Booking direct vs Travel Agent

[iancal]

We have been doing most of our own travel arrangements for quite some time. 

 

About the only time we use a TA is when booking a cruise.  Even then, 90 percent of the time we are calling to get a firm quote and a booking.

 

Last time we tried a local travel agency (nine years ago) that supposedly specialized in Africa they could not answer some of our questions that we thought were quite basic.  She may have read us wrong because we we not interested in buying air inclusive packages or rental cars from her.  But.....we were definitely not lookie loos. 

 

 We ended up contacting the supplier directly in South Africa by email, facetime, etc.   It was perfect....none of the let me get back to you business or let me do the entire trip for you when we really did not need or want that to be done by the agency.  And the bonus...the same for same pricing was much better.

Edited January 17, 2022 by iancal

[no fuss travel]

We use a TA, but will book thru the cruise line at times and then transfer the booking to our TA. We had no problems whatsoever until the parent company decided to close down most of their offices locally and only left one office open. We have not been happy with the TA’s we have to deal with in that company and are thrilled that our excellent TA is now working for another travel agency. We will now be using her for everything again and at least she is in an office that is easy for us to get to.  For your information if you book with a Canadian TA company, and the tour company goe S broke, you will get your money back.

[Ex-Airbalancer]

30 minutes ago, no fuss travel said:

We use a TA, but will book thru the cruise line at times and then transfer the booking to our TA. We had no problems whatsoever until the parent company decided to close down most of their offices locally and only left one office open. We have not been happy with the TA’s we have to deal with in that company and are thrilled that our excellent TA is now working for another travel agency. We will now be using her for everything again and at least she is in an office that is easy for us to get to.  For your information if you book with a Canadian TA company, and the tour company goe S broke, you will get your money back.

In Ontario , there is Tico https://www.tico.ca for travel protection 

[intr3pid]

If you are purely after financial savings, you won't get any TA to beat what the Costcos and Air Canada Vacations of the world offer.  The amount of volume they generate is in a different bracket altogether.  If, on the other hand, you are looking for advice and guidance on what to book, you may want to work with a TA who is more knowledgeable than you and will be around over the years.   (We are yet to find one who knows more about cruising than we do, so we simply go with the financial savings.)