Winging It

I gave up on travel agents back in 2002 when I was trying to fly to Dallas from Boston for a conference. For the heck of it, I went online to see what the fares were. I found a flight from Boston to Dallas for ~$500. I called our corporate travel agent, and asked for a flight from Boston to Dallas. I was quoted $1500 for the exact same flights. In fact, I was looking at the web fare when I was on the phone with her. When I told the corporate agent that I was about to push "purchase" on the $500 web fare instead of going with her flight, she "dug a little deeper into the fare" (I remember this exact line for some reason) and found some sort of "cross zone discount" (I'm paraphrasing there) that brought the fare to the $500 I saw on the web. I purchased the flight through the corporate agent just to save a hassle when filling out the expense report.

Of course when I went in and told my boss that he owed me $1000 in my next bonus (plus some of the money I saved the other folks in the office by notifying them of the cross zone discount) I was told that while the shareholders will thank me, travel savings cannot be given as bonuses. Looking back, I wish I had spent the $1500.

I question the reliability of the numbers cited by the study.

My company ($88B in 2006 revenue) has a corporate travel agent and I neither use their web-tools nor telephone their travel agents when I schedule travel (I spend 70% of my work weeks traveling).

Here's why: The company charges a flat fee when using their services to book each airfare trip - $40 online and $80 via agent. I compare and find better prices and schedules using USAirways and Orbitz (to get code-share flights with United). Plus I have profiles built at hoteliers' and car rentals agencies' sites so I can book online with more options - many less expensively than using only those offered through the corporate plan.

As I understand it the company receives a kickback at the end of the year for the volume of spend via the agency. Personally though I get more points and spend less up-front going it alone.

Why should I trust the Topaz Study? According to the document "Topaz International provides strategic support to the corporate travel management professional." Based on that, I would hardly call Topaz unbiased. For business travel, since I'm bound to use a corporate travel agent I don't usually compare prices.
I only compare when I feel I'm getting jobbed by the travel agent. In those cases, the travel agent usually finds a lower rate after some prodding.

For personal travel, my experience is that the airline websites provide lower prices, providing you plan earlier. Business travel, tends to be on the spur of the moment.

Have to use corporate for business travel and usually they beat anything I can get on-line, even getting rooms in hotels that look booked on line. Personal travel, haven't used a travel agent in years and I can book a better package than Apple or Liberty anytime.

I make my own reservations...I know the times I want to fly, where I want to stay and what car company I want to rent from. Why pay a travel agent for something I can do myself and the best part.. If an error is made, I know exactly who to blame///

I was a corporate travel agent for six years. I am inclined to agree with the survey results for a variety of reasons. 1. Corporate travel agents are mandated by the company to have their employees adhere to strict travel protocol. If an employee insisted on a more expensive option, it had to be documented and/or approved by a superior. I don't know if that still happens now if a traveler makes his or her own arrangements. 2. There are some "tricks of the trade" that can be done manually by agents that cannot be done by an individual using a computer. This applies more so to international travel, where fares can get very costly. 3. A travel agent computer screen can be quicker and easier to see lower fares and therefore the traveler benefits from this. Having used both Apollo and Sabre reservation systems, I find booking air travel on the Internet a very tedious process. One could just get frustrated or not have time to really seek out the lowest fare option.

I have found that travel agents book consistently more expensive itineraries than i can find on the web. I recently booked an extended business trip on three continents. The agent booked my trip at $4,100. I went to the web and booked the same trip with similar flights for $2,700, plus no $40 booking fee. The big difference was waiting four hours at Heathrow, instead of two, before a long overnight flight to Asia.

I think the real key is that only I can make a determination if a particular airline is satisfactory, if I'm comfortable with connection times and if waiting an extra two hours on a friday night would be OK if I save $1,400. Agents have to guess and assume.

The instant feedback and flexibility of the web is ideally suited for travel planning (if you know what you want.)

I use corporate travel agent for all my flights - they charge my company $14 online and $30 with an agent. There are 2 reasons I use this: 1) easier when I need to change my dates or cancel since they keep track of outstanding ticket balances 2) they are extremely helpful when there are weather issues and flight cancellations. They are able to help out with emergency situations and have great customer service for this.
For hotels and cars, I usually book online since I can enter corporate code for discount. It's also easier for me to adjust the dates for these or cancel if needed.

Up until about 20 years ago, I worked at places that had a travel agent or used a travel agency; things worked well. Since then I've been booking online, which I find a tremendously time-consuming process when you're looking for: a) the cheapest fare, b) you have time constraints, e.g., for a conference (even if you're booking 2-3 weeks ahead), c) you're trying to schedule arrival with someone flying in from another city, etc. There's Travelocity, Orbitz,& more; then there's the web sites of the individual airlines. It can be the better part of a day's work, as well as a waste of the company's money, given what they pay me.

It would certainly be worth it to me to pay a small fee to have someone reliable do the research and booking for me!

I try not to use travel agents, I've been doing it myself since the early 90's.

But my company has forced me to use an agency for trips, so that's offered me an opportunity for comparison. I'd say that the agency saves a whole $10-$15 per roundtrip. But then they charge a fee around $15, too. All for using their computers, because the service is online.

But the agency does some weird things like different carriers outbound and inbound. Which makes a frequent flyer headache, and for international travel they don't pay attention to aspects like 'US Flagged Carriers'.

I don't do the whole hotels and rental car thing as a package, so maybe that's where an agent can help out.

For personal use, I'll still do it myself.

I wish to comment specifically to Steve and his comments about my company. Topaz International takes great pride and seriousness regarding their unbiased studies and independence. We have nothing to gain by tilting the results in one direction or another, only in reporting what we find when hired by corporations to do the studies. We are not paid by any travel agencies for our services (and for that matter neither by online agencies).

I would challenge each traveler to demand the services they deserve from their corporate travel agencies. In most cases, your companies have contractual guarantees that requires them to find you the lowest fares. We have been in business for over 28 years because mistakes continue to be made by travel agencies. Just remember, these travel agents have a tough job. Thay have pressures of productivity and stress like all of us; but they still must perform. In addtion, keep the playing field level because a thirty minute difference between when you searched the net and called your agent can make a big difference. Airfares and availability continue to be a moving target, changing 500,000 times each day. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to respond.

As a corporate travel agent for 15 years. I can understand the mayority of the negative comments here. But I must say something on the travel agency's defense. Back in the late 90's and early 2000's the airlines invented what they call the "web fares" for the simple fact to have clients minimize the use of travel agents. Others like Orbitz, Expedia, etc. was using discounted fares, and the commissions to the agencies were eliminated. For that reason there are fees. These fees are placed to clients, specially to corporate travelers because of the constent changes to there reservations. These clients have found out that these changes they make are practically impossible to do with these "online agencies" like Orbitz, Expedia, because most of them don't allow the flight changes because the fare purchased was so cheap. Airlines don't like to deal with passengers at the counter making these ridiculous changes, but on the other hand the travel agents these people criticize so much are the ones that bend over backwards to satify these clients. The travel agencies nowadays offer exceptional customer service for which has a price on it. I do agree that not all are willing to go that extra mile, but that is a handful of them. I ask these corporate travelers, the next trip you have, please take the time and call your company's travel agency ask them to plan your trip. ask them to give you various options on airlines, connections and fares, then call the airline and ask them the same thing and do the same with these online services and plan the trip yourselves. Compare the time it takes you to plan online, the options of the airlines and the customer service of the agency and then see what happens. I can tell you this, it's frustrating and time consuming for us, and we as travel agents are so unappreciated for the wrong reasons. Remember this next time you speak to a travel agent. You are human too.
Thanks