Online booking vs travel agent for US > international travel

[2018]

We have always done all of our stateside trips online and then use packaged international trips .... usually through cruise lines or Costco. However, I started exploring a multi-city trip to Portugal and found it difficult to get the specific itinerary booking through Costco or even airlines.

So, I looked at various options to book online and wondered who you use when trying to book a complete multi-city trip that includes airfare, accommodations, trains, etc. . Is it a travel agent or something like booking.com or ? Single city trips are pretty simple, it's the multi city plan booking airlines with arrival and departure city being different, multi-city accommodations, tours, trains, etc that I want. I understand the process and am tech savvy, but want to use a safe, common site that is accepted by airlines, hotels/apartments, tours, etc.

US travel is Expedia, Google travel, heck even airlines will do flight/hotel combo most of the time ....... but I can't seem to find one for Europe. Do I end up using a travel agent ?

 

[athena53]

I suppose you could use a travel agent if there are any still around. They used to get decent commissions from the hotels and airlines but those have been cut way back except for high-volume operators. It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of where you want to go and what you want to do, though, so you'd pretty much be using them just to do the actual bookings.

In general, the third-party booking agencies are a bad idea- even with the well-known ones, if something goes wrong the booking agency and the airline or hotel may each blame the other. My last trip was Vienna, Brussels and Bruges and not a big deal to book on my own. I ALWAYS book flights and hotels in advance, and sometimes tours that tend to fill up quickly. The rest I leave till I get there so that a rainy day can be a museum visit and not a kayak paddle! I'm also a bit of a control freak about layovers on flights- short connection times make me nervous so I prefer to book my own (even knowing the airline may change schedules and mess it up anyway).

 

[CO-guy]

Personally, I always book flights directly with the airline. Beyond that, I can't add much. We prefer to research hotels, restaurants, and attractions in order to plan our own trip. Sometimes that includes booking a private guide and/or driver to make the best use of our time.

 

[L-5Player]

When I travel internationally, I always DIY. I try to maximize my various credits and miles with United, which means I must book directly through them. I also like being able to upgrade during check-in for a fraction of the price.

For hotels, I book direct as well. They all have websites, many with what seems to be a standardized reservation UI. This makes it clear whether you're including breakfast, booking a cancelable room, etc. - and sometimes there's a discount for joining their rewards club (even if you'll never use it again).

Then I look at special events in the cities I'm visiting, things like concerts or festivals. I'll book those in advance. I make a dinner reservation for the day of arrival so I'm not dying of hunger searching for food on that long day. Other tickets I'll buy casually during the months of waiting, or just improvise upon arrival.

I would not use an aggregator for these trips. There are simply too many moving parts. While that's exactly what the aggregator ostensibly tries to help with, it makes flexibility, last minute changes, and refunds difficult. If you've ever dealt with customer service with Expedia, Orbitz, etc., then 'nuf said.

I should add that booking trains is usually easy with the country's transit app(s). I've done this in UK, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, and Sweden so far. All the apps have English UIs, and it makes life easy having scannable tickets on your phone. Again, I can't imagine an agent booking this type of thing for me.

 

[audreyh1]

We have always done all of our stateside trips online and then use packaged international trips .... usually through cruise lines or Costco. However, I started exploring a multi-city trip to Portugal and found it difficult to get the specific itinerary booking through Costco or even airlines.

So, I looked at various options to book online and wondered who you use when trying to book a complete multi-city trip that includes airfare, accommodations, trains, etc. . Is it a travel agent or something like booking.com or ? Single city trips are pretty simple, it's the multi city plan booking airlines with arrival and departure city being different, multi-city accommodations, tours, trains, etc that I want. I understand the process and am tech savvy, but want to use a safe, common site that is accepted by airlines, hotels/apartments, tours, etc.

US travel is Expedia, Google travel, heck even airlines will do flight/hotel combo most of the time ....... but I can't seem to find one for Europe. Do I end up using a travel agent ?

To do this kind of trip I book everything directly with the airline, hotel, etc.

To Europe we usually book a round trip “open jaw” with a US airline - arrive at one city and depart from a different European city.

We’ve often taken trains between cities, but for much more than a 5 hour train ride we’ll fly between cities and book one way tickets directly with a major European airline.

I haven’t used third party sites for booking airlines or hotels in forever.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

We booked our trip next year with a travel agent and didn’t see any value in it at all. First, they charged $100; I guess free travel agents aren’t the norm any more? Then we watched as she logged onto what appeared to be the same Viking website I could see at home. She did give a few pieces of good advice, but I later got those same nuggets by googling. We asked for airfare options, and when she got back to us with several choices they were all much more expensive than what I found using google flights. So I booked air myself on the airline’s website.

I’m hoping that if things go sideways the agent can go to bat for us.

So, I think I learned a lesson that cost me a hundred bucks.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

I also do all my own travel arrangements. I do that directly with the airline, hotel, train company, etc. However, I use aggregators such as Expedia, Google Flights, etc. to compare pricing and time options across multiple companies. Once I see arrangements that "work", I proceed to that company's website to make the bookings. I also do my own research about what I want to see and do when I get to the destination. And I make advance ticket purchases where it makes sense or is required. I love doing all this research and booking.

 

[RetiredHappy]

I have always done all the researcch and booked them all myself, which normally includes from/to US, European domestic flights, a combination of trains and lastly taxis once within the city. I do run my entire logistics by my husband for another look over.

 

[MichaelB]

Most online ticketing agents technically are resellers. This is Expedia’s business model. For the airline or hotel, the customer is Expedia, and any issue with the end-user (us) is not their problem.

A few online agents, like booking dot com, are true agents, taking a commission to facilitate a deal between traveler and service provider.

The difference between the 2 is most obvious when something goes wrong with travel arrangements. If one has booked through the reseller and is mid-journey somewhere along the itinerary, they need to deal with the reseller, which typically for an online transaction, means an online chat or email. No phone numbers or fact to face.

 

[fosterscik]

I agree with all the posters above. DIY works best for us (and probably you once you give it a go). The only point I have to add: I really like tripit (the app or website) to double check everything. I don't have the app scan my emails (not keen on that from a privacy standpoint). It's simple to forward any booking confirmation emails to trip@tripit.com. The site/app adds it to your itinerary for a trip and you start building your vacation. The free app works well without any subscription. I do pay after a few years of free use. I like to support really useful software but it really doesn't add much to its utility.

It's easy to scan a tripit itinary for any missing hotel nights (or double booked nights!). It allows me to upload pdf's of important documents into the app (no more paper printing) and rarely fails to autogenerate an entry from an email. If it does fail, manual entry is easy. It captures check in and check out times. Really useful to me.

 

[audreyh1]

I also do all my own travel arrangements. I do that directly with the airline, hotel, train company, etc. However, I use aggregators such as Expedia, Google Flights, etc. to compare pricing and time options across multiple companies. Once I see arrangements that "work", I proceed to that company's website to make the bookings. I also do my own research about what I want to see and do when I get to the destination. And I make advance ticket purchases where it makes sense or is required. I love doing all this research and booking.

I use Google flights too, but it sends me right to the airline to book the flight unlike Expedia, etc. Google maps also shows hotel pricing in a given area, plus reviews and will send you to the booking company of your choice, including direct with the hotel. It’s great for comparison shopping. Google maps also does public transportation routing and often shows pricing as well - very handy for Europe.

 

[fosterscik]

I thought I'd add a mention of Rome2rio. Another very useful site to get ideas of how to get from point A to point B. I use it a lot when in Europe. If I want to get from, say, Bad Ischl Austria to Barcelona, Spain it will list many possible routes by train, air, car boat...
I find it very helpful in planning my own way, You can't trust the prices it suggests (they can be way off) but it has links to the correct local railway vendors etc.

 

[athena53]

I agree with all the posters above. DIY works best for us (and probably you once you give it a go). The only point I have to add: I really like tripit (the app or website) to double check everything. <snip>

It's easy to scan a tripit itinary for any missing hotel nights (or double booked nights!). It allows me to upload pdf's of important documents into the app (no more paper printing) and rarely fails to autogenerate an entry from an email. If it does fail, manual entry is easy. It captures check in and check out times. Really useful to me.

I've been using tripit for years. I agree- good for double-checking the itinerary it generates to see that your hotel dates line up with flight dates, etc.

It came in handy 3 years ago when I was leaving Germany. I'd lost my passport on a side trip to Malta and had a temporary replacement issued at the Embassy there. Flew back to Munich and when I was going through Passport Control for my flight home the agent had no documentation of when I'd arrived since the replacement passport didn't show my entry date. (For longer stays you need a Schengen Visa). He asked if Id saved my boarding passes. No. I pulled up the Tripit app and showed him my itinerary. He accepted that and I was on my way.

 

[fosterscik]

I had a similar problem solved by Tripit. We were arriving in Indonesia and opted to go with a visa on arrival. Three years ago the online system to get visas for Indonesia was notoriously difficult to use. Got to the immigration desk (they've since installed automatic gates in Bali and Jakarta) and the immigration person asked for the boarding pass from our arrival plane! I'd left it in a trash bin on exit... The border guard accepted the tripit itinerary.

 

[brett]

We make our own travel arrangements. The one exception is cruises. We use a discount TA for cruises since all we need is the booking, no advice.

Have done this for the past 15 years or longer. Never an issue. For accommodation we book direct when possible. Smaller, family run hotels, etc. often offer us either a discount for cash or an upgrade of some sort for cash payment.

 

[brett]

On more than one occasion we have found price differences, same for same, between US travel websites, booking sites, and in country booking sites.

The largest was a last minute RCI Australia New Zealand cruise that we booked in Australia. The best price our discount NA cruise TA could provide was approx 33 percent higher than the price we obtained by booking in Australia. The prices/quotes were obtained with 12 hours of each other because of time deltas.

Surprisingly we had the same experience with air and with packages in South America and in Europe. When my son was living in London we were planning a visit and a trip to Greece. He suggested we call a UK travel agent. We did. Buying a package deal, flight/hotel to Cyprus via the UK TA was substantially below our NA agents price quote. Not certain why this is...perhaps simply an exhorbitant price uplift.

 

[NoiseBoy]

I will second the recommendation for using RomeToRio to explore different options for getting around in Europe.

I use Google flights almost exclusively to find my flights and then I always book directly with the Airline. The only exception to that recently was a trip the spanned two airlines so I booked it using one of the suggested resellers from Google. They did add a fee which I don't think was included in the price that I saw on Google Flights. It still ended up being a better deal than any single airline option that I could find.

Just last week I used VacationsToGo.com to book my next cruise. In my short history of cruising I had always booked directly with the cruise line, but pretty much every experienced cruiser I talked with on my last trip told me that they used a travel agent, so I gave it a shot. Turns out, they knew what they were talking about. I saved $88 off of the cheapest fare with the cruise line, but in addition to that, I was able to choose my cabin, which would have cost me even more if I'd booked the cruise myself. No fees either and a very friendly US based agent.

When I go to Europe, I generally get an Airbnb and "occupy" the city for a week or two. I just find that kind of trip more relaxing than moving hotels every 2 or 3 days. I guess this information doesn't do much to help the OP.

 

[brett]

I will second the recommendation for using RomeToRio to explore different options for getting around in Europe.

I use Google flights almost exclusively to find my flights and then I always book directly with the Airline. The only exception to that recently was a trip the spanned two airlines so I booked it using one of the suggested resellers from Google. They did add a fee which I don't think was included in the price that I saw on Google Flights. It still ended up being a better deal than any single airline option that I could find.

Just last week I used VacationsToGo.com to book my next cruise. In my short history of cruising I had always booked directly with the cruise line, but pretty much every experienced cruiser I talked with on my last trip told me that they used a travel agent, so I gave it a shot. Turns out, they knew what they were talking about. I saved $88 off of the cheapest fare with the cruise line, but in addition to that, I was able to choose my cabin, which would have cost me even more if I'd booked the cruise myself. No fees either and a very friendly US based agent.

When I go to Europe, I generally get an Airbnb and "occupy" the city for a week or two. I just find that kind of trip more relaxing than moving hotels every 2 or 3 days. I guess this information doesn't do much to help the OP.

Ditto. We use google flights, itmatrix, and skyscanner. The latter we find particularly good for low cost carriers in Europe and SE Asia.

Last time in Greece we were surprised to find lower cost domestic flights on Expedia than were on the Olympic/Aegean web sites. Same for same, booking two or three days in advance of departure.

 

[nwsteve]

We often book ocean and river cruises but use an agent at Affordable Tours. We get a great resource to advocate for us plus generous on board credits which we would not get if we booked directly with the travel providers. Our agent and her exceptional knowledge about what is possible from each provider has provided SUBSTANTIAL value.

 

[planuntilthefisthits]

OP, we generally are DYIers vs TA users. After making complex trip itineraries, I enter every bit of info on a spreadsheet, thereby double-checking that dates and time align.

I use travel agents for high-end cruises…my TA’s company offers 10% discounts. But, one needs to feed the info to the agent and not expect hand-holding.

The only other time I’ve used a TA is booking luxury hotel properties when that agent has the ability to get confirmed perks. I have thought about using specialized agencies that cater to region-specific itineraries— which can be super-expensive.

 

[FIREd]

For international airlines, ferries, or car rentals, I book directly from the company. For hotels, I use Bookings.

I made the mistake to use Booking.com for a flight to Turkey on Turkish Airlines 2 years ago. A while later I received a message from Turkish Airlines to let me know that my flight had been canceled. I called them and they said that I needed to go through Bookings to get reimbursed or change my flight. Well, Bookings' online help system was absolutely no help at all and I had to fight tooth and nail to get someone on the phone to get my money back. I rebooked with Turkish directly. Way too much hassle and frustration.

 

[DrRoy]

We have done quite a few international DIY trips. Often we use Booking.com for lodging, but check if the direct site has the same rate. Direct with airlines and car rental. As you said, tis lets you have the exact itinerary that you want. Tours rarely match what we want to do. It does take a lot more effort, and we may not keep doing it indefinitely.

 

[YB88]

Booking.com will book airline flights too, I think, though I've not done this through them.

Costco travel: my understanding is that they only offer flights that have a lot of customer volume on them. Trying to fly from one sort of 'secondary' city in Europe to another I found that their flight booking recognized neither airport. And of course you cannot book just a flight with costco travel, they sell 'experiences', packages, so that you also must book at least one hotel room or rental car or something.
The result is that, while we're costco 'executive' members, for the type of travel my wife and I do we've never found costco travel to be a viable option for us. Maybe some time in the future as I've heard they're great for what they do offer.

 

[2018]

Thanks all for the helpful feedback. Yes, I'm very comfortable direct booking airlines & trains, and I should have emphasized my gap was in finding the best online tool for booking accommodations in Europe.

Based on feedback I'll probably use Booking dot com or direct book hotel/aparthotels, in addition to exploring VRBO and airbnb.

I'm checking out Tripit too.

 

[audreyh1]

Thanks all for the helpful feedback. Yes, I'm very comfortable direct booking airlines & trains, and I should have emphasized my gap was in finding the best online tool for booking accommodations in Europe.

Based on feedback I'll probably use Booking dot com or direct book hotel/aparthotels, in addition to exploring VRBO and airbnb.

I'm checking out Tripit too.

Seriously, booking directly with hotels has worked very well for me. Some prevalent European hotel chains even have discounts for members or let you apply points for a discount.