DIY or Travel Agent ?

[sparklyfiona]

Just booked via travel agent as it was best price for us, villas seem to have gone up a lot!

[Andybear]

I book DIY and after reading all the travel agent horror stories on here I will never use one even if they are cheaper than what I can book DIY. I would rather pay a bit more than have all that hassle and stress. I have enough stress in my life - any that I can avoid, I will.

[Segdude]

Historically (i.e. when I was working) I used Charter Travel to organise my flights and car hire. This was partly because it's what I'd always done and partly due to time constraints.
This year I'm doing it all DIY and have already beaten the their quote for flights, so now just need to sort out the car hire, which even if it's slightly more expensive I'll still be ahead money wise.

[DYNAMO]

Thanks for replies. Probably gonna do it all myself now but just seen that my Thomas Cook Premium economy flights next year have just gone up £100 per seat so £700 more now!

[Nimbus]

It depends what you mean by booking DIY.

If you book a package holiday then you get additional protection and ATOL and/or ABTA will cover your entire package holiday. If you book all the elements separately then ATOL/ABTA won't usually protect all parts of your holiday.

You can book a package holiday online yourself although technically that usually means booking through a travel agent. You're just not doing it face-to-face. So it depends on whether you consider booking a package online yourself as "DIY".

The last time we actually went into a high-street travel agent to book a holiday was back in 2014 (I think). We wanted to do a split stay in Orlando and couldn't work out how to do it at the time and so sought help. Since then we've booked online - sometimes a package or sometimes separately. Whenever we've booked a package it's usually because we can't get it cheaper booking it separately.

[novocastrian]

Originally Posted by toonarmani

Price it up DIY then get a TA to beat it - works every year

See more...

This

last year we used a agent (mate of the mrs) we told him roughly how much we paid the year before (same date/flight/accomodation) and asked him to see what he could do to match it

2 days later we had a call all sorted less than the previous year (we then added in NYC on the return leg)

jobs a good un & no endless days/nights spent online looking at flights etc etc

obviously we could have saved if we had looked ourselves but hey ho...

[DYNAMO]

Many Thanks for all comments and all advice appreciated. In the end I have gone through a travel agent who offered me a good price and has been extremely helpful. I go away in a couple of days for this year's holiday and felt it best to get it sorted so I can enjoy this years holiday without thinking too much about next years.

Have settled on travelling Thomas Cook Premium from Manchester and staying 7n on site at Port Orleans French Quarter and then 8n at a villa. The villa ends up being the first one "er indoors" saw and fell in love with!

Booked through Mattie at My Magic Holiday and would recommend him to others. Excellent service and very knowledgeable.

Can now relax and enjoy Barcelona in two days time!

[boarder4life]

Went with a travel agent on 5 trips on the 4th they didn’t pick us up for the transfer. Spending 2 hours panicking we wouldn’t make the flight to be greeted by the travel agents why are you rushing it’s delayed for 10 hrs.

I flatly refused to go with a travel agent again although they offered me a full holiday to Florida for £500 (flights,hotel,transfers,every park ticket including discovery cove).

After that have always booked all my holidays myself, I’ve been all over the world DIY. My wife will always go into the travel agents to try and better it and sometimes they are up to £1000 more expensive.

Travel insurance and planning you can’t go wrong.

[donnacraig1984]

Hi. Been to orlando 3 times, once with tui. Twice DIY. Doing it DIY make it your holiday, tailored to your party. We book everything with a credit card for protection. Gotta say DIY gives you butter flies in your tummy with excitment too.

[Mezza1991]

9 Year of going to Orlando we have always booked via TA.

We look to do DIY every year but it somehow seems to work out cheaper booking with TA.

just for example, 2 weeks TC staying at the Avanti Resort 27th Setepmber (£650pp).

We couldn't get DIY anywhere near that