Why You Should Use a Travel Agent Instead of Booking Online

Travel agents can provide a wealth of benefits that you won't find when booking online. Not only do they save customers money, but they also offer high-value travel through OTAs and can advocate for clients when things go wrong. Travel agents make traveling less stressful, and they can help you plan and book the perfect vacation. Plus, they can help you manage business trips and find the best way to make the most of your travels.

The Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA) states that booking with a travel agency accredited by the ATAS (AFTA Travel Accreditation Program) has many advantages. At the very least, it's worth visiting the hotel and airline websites quickly if they offer a significantly lower price than the agency's. When booking a vacation, destination wedding, or honeymoon, the last thing a traveler should do is worry. A travel agent can act as your travel advisor and help you choose between locations, cruises, activities and more.

If you want to book a trip around the world or a trip that includes several stops in several countries, several guided tours, hotels, cars, trains or anything else you can think of, an experienced travel agent can help you organize everything more easily and quickly than ever on your own. Another of the most frustrating recurring problems I hear in the industry, even in the best luxury hotels, is the notorious refusal to guarantee connecting rooms in advance for families who book several rooms (and pay a lot for them). A lot has changed in those eight years and many haven't, so, if anything, there are more reasons than ever to use a travel agency (for the record, good travel agencies prefer to be called travel advisors or, sometimes, travel consultants). And while some people use agents for their convenience, all the back-and-forth emails actually ended up taking up more time than the option to do it yourself.

To begin with, if the customer's flight is canceled while waiting for takeoff, you can ask us to rebook and protect your trip before you leave the plane. If you're a person who has to make regular business trips and you're always on the go and don't have much free time to connect to the Internet, book again. If you're a road enthusiast and you travel a lot for business, a travel agent can help you find the best way to manage your travel activities, from finding hotels with meeting rooms to booking tours so you can play golf with customers. In the 45 days before the trip was booked, from the start of the investigation to the final purchase, the traveling American visited a whopping 140 travel websites. I love writing rare, wonderful, interesting, forgotten and fascinating articles for intellectually curious people amazed by France, French culture and world travel. There is now only the voluntary Australian Travel Accreditation System (ATAS), managed by the lead agency of the Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA), which examines travel agents to ensure that they meet certain standards such as being trustworthy and properly trained.

Sebastián Vanbebber
Sebastián Vanbebber

Hardcore coffee enthusiast. General internet maven. Extreme travel evangelist. Avid twitter expert. Subtly charming beer advocate. Extreme food fan.