Travel agents

[Fuma]

Has anyone used them? Can you recommend a good one?

I plan on going for a one week holiday in KZN south coast (any other better place?). Never been there, so I wouldn't know where to start, hence a travel agent.

I'll be using the bloody agents for flights, accommodation and car hire, etc.

Or is it better to do it myself?

 

[AnibugZA]

Travel Agents aren't really worth it for local holidays. You'll be much better off doing it yourself, and you'll also get well acquainted with the area that you'll be visiting during your research. The best thing about doing it yourself is you can pick the things you like that actually fit your budget, instead of having to repeatedly turn down suggestions from the agent.

You can compare flight prices from various airlines online through travelstart and other website. A quick google will bring up lots of sites. Calling a place like flight centre might get you a good price on your airfare, but beyond that you can do it all yourself.

Car hire - You can use car hire aggregators to get the best deal on rentals too. I recently booked a car in CT through Hertz but it was done on a special through rentalcars.com.

For accommodation, try TripAdvisor to read up on the area and places where you want to stay - you'll get a wealth of reviews that will tell you whether a place is worth staying at or not. My favourite online accommodation sites are WhereToStay and SafariNow. I'm a Honeycard member so I get lovely discounts through WhereToStay.

Have you considered driving down instead of flying and renting a car? You can pick a place along the way and break your drive down into 2 days, staying somewhere in the pretty Drakensburg area along the way. Flights and car rental work out fairly expensive, especially if you're more than 2 people. Also, driving your own car is far nicer than driving a rental.

 

[Hosehead]

Has anyone used them? Can you recommend a good one?

I plan on going for a one week holiday in KZN south coast (any other better place?). Never been there, so I wouldn't know where to start, hence a travel agent.

I'll be using the bloody agents for flights, accommodation and car hire, etc.

Or is it better to do it myself?

I have found if you fly kulula and you're a discovery member you get better rates (you'll always get offered the best rate for that particular day if a fare is available but one of the surpises was the car hire- pretty damn reasonable for a top line agency I think they use Europcar and the prices offered to kulula ticketholders are way way discounted. I'm not saying they are the best for when you want to travel but get a flight and car quote -also the deposit (credit card withold) is a lot less than other Majors.
I've never done the south coast but pals who live in durbs take a holiday home in ballito and say its great. Maybe look at Gumtree but dont get scammed and don't for the love of god end up in a time share resort.

 

[jenniferSA]

Travel agents no more

Travel agents are really a non-existant practice these days. Travelstart (which does have some incentives to make you believe that), put out a press release on how they gouge you $ wise. I'd definitely suggest doing some price comparison and going the online route rather than booking through an agent.

 

[Icarium]

... Calling a place like flight centre might get you a good price on your airfare, but beyond that you can do it all yourself.

Tried that for my latest holiday, flight centre couldn't get close to the prices you can get via most of the airlines' online portals.

 

[FuLL_MeT4L]

Travel Agents aren't really worth it for local holidays. You'll be much better off doing it yourself, and you'll also get well acquainted with the area that you'll be visiting during your research. The best thing about doing it yourself is you can pick the things you like that actually fit your budget, instead of having to repeatedly turn down suggestions from the agent.

You can compare flight prices from various airlines online through travelstart and other website. A quick google will bring up lots of sites. Calling a place like flight centre might get you a good price on your airfare, but beyond that you can do it all yourself.

Car hire - You can use car hire aggregators to get the best deal on rentals too. I recently booked a car in CT through Hertz but it was done on a special through rentalcars.com.

For accommodation, try TripAdvisor to read up on the area and places where you want to stay - you'll get a wealth of reviews that will tell you whether a place is worth staying at or not. My favourite online accommodation sites are WhereToStay and SafariNow. I'm a Honeycard member so I get lovely discounts through WhereToStay.

Have you considered driving down instead of flying and renting a car? You can pick a place along the way and break your drive down into 2 days, staying somewhere in the pretty Drakensburg area along the way. Flights and car rental work out fairly expensive, especially if you're more than 2 people. Also, driving your own car is far nicer than driving a rental.

Great tips! Totally agree on doing it all yourself; it almost always works out cheaper.

In terms of accommodation I really like TravelGround and SafariNow myself. WhereToStay is decent I'm sure, but damn their website is so so ugly! I think my eyes shriveled up a little.

 

[^^vampire^^]

On the flipside every international holiday I've done it has not been possible to beat the travel agents prices.
I did extensive research and contacted the places myself for better rates than what the travel agent could secure and I just couldn't. Even getting flights through the airlines directly.

Flights, accommodation, food and travel all lumped together has always been cheaper through an agent for me. However I do shop around a lot between a few agents and make sure I'm getting the lowest deal available - cheaper than their advertised stuff of course.

I wouldn't use an agent for local travel though, just hop in the car with the GPS and google and you are set

 

[Icarium]

On the flipside every international holiday I've done it has not been possible to beat the travel agents prices.
I did extensive research and contacted the places myself for better rates than what the travel agent could secure and I just couldn't. Even getting flights through the airlines directly.

Flights, accommodation, food and travel all lumped together has always been cheaper through an agent for me. However I do shop around a lot between a few agents and make sure I'm getting the lowest deal available - cheaper than their advertised stuff of course.

I wouldn't use an agent for local travel though, just hop in the car with the GPS and google and you are set

It may be true if they're arranging everything for you. But just flights? I booked return flights to Boston a week ago via the BA website for R17k. The best that flight centre could find was just under R20k, even though they'd ended up looking at almost exactly the same flight with the same airline. This has been a constant - they've never managed to beat the prices I could find for myself in 5 minutes, despite having a lot more options at thier disposal.

Maybe it's just flight center?

 

[^^vampire^^]

It may be true if they're arranging everything for you. But just flights? I booked return flights to Boston a week ago via the BA website for R17k. The best that flight centre could find was just under R20k, even though they'd ended up looking at almost exactly the same flight with the same airline. This has been a constant - they've never managed to beat the prices I could find for myself in 5 minutes, despite having a lot more options at thier disposal.

Maybe it's just flight center?

I think if its just flights or just a car then yes it would be a waste because they are getting exactly what you could get with their fee on top, but for a full international package I don' think they can be beat.

 

[waynegohl]

On the flight centre website they say they will beat any price on a given day under certain conditions and the discount they offer is R20 off local and R50 off international flights so how is that beating another quote because it ain't much at all?

 

[GonzoTho]

On the flipside every international holiday I've done it has not been possible to beat the travel agents prices.
I did extensive research and contacted the places myself for better rates than what the travel agent could secure and I just couldn't. Even getting flights through the airlines directly.

Flights, accommodation, food and travel all lumped together has always been cheaper through an agent for me. However I do shop around a lot between a few agents and make sure I'm getting the lowest deal available - cheaper than their advertised stuff of course.

I wouldn't use an agent for local travel though, just hop in the car with the GPS and google and you are set

That is really strange. I often work with travel agents for business trips (due to the fact that the company pays and it is convenient) and even though we get 10% discount from the agent (due to extremely regular bookings) the flights are still more expensive than buying them privately. I know because when I travel for personal reasons I always ask for a quote and compare and not once has the agent been cheaper than booking directly.

Something you should be aware of is that you should always use incognito mode in your browser when searching for airline tickets. I've found (on more than one occasion) that if I do a search for tickets and leave the page and then return later and do the same search I get inflated prices. Where as if I return in incognito mode the prices are still the same as the initial query.

Lastly, the only time I think the travel agent will be able to beat the prices that you get privately is when you do a package deal where you pay X amount for the flights + hotel + meals etc. I've never considered this as this is not the way I like to go on holiday. These deals are often only for <10days and includes accommodation in a fairly expensive hotel. I'm still fairly young and prefer going on longer holidays and staying in backpackers etc. I managed to travel Europe last year on a budget of R600 rand a day (excluding the flight over there, but including all other costs) and I went to Thailand the year before and spent r25000 in two months. This included the internationl flight and about r6000 that I spent on scuba diving.

 

[^^vampire^^]

That is really strange. I often work with travel agents for business trips (due to the fact that the company pays and it is convenient) and even though we get 10% discount from the agent (due to extremely regular bookings) the flights are still more expensive than buying them privately. I know because when I travel for personal reasons I always ask for a quote and compare and not once has the agent been cheaper than booking directly.

Something you should be aware of is that you should always use incognito mode in your browser when searching for airline tickets. I've found (on more than one occasion) that if I do a search for tickets and leave the page and then return later and do the same search I get inflated prices. Where as if I return in incognito mode the prices are still the same as the initial query.

Lastly, the only time I think the travel agent will be able to beat the prices that you get privately is when you do a package deal where you pay X amount for the flights + hotel + meals etc. I've never considered this as this is not the way I like to go on holiday. These deals are often only for <10days and includes accommodation in a fairly expensive hotel. I'm still fairly young and prefer going on longer holidays and staying in backpackers etc. I managed to travel Europe last year on a budget of R600 rand a day (excluding the flight over there, but including all other costs) and I went to Thailand the year before and spent r25000 in two months. This included the internationl flight and about r6000 that I spent on scuba diving.

I was referring to the package deals. I definitely wouldnt get separate things from travel agencies because then you are definitely getting ripped off. Even if you do a package holiday, just ask the hotel etc afterwards that you want to extend your stay at the same rate and turn that 10 day holiday into 20 and get the agent to move the flights for the same price.

 

[Spliffcat]

Travel Agents take anything from 20 to 30% for a booking fee. I would advise to contact your place of accommodation directly and ask them for any specials they have. Tell them you avoided the agents. You should get a good discount then.