Be Very independant - don't ue them! (Travel Agents & Tour Operators in general)

Member Name: richt2000

Product:	Travel Agents & Tour Operators in general
Date:	19/09/02 (209 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Person To Talk To, Local, Advice

Disadvantages: Long Waits, Poor Service, Expensive

Introduction

My experiences of waiting around for hours in different travel agents have put me off using them now. I?ve found much better deals on-line.

We wanted to book a week in Rome and called into our local travel agent in Stockport, Cheshire.

We took a ticket and joined the queue of 5 couples waiting to book a holiday. We waited for about 2 hours to be seen. We were never offered a free drink. The place had a coffee shop but the prices were extortionate!

We finally got to see a ?travel consultant? at around 3 o?clock. We explained what we wanted to do ? travel to Rome on a particular day, stay in a particular hotel and fly back on a particular day. All of the hotel details were chosen from one of the companies brochures so we thought that it wouldn?t be a problem.

She phoned a number and we waited on hold for 1 ½ hours only to be told when we finally connected, that this wasn?t the line for bookings but cancellations! We waited a further hour on hold to the correct number to be told that there were no rooms in the hotel we wanted and that it was after 5:30pm so the flight computer wasn?t working. The consultant had a local system for flights which she found a flight from Manchester to Rome for £210 on the days we wanted but she had no way of booking it as it was too late.

We were told to return on Sunday as they could book the holiday then.

We went home rather annoyed as we?d waited for a whole afternoon and had got nothing out of it.

I decided to have a look on ba.com (British Airways) to see what they could do. They had the flight we wanted for £170 and I noticed a link on the site saying ?Do You Need a Hotel?? I clicked the link and it took me through to the BA hotel booking system and we found a nice room at the hotel we wanted. I booked it online and saved around £80 over the advertised price in the travel agents brochure.

Conclusion

I?m left wondering if I?ll ever
go to a travel agent again. Many people I know do the same, they book hotels and flights online and it must hit the travel agents hard.

I would recommend having a look on-line before you go to a travel agent. Even if you aren?t happy buying something like this on-line, you can at least try to get the agent to price-match it.

Summary: