Who to book with?

SaLoGo

I'm planning a trip to Barbados next year. I know where I want to stay and when etc, but not sure who to book with?

Do I go to a High St travel agent such as Virgin, Kuoni or Thomson, or do I look at booking a flight on hotel through BA, Expedia etc, which seems a lot cheaper?

Can anyone recommend a site please? The High St TA's seem to be falling over themselves to get my custom, but just cannot seem to match the price of doing it myself!

moreofthegoodstuff

I'm a package fan but if you can get it a lot cheaper separately then go for it, it's the same outcome at the end so you may as well do it the best you can, plus if you book each part through a cash back site on top (which normally do pretty good cash back offers when booking hotels seperately) you should end up with a really good deal.

MasterPoo

SaLoGo wrote: »

Can anyone recommend a site please? The High St TA's seem to be falling over themselves to get my custom, but just cannot seem to match the price of doing it myself!

Hi OP, so you have already priced it up yourself using different sites you've found? Are you after other sites to just compare your pricing........., not clear on what exactly you need, if you've already priced it up cheaper than the TA? So here are two other sites you can look at.

• TravelBag
• Destinology (if they have any promotions, I've found them to be expensive)

If you've already found it cheaper on whichever site you're using, book it! Good Luck

stephb34

If you've found exactly what you want have you told the high street travel agents this precise information so they can look at getting you the same price or better.

SaLoGo

I guess I'm wary as I have always booked through travel agents and am wary on spending that amount on separates. Expedia for example is coming up £500+ cheaper than the travel agents... is it worth seeing if they'll match? I'm no good at haggling!

MasterPoo

So it's more "The Peace of Mind" you're after! As above have said, take the quote in to high street TA's show them your quote ask them to beat it, the worst they can say is No!

budgetflyer

To me there is no better peace of mind than knowing I am in charge of every aspect of the booking..

ferf1223

budgetflyer wrote: »

To me there is no better peace of mind than knowing I am in charge of every aspect of the booking..

+1.

I suppose if it makes someone nervous to DIY and they can get the same price by taking their DIY quote into the TA then maybe that works. I still like to have all the relationships involved direct with the supplier, without a middleman.

MasterPoo

budgetflyer wrote: »

To me there is no better peace of mind than knowing I am in charge of every aspect of the booking..

Agreed.....and if anything does go wrong you can only blame yourself, personally I hate to be at the mercy of other people, also 90% of the time I've managed to bag myself a bargain.

Each time I've priced up flights/hotels and tried to use a TA, their price has ALWAYS been higher, also I love the whole planning/researching of a DIY!

zappomatic

If you buy a flight and hotel through the likes of BA you are still buying an ATOL protected package, so really there's no risk added versus buying a traditional package out of a brochure.

johnmcga

budgetflyer wrote: »

To me there is no better peace of mind than knowing I am in charge of every aspect of the booking..

Couldn't agree more. I get to select the exact combination of flights and hotels I want, I don't have to negotiate the agent's attempts to sell me insurance and other extras - and there's nobody to blame except myself if things go wrong.