Travel Agent or DIY

Arzy

Arzy

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The 10 year anniversary is coming up and the wife and I were thinking about repeating our honeymoon trip to the Cape region. Looking at the current prices of the places we stayed back then I came to the realization that it would actually be cheaper to do the trip we wanted to 10 years ago but couldn't because my wife didn't have a passport. So it's off to Italy we go.


Now my question is as follows: Is it better to use a travel agency or to just do it yourself?
 
Damn phone, posted before I was finished. Anyway, I'm asking because of the following:

1. We don't need a tour. I've been to Italy a few times and can manage most things.
2. I went to Flighcenter's website to get a price, comes in at R10kpp. Go to one of their shops to get an actual quote. Comes to R12kpp and I need to pay today as the special ends.
3. Go to another travel shop, promised a quote but still received nothing.
4. Check quote from flightcenter again and it's a 30 hour trip from here to Rome due to going to doha first.

Start looking at it myself, check the major airlines and TripAdvisor for accommodation. Price is down to R8k per person and flying time of between 13 and 18 hours depending on how long we want to stop in Paris.
 
DIY works best for me. Also try Airbnb for accommodation if you don't necessarily want to stay in hotels.
 
I'm a coward and go through an agent, but that's because i always have stop overs.
 
So carried on with the DIY excercise last night, gotten to a trip that actually works very well, allowing for extra time away cheaper than the quote from the agency.

Comments thus far:
- Check both TravelStart and Cheapflights as a start. Cheapflights has a damn good interface and is clearly drawing from a lot larger pool of suppliers.
- Take note of the travel duration on your flights, in my comparison Qatar would be R3k cheaper on flights but have been 15 hours more traveling time when compared to the likes of AirFrance.
- Do look at taking multi destination flight options. Initially we were trying to get direct flights with a long stop over in Paris (9 hours there and 8 hours on the way back). By swapping things around a bit we gained 2 full days in Paris by dropping 1 night in Rome.
- DIY definitely provides an advantage in that you can change dates on the fly and get an immediate price. This is only a benefit though if your travel dates aren't set in stone.

Next step is to finalise accomodation.

Now some more questions:
- For those that do it themselves, any pitfalls that you have found thus far?
- Would it be worthwhile to send the finalised trip that we put together back to an agency to see if they can improve on price?
 
I usually use a travel agent for sight seeing holidays, reason being that they have agreements with certain hotel chains and know what is good and what to avoid, based on customer feedback. They also ensure that all your tickets etc. are correctly issued and that any mess ups are taken care of. For example, we were stuck in Bangkok due to the riots of 2010 and the travel agents phoned US and organised a new hotel. We didn't need to hassle in a foreign country trying to phone around. I found that you pay maybe a grand or two more, but for me that is worth it for piece of mind and quality.

But going DIY is also a good option - it depends on how confident you are. We do not book tours from here but find it much better to arrive in the place you want to visit and contact a local tour from your hotel or the internet. That way you aren't stuck on a bus for two weeks, but take day tours from central locations.

Also, do you own pricing research, then ask the Travel Agent to match or beat. We also get quotes from two travel agents and ask them to compete. It often results in a few grand off the price.

With passports and travel visas getting more complex, it's good to have an experienced person guide you - that way you will never end up deported from immigration and ruining your holiday.

Lastly, yes, be very careful of these cheap travel packages. As you saw, you can end up stuck on planes for nearly two days and sleeping in airport waiting areas. For a grand or two more you can get much better flights.
 
Gaz{M} said:
I usually use a travel agent for sight seeing holidays, reason being that they have agreements with certain hotel chains and know what is good and what to avoid, based on customer feedback. They also ensure that all your tickets etc. are correctly issued and that any mess ups are taken care of. For example, we were stuck in Bangkok due to the riots of 2010 and the travel agents phoned US and organised a new hotel. We didn't need to hassle in a foreign country trying to phone around. I found that you pay maybe a grand or two more, but for me that is worth it for piece of mind and quality.

But going DIY is also a good option - it depends on how confident you are. We do not book tours from here but find it much better to arrive in the place you want to visit and contact a local tour from your hotel or the internet. That way you aren't stuck on a bus for two weeks, but take day tours from central locations.

Also, do you own pricing research, then ask the Travel Agent to match or beat. We also get quotes from two travel agents and ask them to compete. It often results in a few grand off the price.

With passports and travel visas getting more complex, it's good to have an experienced person guide you - that way you will never end up deported from immigration and ruining your holiday.

Lastly, yes, be very careful of these cheap travel packages. As you saw, you can end up stuck on planes for nearly two days and sleeping in airport waiting areas. For a grand or two more you can get much better flights.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback, some good advice in there.

We are not specifically looking at touring as it is almost a last minute thing and actually a bit short, effectively only away 4 nights excluding travel.

I've found 2 new things that I actually love:

www.visitacity.com and www.viator.com

The first gives you iteneraries of all the highlights depending on how many days you are in the city along with the best way to get to each sitea long with details such as walking distance and time etc.
The second allows you to book tickets for sites and activities, things like skipping the line at the Vatican or Eifel with a tour guide. Great for planning and budgeting :)

One concern at this stage is timing on the flights there, timing on a connecting flight seems a bit short but I'll look at more options.

Next steps is to look at Medical aid and Visas.
 
It really depends... sometimes the paperwork for a country can be costly and a nightmare (rather have an agent do this for you). Other countries it's as simple as hoping on a plane.
 
The only reason to use a Travel Agent is that you have someone to blame if things go wrong.


Do it yourself. Its fun!
 
I would say DIY, I actually enjoy the planning process...
A few website suggestions:
Try www.skyscanner.net for flights, it's especially good for flights between European cities.
Airbnb is great for self catering options for places to stay - just make sure you choose the apartment option so you don't end up staying in a room in someone's house.
Trivago will compare hotel prices across various sites to make sure you get the best deal, so once you have decided on a hotel try putting it in there to get the best price.
Always check reviews of all hotels on tripadvisor before going!
 
So finally got a quote from a second agency, once again for only 1 set of dates. First agency hasn't responded yet to request for second quote.

As to the quote I got, was surprised at first, thought it was a good price and comparable to what I was able to do myself. This was just on scanning through the quote in a rush though, when sitting down and looking at it in detail I realised it was per person. Thus ending up more than double what I could do myself.

So I continue looking at options.
 
Just this morning a friend told me about someone he knows who he helped to book plain tickets DIY. The travel agent quoted R18K for a ticket to Aus, DIY a even better flight option cost him R10K.
 
I usually book DIY last year booked flights with flightcenter for the first time ever. Found I would have saved R6 000 if I had booked myself a little later and when I wanted to change flights dates, they couldn't accommodate me without having to pay an extra R20k+ for business class.

I found DIY to be better cost wise and there also was a high turnover so I couldn't reach the person I original dealt with when I wanted to change dates. There are probably downsides to DIY, I haven't found them yet.

I'd advise get hopper (app) to predict when would be a good time to buy tickets, this is what I am doing. Last week my ticket prices were R5 700 now they are R7k +, waiting for the prices to get down to the 5 000s while I'm saving up for the ticket.

In terms of accommodation, if you don't want a hotel experience (self catering and no room service) AirBnB is cool otherwise Agoda and booking.com can have really great discounts. Got a five star hotel in Vegas for about a third of the normal price with Agoda.
 
Wife and I did DIY honeymoon to Italy in 2010.

Used expedia.com for flights and hostelworld.com for accommodation. Though would likely look at AirBNB if we were to do the trip this year.

We ended up flying with EgyptAir. Had a 8 hour layover in Cairo, so I arranged visas and we got to see the pyramids and sphinx too. Arranged Schengen visas with Italian embassy myself too. Was not difficult at all. Did Schengen visa through Swiss embassy again now in October, really not that difficult.

Our itenarary: Cairo -> Milan -> Lake Como -> Verona (was a highlight of the trip) -> Venice (incl Murano and Burano) -> Florence -> Rome and home via Cairo again.
 
PhreakBoy said:
Wife and I did DIY honeymoon to Italy in 2010.

Used expedia.com for flights and hostelworld.com for accommodation. Though would likely look at AirBNB if we were to do the trip this year.

We ended up flying with EgyptAir. Had a 8 hour layover in Cairo, so I arranged visas and we got to see the pyramids and sphinx too. Arranged Schengen visas with Italian embassy myself too. Was not difficult at all. Did Schengen visa through Swiss embassy again now in October, really not that difficult.

Our itenarary: Cairo -> Milan -> Lake Como -> Verona (was a highlight of the trip) -> Venice (incl Murano and Burano) -> Florence -> Rome and home via Cairo again.
Click to expand...

Much prefering DIY at this point, finalising things now in order to make the booking next week. Its nice to have someone holding your hand through the process but the additional charges and time spent waiting for a response isn't working for me.

As it stands we go JHB->Paris->Rome->Paris->Jhb

Basically a direct flight from Jhb to Rome with a short stop over in Paris (1h30) which is the only concern I have at this point, wondering if it isn't too short. This puts us in Rome 9am the morning after leaving Jhb.
Spend 2 nights, or 3 full days, in Rome and fly back to Paris late afternoon.
Spend 2 nights, or 2 full days, in Paris.
Fly back to Jhb late on the second day in Paris.

Total is coming to just over R10kpp for flights and hotels incl breakfast. Cheapest comparative at this point is R13kpp for 3 nights in Rome on different dates or R18kpp for the same trip.
 
Why the doubling back to Paris? JHB - Rome then Rome - Paris

Then Paris - JHB makes more sense

JHB - Rome is the shortest flight to Europe
 
Billy said:
Why the doubling back to Paris? JHB - Rome then Rome - Paris

Then Paris - JHB makes more sense

JHB - Rome is the shortest flight to Europe
Click to expand...

That's the bit I'm finalising at this point, so far the best tickets for our dates taking into account travel time, stops and arrival in Rome is via AirFrance but then you have to go Jhb->Paris->Rome. Total travel time is 14 odd hours but you basically get on the plane at 20:00 in Jhb and then sleep till 6:00 the next morning.

There are cheapear alternatives like flying on Qatar via Doha but then you leave at 14:00 from Johannesburg, get to Doha at 23:30 and leave for Rome again at 02:00.
 
Also, based on getting skip the line and early access tickets we can do most of what we want in Rome over 2 days. We thus decided to go back to Paris to see some other sites. Leaving late afternoon in Rome basically gets us to Paris in time to watch a show at Moulin Rouge and then do some of the sites the next day and shopping before we go back.
 
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