Be Your Own Travel Agent
With the great resources available on the net it’s never been easier to make all your travel arrangements on your own. Travel agents no longer have the upper hand when it comes to travel information and advice. Some tools on the web are just as powerful (and easier to use) as anything a travel agent has at hand.
Have a look through this site. Aussie Travel Advice works to take you step by step the ways you can research, plan and book your trip. Our only bias is against paying to much for any precious time away from work. You have to make it count! and you don’t want to be ripped off by a travel agent.
Tools
An interesting site to check out is the Official Aviation Guide, first published in 1929 (www.oag.com/travel-guides/air-route-info/). This site will tell you which airlines fly where, how long it takes to fly via the route you choose, you can even search for destinations that will take under a certain amount of time to fly to. Once you have found a flight you want you can search for current prices.
This site will also tell you if your flight is a ‘code share’. A common example of this would be booking a Qantas flight but ending up on British airways flight. It’s useful to know exactly who you are flying with if you have any special needs, or just want to check what movies are playing.
The OAG site is also a more intuitive resource than most travel agents use day to day; the look of some travel agency booking systems have changed much since the early 1980′s.
Another helpful site for planning your flights is Sky Scanner (www.skyscanner.net). It’s great for finding alternative flight paths to any destination; longer trips with extra stops can be a way of saving money . You can then go direct to the airlines website to book, or just search the same flight on other booking sites to compare prices.
Another one for the travel geek is Yapta (www.yapta.com). It’s a site for the bargain hunter; you can be notified via email when the price of flights drops for you chosen destination, as well as hotel pricing. Its free to sign up.
Yet another bargain resource and one of Australia’s most popular is Travel Zoo (http://www.travelzoo.com.au/). It’s a site where you sign up to receive a newsletter that will give you the weeks best travel bargains sifted through by a team of researches to make sure the deal is genuine. The cheapest flights of the week, hotel packages and the like are listed along with the details and links for booking. A great resource, especially for spur of the moment trips.
Be sure to check out..
So if your unsure about using an agent there is no need use one as if you have a bit of time there’s plenty of tools you can use to book your flights or holiday. Check out:
travel agents: am I being ripped off?,
booking online versus through a travel agent,
finding cheap flights online or
for more resources and unbiased advice.
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