Carolyn Fletcher’s honeymoon started heading south the moment she and her husband landed in Cancun. No one was there to pick up the newlyweds.
It took an hour for her to convince a van service to deliver them to their hotel. But when they checked into their four-star resort in Akumal, they discovered it was a “a two-star, at best,” she remembers.
“The grounds were unkempt and there was trash everywhere,” she said. “Our room smelled of mildew. I sat down on the bed to cry, only to find the sheets and mattress wet from the moisture and mildew. There was mold growing on the curtains, the walls and the furniture.”
Why am I telling you about Fletcher’s post-nuptial nightmare? Because she booked it online.
Some vacations should never be booked through anyone but a travel agent, and a honeymoon is arguably one of them. But there are others, too, as travelers like Fletcher are discovering.
A recent Forrester Research study suggests there’s something of a backlash when it comes to booking travel online. It concludes 15 percent fewer travelers will use the Web in 2009, compared with two years ago — a finding that comforts many travel agents who previously saw themselves on the endangered list.
(People have gotten a little carried away with the Forrester study, though. One headline writer suggested online booking might be the “worst part” of the trip. Right. That would be the flight, actually.)
It’s little consolation to Fletcher and her husband. “While most people will remember their honeymoon with happy memories, ours are filled with disparagement, frustration and regret,” she adds.
In trying to figure out when you shouldn’t book online, I thought I’d ask someone who works for an online travel agency. I put the question to Ginny Mahl, Travelocity’s vice president of sales and customer service. “There is still a place for traditional travel agents, particularly those that have carved out a niche, like adventure travel,” she said. “Depending upon the traveler and their needs, a face-to-face meeting with such a consultant could be wise.”
Of course, she adds, “higher fees will apply.”
Of course.
So when should you not book on the Internet? Here are seven kinds of trips.
1. Cruising
Travel agents remain your best bet for a floating vacation. Why? Two main reasons: First, cruise lines give travel agencies access to special deals that you probably won’t find anywhere else. And second, because a cruise can get complicated. There are airline tickets that have to be bought, hotel rooms to be booked, shore excursions and lots of options on the ship. “Often, cruise agents will book group space on popular sailings, which often entitle them to offer their clients bonus items — onboard money to spend, champagne toasts, discounted deposits and more,” says cruise expert Carmen Shirkey. “Plus, because they’ve booked space on the best cruises, other sites may tell you that there’s no availability, when a cruise agent can get you onboard, no problem.”
2. Traveling around the world
An around-the-the-world itinerary is usually far more complex than a straight-up roundtrip airline ticket. Never mind the hotel arrangements and activities you’ll want to plan. Travel agents are best suited to these kinds of vacations. Blogger and frequent traveler Steven Frischling has taken several around-the-world trips for business. “Last year, in a 3 1/2- day span, I photographed jobs in Philadelphia, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and Incheon — departing from and returning to Providence,” he says. “There was no online booking engine that would allow this itinerary.”
3. When you don’t have the time
If you work with a travel agent who knows your preferences, you might consider outsourcing the research for your next vacation. “If you’re a busy professional with no interest in doing the research and would rather be dreaming about sipping a Caipirinha on Copacabana beach than doing all the legwork to get there, why not work with an agent?” says Patricia Pinkney, who works for an artisan jewelry retailer. “In this case, they save time rather than money, but ultimately that may be more valuable to them.”
4. If you’re uncomfortable with the Inter-Web
If you’re reading this article online, this probably doesn’t apply to you. Karina Goldrajch, the co-founder of GenMobi Technologies, a security company, says people should stay away from booking online if they’ve never done it before, and particularly if their next trip is a special event, like an anniversary or honeymoon (see Fletcher’s story for more on that). But even if you’ve booked on the Web before, you should think twice before doing it again. “If you think that the Web site looks fishy, or something looks too good, it probably is,” she says.
5. Traveling internationally
A weekend in London is one thing. However, if you’re headed off to a country whose name you can’t pronounce, you probably need to stay off the computer — at least when you book. Find a travel professional that specializes in the place you’re going. Tonya Fitzpatrick, who hosts a travel radio show, learned that when she tried to help a family member and her companion after they booked a trip to Costa Rica online. “An international trip is a different animal,” she said. “At the end of the day they incurred more expenses because they booked online.”
6. Doing something exotic
This is for the trips that aren’t for everyone, such as sailing up the coast of British Columbia and Alaska, as the people who book Maureen Gordon’s Maple Leaf Adventures packages do. (Imagine climbing over the rail of a schooner into a zodiac to go bear-watching.) “When we speak to someone on the phone, we can make sure a trip is right for them,” she says. “And when you’re sharing 92-feet in the wilderness with eight others, plus guides, you want to know everyone around you is happy.”
7. Special events
A honeymoon, anniversary or class reunion falls into this category. But mostly, a honeymoon. “Engaged couples have enough to worry about,” said John Peters, the president of Tripology, a New York referral service for travel agents. “A honeymoon is a time where you need to be looked after, not when you should be worrying about yet another item on a to-do list that’s much too long to begin with.” An agent can make sure your vacation is as close to perfect as it can be, from start to finish. A travel professional can also make sure you’ve booked the right vacation.
Wondering if you should consult with a travel agent before your next vacation? There are some who think it’s always a good idea to phone a travel pro first. Sheryl Kayne, author of the book “Volunteer Vacations Across America,” said you should “never book online” before checking first with an agent — and that’s especially true of anyone considering a volunteer vacation, which, like a cruise, can get more complex than other trips. “You also don’t want to book a trip before knowing all of the requirements and conditions of the trip.”
Me? I’m not so convinced. I’d turn to a travel agent if I were going somewhere special for a family reunion and didn’t have the time to plan the whole thing. But travel agents aren’t charities, and they make almost nothing on a simple point-to-point airline ticket.
Yes, there are a few trips I can’t imagine planning through anyone except a travel pro. For the rest, I fire up my laptop computer.
(Photo: CasaDeQueso/Flickr Creative Commons)
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I’m not sure I agree about using a travel agent for international travel. I just returned from a two week trip to Thailand, Cambodia and Hong Kong. All booked online and not a hitch.
Now, I did spend a lot of time online researching hotels, etc, So I guess if you donlt have the time for that, then a agent would be very helpful.
Yeah… I don’t agree with this list. I’ll only book a cruise myself. And I have no qualms booking my own international trips. I do, however, agree about using professionals for exotic places or for special events. For example, for my 30th birthday, we went to Jamaica, and I found a travel agent who’s an expert at booking Sandals vacations. She got us a cool upgrade we wouldn’t have gotten if we’d booked on our own.
But I do both. I use the internet travel sites to find the best price and then go to my local travel agent to book the trip. I let her know what the best price I found and let her see if she can match it or come close. Most of the time she is able to match the price and I have the satisfaction of supporting a local business. To me the joy of saving twenty dollars on a flight or the reality of losing another local business person who eats in our restaurants, buys groceries at our local store and is part of our comunity is not a fair trade.
I would agree with not booking via web for an around the world trip. When booking my round the world travel my agent was able to suggest new locations to stop in that would not cost anything more, visa needs for entry, etc.
You plan online but definitely talk to a live human being if you’re planning a RTW trip. You’ll get the experience of the agents and ideas you probably would have never thought of.
My spouse and I went to Vienna and Prague two years ago, and almost all of our arrangements (including the Sound of Music Tour) were done on-line. But we are pretty savy international travelers and so we knew a little bit more than the average person about flights and getting around in Europe. I wouldn’t have done that if we were going for the first time and were not frequent travelers. The only thing we didn’t buy on line were train tickets to get to other points in Austria and the Czech Republic, because those are cheaper when you are actually there.
We are thinking of a cruise in 2010 and may take the Chris Oregon approach.
I also agree with some of the list, but not others. I have no problem booking international trips myself, but I am comfortable using the internet and have booked multi – country trips including bus and rail, and I prefer dealing with air lines and hotels myself.
However – On special or exotic trips (we are considering going on safari to Africa) I would use a Safari or knowledgable travel agent. On a trip to China last year, we went through a China tour agency. The degree of difficulty will determine how much I will do myself.
I also like using a specialist for cruises as they can give me more options and they many times have extra bonus deals.
The bottom line depends on how comfortable you are in dealing with venders,
do you have the time and patience and how complicated is your itinerary.
As you can see from the comments, it really depends on the traveler’s level of comfort. For international travel, I usually find the best itinerary I can online, then I call my TA and say, “Here’s where I’m flexible–can you beat this?” Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it’s no, but it never hurts to ask.
For seriously exotic locations and adventure travel, frankly I wouldn’t trust a travel agent. The world is just too big for any one person, even the best TA, to have the current best information on every single destination. For that, you need to hit the travel forums and ask people who are there right now.
My best solution for exotic travel: my wife and I are friends with another couple, and we travel well together. The husband loves researching exotic vacations, so we just tag along with them. I would put him against your favorite TA any day. ;)
I don’t agree with many of the positions of this articles, which is probably written to save the future of the travel agents. The only reason to use a travel agent now a days, with dynamic packaging available, with iPhone apps virtually for everything, is when somebody travels to a dangerous country and/or if somebody needs “concierge” type of travel services: somebody to baby him/her during the entire travel, to have a private guide or private visits to museums, or other places.
Otherwise, if a person is computer savvy, there is no reason to wait forever somebody to arrange hist ticket to NYC or to Kuala Lumpur, for that matters.
Um… if you can’t pronounce the country’s name, should you really be going there at all?
I have a specialty and I and my company are the BEST at what we do and my main means of getting bookings are from online. Why are you a specialist if you have a physical office or storefront. How does that make you know more than a company that is truly a specialist but works online? Booking online with a company like mine means that the good money you pay for your experience is going into your experience and not paying the overhead of an office/storefront with a lot of extra expenses.
sounds a little bit overdone to me this advice, if you use common sense online booking shouldn’t be a problem. and :”I sat down on the bed to cry”.
come on, how can i take advice seriously after such a statement? crying over unkept floors and a no show driver? in Cancun? some people shouldn’t travel at all i guess.
While I agree that a travel agent can be justified in some cases, I should point out that every major travel foul-up I’ve ever had was on a trip booked by a travel agent and I only rarely use them. I’ve learned to look much more closely at what I get from an agent than I would at something I book online. We once had an agent put our 3 year old on a different flight from us, I’ve had agents book tickets that returned in the middle of the day when I indicated I had a meeting until 5pm and we specified adjoining rooms at Disney and they didn’t forward the request. When you book online with a major site, you get lots of confirmation and updates when schedules or conditions change. Your travel agent may also get them, but will they forward them to you? Often you get their confirmation, not that they got from the hotel or airline.
What you get out depends on how much time you put into it.
I recently did a trip (3 weeks) to Croatia that included multiple transfers and flights and it went off without a hitch. Portland – Frankfurt – Zagreb – Split – Zagreb – Dubrovnik – Zagreb – Frankfurt Portland. All said the flights cost me $1100 and I got Star Alliance miles for all of them! There were also numerous bus and boat trips that were also in that itinerary but you get the idea.
I spent probably 8-10 hours researching the flights before I booked them. Yeah, I could have saved some time by going through a travel agent, but sometimes the research is half the fun of travel.
Great article. Working as an agent I see and hear all kinds of stories and arguements that go for using an agent and against. I know I add value to my clients and just because that one trip goes off without a hitch the next may not.
I always say – 2 sets of eyes are better than one. I will work with my clients who like to plan their own trips and can look for things like Visa requirements, better flight routings, wholesale rates on hotels, itinerary suggestions (other ideas and often to cut some out…many people are over ambitious when planning long itineraries), provide destination reports and information and more.
The most important thing is to get an agent you like and work well with and develop that long term relationship with them so they get to know and understand you.
Some of my clients who enjoy booking on their own, then book on my online booking engine and they then know that if their are flight changes or cancellations, natural disasters, supplier bankruptcies and all the other unexpected mishaps that can affect even the simpliest of trips, that I am there for their assistance.
Happy travels everyone!!
Carl
Many honeymooners book their own trip online and do just fine. In this economy, it’s often down to a choice of planning the trip yourself online or not taking a honeymoon at all.
We spent two weeks traveling around the Yucatan Peninsula and booked our rental car and several of our accommodations in advance online. I used the Cadogan guidebook to help me plan our road trip itinerary and for suggested lodgings, then found them online. The only problem we encountered was with our cabana in Tulum at the end of our trip, which the proprietor had double-booked. That was sort of a bummer because that was our “splurge” place to stay. Overall, I think it was worth booking it online ourselves considering the money we saved.
Christopher, thanks for the insightful post and I agree with many of your points. I certainly agree that there are many trips that can easily be booked online, especially when it comes to cruises and easily accessible destinations. As you mention, though, there are some circumstances where booking your own trip is not worth the hassle and the potential for failure. I work with a company that takes groups on trips in Africa and there are many regions of Africa that are well within the category of “difficult to arrange.” We recently wrote an article called called “8 Reasons to Use a Tour Operator” that you find to be interesting and may provide some additional insights to what you have written. Check it out at http://www.larktours.com/8-reasons-use-tour-operator Anyways, thanks again for the great post and just FYI, I have added your blog to my Google reader – I can’t wait to read more!
I very much enjoyed the article and the comments of the readers. Booking on line gives you nowhere to turn when things go wrong, and they can.
I would like to suggest that those who book on line do not know that they may be overpaying because the airline or the tour operator or the cruise line or the hotel will not phone them and tell them that the rate has gone down or an upgrade is available. We belong to a number of Consortiums and Travel Companies that get our clients breakfast included, or/and upgrades, etc. Shipboard credit is absolutely a bonus. Our computers have special programs that make us aware when fares go down or times of flights change. Most on line bookings are with travel agencies.
I wish all the on line bookers not to have the problems that some of my returning clients have experienced. Travel should be a wonderful exciting experience of adventure and joy.
I agree with you on the majority of these. However, I recently did an around the world trip depart staring in Dubai-Munich-Washington DC-Nashville-Las Vegas-San Francisco-Seoul (Incheon)-Bangkok-Singaport-Dubai. I used Star Alliance’s around the world fare service. The hardest part about the whole thing? I had to follow up personally with the airline (they explained after the fact that whichever airline you fly on first calculates the fare and issues the ticket) to get my final fare and ticket price. It was a nice trip, and netted me 25k+ freq flier miles.