Going Solo Travel Agent

[Rianne]

I mentioned this in another post. Would like feedback or experience if anyone else did this.

I booked this trip with SAS to Prague for May 28, 2019, very happy with one airline and good pricing, $961/ticket RT.

Then I got a wild hair and decided to plan and book the whole trip. I got online searched around, looked at maps, read reviews. I wanted a human to verify. We are members of hotels.com. I called and told her my ideas. I wanted apartments not hotel rooms. Wanted great locations and easy access to trains. My travel plan: Prague to Olomouce to Vienna to Budapest.

I secured lovely apartments in each location except Budapest. Hotel.com agent said Budapest is wide open and very inexpensive. The other locals should be booked soon, they fill up quickly, especially apartments. One of the apartments (in Prague) is >1000 sq. feet. The other 2 (Olomouc and Vienna) > 800 sq feet with kitchens, and washing machines for clothes.



Prague apartment: 387 Euro for 3 nights Total. That's $148/night. We'll have 4 people.
Olomouc apartment: 543 Euro for 4 nights Total. $156/night, 4 people
Vienna apartment: 464 Euro for 2 nights Total: $267/night, 4 people


Apartments, excellent locations and do not charge until arrival. Cancellation fee, one night fee.



All cost sharing, so pretty affordable so far. I'm deciding on Budapest due to political issues so we'll see.

 

[Octogirl]

DH and I self planned & booked all of our 2 week trip to Ireland and Scotland (2017) .
We used online travel blogs,reviews, etc to educate ourselves. We purchased travel insurance for just in case problems. I booked flights, rental cars, hotels, planned restaurants, and 1 day trips. Loved it !!

 

[Nemo2]

Budapest.

In Budapest, (we mainly walked everywhere), we purchased a 24 hour transit pass.....rode the oldest & the newest subways, the cog railway in Buda, a transit ferry up the Danube, and the following morning before the pass expired wandered hither & yon aimlessly on streetcars.

 

[davebarnes]

I am confused.
How else would you do it?

We spend 8+ months planning each trip.
Buy air tickets first to lock in dates and 2 end cities.
Then AirBnB apartments for each city (no more than 5 over 22 days).
Then train tickets for inter-city travel.
Then museums if advance tix are really necessary (cf. Sagrada Familia).
For restaurants we rely on TripAdvisor and Yelp to find better/OK places and avoid horrible/tourist traps.

We leave the USA with a list of museums, things to do, special restaurants in each city. We have found that we ignore a good part of the list upon arrival.

 

[Octogirl]

We used to sometimes do trips planned by Travel agents. It was when the kids were younger and I did not have time to plan. But I find I prefer to make my own reservations etc now that it is just DH and I .

 

[explanade]

DH and I self planned & booked all of our 2 week trip to Ireland and Scotland (2017) .
We used online travel blogs,reviews, etc to educate ourselves. We purchased travel insurance for just in case problems. I booked flights, rental cars, hotels, planned restaurants, and 1 day trips. Loved it !!

We used to sometimes do trips planned by Travel agents. It was when the kids were younger and I did not have time to plan. But I find I prefer to make my own reservations etc now that it is just DH and I .

I wonder how many travel agents are left these days.

You can get travel advice about every possible destination online now. Travel agents have vested financial interests so you can't be sure they're giving the best advice or recommendations for you.

Certainly planning and booking trips yourself can be a lot of work. But it's a good way to learn about the places you're visiting.

Travel is one of the things the web has changed fairly drastically.

 

[explanade]

I mentioned this in another post. Would like feedback or experience if anyone else did this.

I booked this trip with SAS to Prague for May 28, 2019, very happy with one airline and good pricing, $961/ticket RT.

Then I got a wild hair and decided to plan and book the whole trip. I got online searched around, looked at maps, read reviews. I wanted a human to verify. We are members of hotels.com. I called and told her my ideas. I wanted apartments not hotel rooms. Wanted great locations and easy access to trains. My travel plan: Prague to Olomouce to Vienna to Budapest.

I secured lovely apartments in each location except Budapest. Hotel.com agent said Budapest is wide open and very inexpensive. The other locals should be booked soon, they fill up quickly, especially apartments. One of the apartments (in Prague) is >1000 sq. feet. The other 2 (Olomouc and Vienna) > 800 sq feet with kitchens, and washing machines for clothes.



Prague apartment: 387 Euro for 3 nights Total. That's $148/night. We'll have 4 people.
Olomouc apartment: 543 Euro for 4 nights Total. $156/night, 4 people
Vienna apartment: 464 Euro for 2 nights Total: $267/night, 4 people


Apartments, excellent locations and do not charge until arrival. Cancellation fee, one night fee.



All cost sharing, so pretty affordable so far. I'm deciding on Budapest due to political issues so we'll see.

Do you get special discounts for being members of hotels.com?

The prices are pretty much the same. Sometimes, hotel sites offer a discount compared to the big booking engines like hotels.com, Expedia, booking.com.

But there are also small, family-run hotels which don't have online booking -- you basically send them a message with your dates and they reply.

Back in the early days of the web, you had to wire them money as deposit for the reservation.

I haven't used Airbnb enough to see how their prices track, compared to other apartment rental sites. That service fee and the cleaning fee varies from property to property.

 

[jcfradio]

I am confused.
How else would you do it?

We spend 8+ months planning each trip.
Buy air tickets first to lock in dates and 2 end cities.
Then AirBnB apartments for each city (no more than 5 over 22 days).
Then train tickets for inter-city travel.
Then museums if advance tix are really necessary (cf. Sagrada Familia).
For restaurants we rely on TripAdvisor and Yelp to find better/OK places and avoid horrible/tourist traps.

We leave the USA with a list of museums, things to do, special restaurants in each city. We have found that we ignore a good part of the list upon arrival.

+1
We do the same thing for our trips, in pretty much the same sequence. Depending upon how busy some of the destinations are, I also wait until I am near our destinations and decide upon how many days we are going to spend there and then book our accommodations up to a few days in advance. We did this last year, when some friends and I went to small city Peru for 3 weeks. When we landed in Lima, we had only booked an Air BnB in Trujillo and a hotel in Cusco; the rest were done when we were in Peru.

So far, I have always self booked, but I could see using a small tour package in the future, if I was going somewhere where language could be a barrier such as Vietnam or China. One benefit, I find from self-booking is that it makes you research the area ahead of time to understand the transportation systems, restaurants and sights to see rather than relying on someone else to decide it for you. But that is just my preference; others are more comfortable with tours. In the end, it just matters that you get out to see the world.

 

[explanade]

I am confused.
How else would you do it?

We spend 8+ months planning each trip.
Buy air tickets first to lock in dates and 2 end cities.
Then AirBnB apartments for each city (no more than 5 over 22 days).
Then train tickets for inter-city travel.
Then museums if advance tix are really necessary (cf. Sagrada Familia).
For restaurants we rely on TripAdvisor and Yelp to find better/OK places and avoid horrible/tourist traps.

We leave the USA with a list of museums, things to do, special restaurants in each city. We have found that we ignore a good part of the list upon arrival.

Yeah I tend to overplan and come up with itinerary containing things which I may or may not do depending on the weather, time, etc.

But I also revisit many places so the information I research and distill down to basics often turn out to be useful in the future.

I also put in things like admission fees so I can see how much prices change in a few years.

 

[brett]

The only time we use a travel agent is when we book a cruise. And then, only because many TA's provide a rebate on their commission in the form of on board credits. Can be anywhere from 6-12 percent of the commissionable fare.

 

[cathy63]

Do you get special discounts for being members of hotels.com?

The prices are pretty much the same. Sometimes, hotel sites offer a discount compared to the big booking engines like hotels.com, Expedia, booking.com.

But there are also small, family-run hotels which don't have online booking -- you basically send them a message with your dates and they reply.

Back in the early days of the web, you had to wire them money as deposit for the reservation.

I haven't used Airbnb enough to see how their prices track, compared to other apartment rental sites. That service fee and the cleaning fee varies from property to property.

I like hotels.com because they rebate 10% of the room rate to you in the form of a credit that you can use towards another stay after 10 nights. I always check the direct hotel site as well and will book that way if it's truly cheaper, but it's rare to find rates that are 10% less than whatever hotels.com is offering.

AirBnBs in Europe are good in some situations. For short stays when you want to be in the city center, I've found that hotels which include breakfast are usually cheaper than nearby AirBnBs. If you want a bigger place for a longer stay with time to grocery shop and cook, or you have a car to park and you don't mind being a bit further out from the city, then AirBnB usually works out cheaper than a hotel.

 

[explanade]

I like hotels.com because they rebate 10% of the room rate to you in the form of a credit that you can use towards another stay after 10 nights. I always check the direct hotel site as well and will book that way if it's truly cheaper, but it's rare to find rates that are 10% less than whatever hotels.com is offering.

AirBnBs in Europe are good in some situations. For short stays when you want to be in the city center, I've found that hotels which include breakfast are usually cheaper than nearby AirBnBs. If you want a bigger place for a longer stay with time to grocery shop and cook, or you have a car to park and you don't mind being a bit further out from the city, then AirBnB usually works out cheaper than a hotel.

I've been mainly using Booking.com, because I like their interface. They usually have a lot of room details, like how big it is, the size, etc.

They always say I get 25% Genius Discounts from booking so much with them but my guess is they just give the lowest rates particular hotels will take, whereas maybe less-frequent users may get slightly higher rates?

In any event, I didn't see any price advantage or disadvantage to using them.

I did book a place Italy in May with Airbnb because that place has dedicated parking and laundry facilities in a city center.

The rest of that trip are mostly hotels and B&Bs though.

 

[Nemo2]

The only time we use a travel agent is when we book a cruise.

For us, we consider, (VTG, par exemple), them to be comparable to flight search engines when we're looking for cruises, (pretty much, but not totally, transatlantics),.....check the menu, check the cost/perks, purchase through whomever.

 

[Rianne]

We looked into AirBnB but they required prepayment in full. This was when we went out west for a month. And the locations, although gorgeous, we found they were far from towns or grocery stores etc. A couple of people I know were disappointed with cleanliness of the place, but I think the reviews take care of that.

I like the safety of hotels.com. I can call them with any issue and they do their best to solve it. Plus the extra free room after 10 stays.

When we were out west, I'd call them on my cell as we were driving and they'd give me many choices, prices, reviews over the phone within 20 miles or so of where we wanted to stop. The customer service was great.

 

[explanade]

Can you reach them from overseas?


Other thing about AirBnb is that when you do an initial search, they display the location but then on the page for the place itself, they don't specify where it is, how far away stores or restaurants are.

Booking.com shows that kind of info, as well as size of the room.

That's a big bugaboo about Airbnb for me. They don't display the size of the place and pictures can often be misleading.

 

[Souschef]

Obviously, the Internet has made things so much easier. On our first trip to the UK in 1984, I had to buy a railroad timetable book that was 2 inches thick and learn how to use it.
Our last train trip in Europe was booked on line and involved 5 train changes.

 

[brett]

nemo...have you ever used cruisecompete.com?

It is essentially a tender site where you put your cruise out to tender. TA's respond to the request through the site, not directly to you.

You can use it to find a TA or as a yardstick to judge the price that an agency gives you. There are, unfortunately, one or respondents to cruisecompete pricing requests that have a habit of low balling. If you use the site a few times you get to know who they are

 

[Rianne]

Can you reach them from overseas?


Other thing about AirBnb is that when you do an initial search, they display the location but then on the page for the place itself, they don't specify where it is, how far away stores or restaurants are.

Booking.com shows that kind of info, as well as size of the room.

That's a big bugaboo about Airbnb for me. They don't display the size of the place and pictures can often be misleading.

Customer Service on hotels.com gave me an international phone number.

 

[Bamaman]

I've been traveling extensively in Europe for 48 years, and planning trips is a big part of the travel experience. We use travel agents for cruises only, and we've taken repositioning cruises to Europe the last 2 years.

We're flying to Madrid the end of May with our 7 year old granddaughter and returning 2 weeks later from Paris for $700 each. I was checking into rooms on Airbnb for Barcelona, and few rooms are available when we'll be there.

For rooms, we use Booking.com using a credit card as security. I don't care to pay on front end like Hotels.com and Airbnb.com usually require. Booking.com has incredible properties listed in every corner of the world.

Another method of finding rooms is to go to GoogleMaps and pull up a city. Then magnify the map and little icons popup that look like beds--with prices shown. Click on the icons and you can contact the hotels directly to make reservations.

We have traveled to both Vienna and Budapest many times.
In Vienna, we stay where Rick Steves used to stay--K&T Boardinghouse for 79-119 Euros.
In Budapest, we stay at a friend's apartment ($65) that's managed by Andy Croyden at BudapestApartmentService.com. He has a number of apartments available in great locations.

Like was said earlier, the internet has opened up a whole new world for independent travelers. I study every city visited on Wikipedia. Google Maps shows everything about the neighborhoods we are going to stay in. And I study public transportation maps about how to get around efficiently.

 

[explanade]

It's been brought up in other threads.

TripAdvisor has a lot of fake reviews but it's still a very useful resource, with volunteers being destination experts for just about every place you can imagine.

Fodors forums is useful as well.

It's been years since I bought a guide book.

Good way to avoid about a half pound of bulky paper.

I can save PDFs of my itineraries (TripIt and Kayak My Trips let you complete itineraries very easily, automatically filling in your hotel and flight reservations) and view them on my iPhone or iPad.

 

[Nemo2]

nemo...have you ever used cruisecompete.com?

It is essentially a tender site where you put your cruise out to tender. TA's respond to the request through the site, not directly to you.

You can use it to find a TA or as a yardstick to judge the price that an agency gives you. There are, unfortunately, one or respondents to cruisecompete pricing requests that have a habit of low balling. If you use the site a few times you get to know who they are

No, never used them, actually never even heard of them before your post....will take a boo.

(We've placed a deposit on a 7 day Med jaunt on one of our favorite ships, which will likely/hopefully be followed by a TA:

https://www.vacationstogo.com/fastdeal.cfm?deal=11203)

 

[brett]

We use VTG to shop the market and see whats what. Lately we have found that some cruise line late booking deals do not show up on VTG like they used to.

 

[Nemo2]

We use VTG to shop the market and see whats what. Lately we have found that some cruise line late booking deals do not show up on VTG like they used to.

VTG, and many other companies it appears, are constantly [-]upgrading/fixing[/-] meddling with their sites......just now I had trouble locating the above linked cruise on both VTG and Pullmantur.

Whatever happened to "If it ain't broke....."?

 

[cathy63]

...I don't care to pay on front end like Hotels.com and Airbnb.com usually require...

Hotels.com does not require payment up front when booking a hotel. Some hotels do have an option to pay in advance and get a lower non-refundable rate, but unless you're booking at the last minute and already within the cancellation window, they don't require that. When planning in advance I always book the regular cancellable rates. If we're on the road and looking for a place for that night, I'll do the pay-in-advance thing.

 

[brett]

We only pay in advance if there is a significant savings to be had. This sometimes happens on the Marriott or Accor sites. If you book in advance, often three nights, and pay in advance/non refundable we sometimes get a discount of 20 or 25 points. Especially in SE Asia.