experience lots of different things.

This time last year we were in the Antarctic. We travelled to get there. Was it organised in advance? Yes. You can travel and plan in advance!

My DD is going next year. Her and her BF seem to be using TikTok help then plan their itinerary.

That makes me feel about 3000 years old .
I steadfastly refuse to use Tim Tom and the idea of watching travel blogs makes my skin itch.

This may sound dreadful but what we want is a relaxing holiday with some sight seeing opportunities. If we miss something so be it, we hope to come by.

Fucking hell you're hard work @TizerorFizz Lets say Monday it rains and you don't want to go to the palace, so you move that to Wednesday. You meet another couple at dinner and they invite you to go somewhere the next day. Perhaps you're sick one day, Maybe you see a great detour and choose to do that. Maybe you want to go on the tuktuk not in the guides car...you know that sort of shit!

I can keep explaining it to you but can't MAKE you understand.

OP nothing wrong with wanting a relaxing, easy time..I think I've said that about three times now 😂 Just book an organised deal then, its a great country, have a good time.

@TizerorFizz

As everyone here is talking about booking.com, I’m interested in how you paid in yen. Even if you book direct, your credit card will charge for conversion to £ for your bill.

Obviously the charge got converted into £ but my point was that we’d budgeted ¥700,000 for hotels and at ¥187:£1 that was an awful lot less in £ than it would have been at ¥145:£1 (which is what we’d cautiously budgeted for). We came in over £1000 les than we'd budgeted for the same price in yen.

On a bespoke trip you have options. You don’t have to book in extra tours or experiences if you don’t want them. You have total flexibility but clearly if you are moving to different locations on holiday, you will have limited time in each one come rain or shine. If you just stay at one hotel and commute to different locations and then return to the same hotel, there’s some flexibility but I don’t know anyone who considers this for Japan. So planning where to stay and where to go on a sensible itinerary makes sense to the vast majority of travellers.

Anyone using multi locations in Thailand, China or India makes the same decisions. Few stay in one place and look at the weather every day and decide what to do if you are using multi locations. Beach based holidays are different of course. Depends why you are visiting a country too. What matters to you.

@TizerorFizz I think this is just one of those cases where different people want different things out of a holiday.

I’m like @grass67 and like flexibility. I plan an itinerary but usually the days are interchangeable to an extent. I wouldn’t ever book an itinerary where I’m only in one place for a day or two precisely because, like you say, then you’re tied into that schedule come rain or shine.

I would always book accommodation in blocks of at least a few nights at a time so that I can move things around and change plans based on the weather or how I’m feeling that day. I’ve never been a backpacker and have no desire to relocate from one hotel to another every day or two. I’d find that stressful. Other people like different holidays to me and that’s OK.

@Hobbesmanc could you share what parts of Phuket you think are good or the hotel name?

I'd say travel agent every time, as you have the security and they are there 24/7 if things go wrong. This is a great itinerary from one of the best agencies out there:

DH and I are off to Thailand soon for 3 weeks
We have done everything ourselves.
Flights from LHR to BKK and back from Krabi via BKK were £2k
Overnight sleeper train from BKK to Chiang Mai
Hotels we booked with Bookng.com and trips with GetYourGuide.
If was VERY time consuming as we didn't always agree on our choices and I'm not sure I'd do it again but so far we have spent about £4k (inc flights) so probably cheaper than a TA.

And that also includes insurance, airport parking and £400 cash spending money.
Some of the hotels look a bit grotty downmarket though 😂 (DH's choice obviously)

OP here, I didn't book in the end because one of the downsides of the package is that cancellation penalties were quite high. I have very elderly DPs and insurance would presumably only cover for dire situations, so we're going to have another think nearer the time and probably go to Tenerife for the 9030th time.

@Bichette that overnight train looks awesome, I hope you have a good trip.

@rookiemere In your shoes I’d look again at self booking. Hotels are usually cancellable with no penalty up to 24 hours before.

Flights are often very costly to cancel and sometimes not refundable at all but can usually be rescheduled for a different date pretty close to departure date for a small (in the context of the overall cost) fee.

Were it to become clear a couple of days before departure that you could no longer go, you could change your flight date and cancel your hotels and take the trip next year instead.

If you’re worried about airport transfers, excursions and travel there are lots of options on Viator that you can book ahead with free cancellation should you not be able to go in the end.

It seems a shame not to go at all when there’s so many options that could be cancelled short notice.

Between the airline website, booking.com and Viator you can probably just replicate the package you were thinking of buying through the TA.

I'm going in a couple of weeks and booked with Trailfinders. I am not impressed with them at all and in hindsight wish I'd done it all myself.