Get away! Travel agents can be just as cheap as online deals

A lot of on-line travel agents it seems to trade under a group of different trading names, they then quote a price for a flight then invoice you with extra chargesi.e. I booked one at a price paid deposit later e.mail received added charges i.e. fuel surcharge + admin cost so the figure was not as agreed on, the airline asked me what surcharge I was on about as they do not have one, so face to face contact with High street agents seems to me to be the thing, not all on-line agents are using these methods, Their Boss informed that ! we make no profit from airlines, we have to make a small profit, so investigation found this:- 17.00GBP fuel surcharge (no charge really) admin charge 35.00GBP). just be warey.

I have to say, it’s been a few years since I last set foot in a travel agents. Back then the prices given certainly were as competitive as online but I felt as if I was being pressured into a holiday I didn’t actually want.

Their pricing in the window is often not the actual price either – ‘Oh, that’s gone up by £100 since this morning’ was a common phrase I heard. Of course, this is caveated by a small ‘From’ written on the poster.

There’s also not an awful lot of choice in my local travel agents, up until recently we had a First Choice and Thomson shop on our high street who both had exactly the same prices due to the same ownership. The third shop on our high street is Thomas Cook who are notoriously more expensive for no apparent reason.

Yes, you may be able to get the same deal in store that Thomson are offering online, for example, but I would actually find it more convenient to just book it there and then on the web rather than visiting the shop to haggle with them.

It’s a shame really, the high street travel agent is more about ‘How much commission will this make me?’ rather than ‘Is this the ideal holiday for my customer?’ these days.

Right about window poster prices, even recently in the Far East a Travel Agent shop there advertising a holiday for 4 days incl flight/Hotel/Transportation was quoted at 999ph in local currency, when tried to purchase the price was 4,984 ph as the price was from, so when asked when the price 999ph was they did not know, so false pricing is used as a come on everywhere then.

U.K. travel agent takes a booking as per verbal quote, you pay deposit, an Invoice arrives within 12 hours with ad-ons i.e. Fuel Surcharge GBP17.00 Booking Charge more money, you ring airline who states there are no Surcharges on their flights, complaints made, eventually slight refund given but told we have to make a profit, airlines do not pay commission, check airline site the cost of my tkt was as per original quoted – marked Paid, so a difference of some GBP50.00 to agent.

After all this I go to the airport to check in for the flight to be told !!sorry we are not checking in that flight yet!! so I say this flight is going to where I am suppose to be going and the time and ticket date states now, go to the back of the queue for now, watching the flight fill up to my destiantion I get a bit worried as I have a connection at that destination, eventually the man comes over and we see the supervisor to whom it is pointed out my ticke flight Number is in-correct yet destination/timing is correct & a connection has to be made, luckily for me a seat given to me, on investigation at a later date it transpires the Flight Number was for one of their flight to completly differnt destination.

I put a complaint (3) by e.mail to the Travel Agent – no response, so I sent a letter before action to them then I received a reply that is is the Airlines fault not theirs, I point out this is the 2nd problem on this booking and operator, and that they are paid commision to ensure the booking is correct and isue the ticket as the contract is between them and myself, NO Reply after sending the e.mail to them stating the 30 days LBA is still relevant as no complaints proceedure sent to me only hard luck not their fault, anybody else had these problems as no-body seems to want to know

I’ve just booked a family holiday with Thomson and agmy local travel agent matched the on-line price, additional services, such as airport parking, were offered but there was no heavy sales pitch. I found my instore experience very positive, speaking face to face to a member of staff is, in my opinion, far more preferable to looking at a computer screen!

I usually book online, but I’ve tried out a few travel agents recently as I wanted specialist advice on wheelchair accessibility, and have been disappointed. Both the High Street agent and the local Travel Counsellor listened to what I needed, promised to look into it, and then failed to get back to me. I did some online research, found something, and spoke to the company direct about accessibility in the end. I’ll stick to online booking I think.

My experience has been that , there are clearly specialist and expert travel agencies where a combination of knowledge and enthusiasm from staff offers a real added value. Using agencies like those makes sense for anything unusual or complex or , where the the holiday/trip involves multiple flights or destinations -anything bespoke.They are usually operating in a different part of the market and , probably have a different customer base.

At the risk of generalising that’s less true of the main high street businesses who are primarily selling an “off the shelf” package.In many cases I have known more about the place and the alternatives for getting there etc than they have. It’s probably wrong to assume a massive level of expertise so , if you do some research first the focus becomes on who sells at the cheapest price. The travel industry is such a (deliberately) complex one that comparing becomes really difficult – unless you know what you want or are the sort of person for whom the research is part of the fun.
At the end of the day the high street firms are primarily selling products rather than services -despite what their advertising may claim? What is best often really comes down to how much time and energy you want to invest in choosing your holiday.

We ( myself and my wife) have used travel agents only since 1981.Why? its a package if anything goes wrong we simply talk to the local rep and let them sort it (no phone calls e-mails etc).Also prices are competitive.
For the last ten years we have booked only with an independent travel agent in Dorset mainly Thomson Holidays who both provide an excellent service at good prices. We have only ever had problems twice (1) Air Malta, on return business class flight from Malta no first class seats available owing to a industrial dispute, our independent travel agent arranged a full refund (not credit) of out and return fares received within a week by cheque. (2) Holiday with Thomson in Spain, on arriving at Malaga for our return flight air traffic controllers went on strike just as we arrived at the airport, within two hours Thomson had us in a local Hotel with all meals for two days at no cost to us.