Travel agents have an awkward relationship with the internet. Anyone can book a flight in five minutes, which makes the obvious question — what am I paying you for? — entirely fair.
Here is the honest answer, including the parts where the answer is "nothing, book it yourself".
When you genuinely do not need us
Booking a return flight from Brussels to a European city, for one or two people, on fixed dates, with hand luggage. A comparison site will do that as well as we can and you will not pay a fee. If you ask us to do it, we will do it, but we will also tell you that you did not need to.
Same for a straightforward hotel in a city with plenty of supply, or a package to a mainstream resort where the big operators have inventory we cannot beat. There is no shame in an agency saying a booking site is the right tool — it is how you know we mean it the rest of the time.
Where an agent saves you actual money
Three situations, consistently.
- 1Groups. Airlines price group bookings differently from individual seats, and above a certain party size a group fare is both cheaper and more flexible for name changes. Comparison sites will quote you the last-seat price multiplied by the number of passengers, which is a very different number.
- 2Multi-city routings. A trip that combines two or three destinations is usually cheaper booked as one itinerary than as separate tickets — and it keeps you protected if a leg is delayed. Building those correctly is fiddly and it is what we do all day.
- 3Baggage-driven routes. On the Pakistan routes especially, the difference between carriers in checked allowance is often worth more than the fare difference. If you compare on price alone you can easily "save" forty euros and then pay several hundred at the airport.
Where an agent saves you from trouble
This is the larger part of the job and the harder one to advertise, because it is about things that did not happen.
- Visa paperwork. Most refusals are documentary and preventable — a missing item, the wrong format, an inconsistency between two documents. Someone who has seen a hundred of these spots it in ten minutes.
- Bookings made before a visa decision. Getting the cancellation window to outlast the expected decision date is a small piece of expertise that saves people real money every year.
- Hotel distance. Advertised distance and walking distance are different numbers, and in Makkah and Madinah they are very different. We check the actual route.
- Passport validity. It sounds trivial. It is the most common reason a trip has to be rebooked.
What happens when something goes wrong at 2am
This is the real product, and the one people only value in retrospect.
When a connection is cancelled in Doha at two in the morning, your options are: join an airline call centre queue in a language you may not speak, or send one message and have someone start rebooking you while you find somewhere to sit. Every booking made with us includes the second option, in English, French, Urdu or Punjabi.
For families where the travellers and the person who made the booking do not share a first language — very common on the Pakistan and Umrah routes — this is usually the whole reason to use an agency, and it has nothing to do with price.
What we charge, and what we cannot do
We charge a service fee and we tell you what it is before you commit. On group, long-haul and multi-city bookings the difference we find usually exceeds it. On a simple European return it often will not, and we will say so rather than let you find out.
What we cannot do: influence a consulate decision, guarantee a visa, or beat every online price on every booking. Anyone promising the first two is not someone to give money to, and anyone promising the third has not checked.
How to work with an agent well
- Tell us the constraint, not just the request. "We need to be in Lahore before the 14th and my mother cannot manage a long layover" gets you a better answer than "cheapest flight to Lahore".
- Tell us how flexible your dates are. It is usually the single biggest lever on price and people volunteer it last.
- Tell us the real budget. We are not trying to spend it — knowing it stops us wasting your time on options that were never going to work.
- Come to us before you book anything, not after. Unpicking a half-made booking is harder than building one.
Frequently asked questions
Is a travel agent more expensive than booking online?
For a simple European return, usually yes by the amount of our fee. For groups, multi-city trips and long-haul routes where baggage matters, usually not — and we will tell you which situation you are in.
Do you charge a fee?
Yes, and we tell you what it is before you commit to anything.
Can you get me a cheaper flight than Skyscanner?
Sometimes, through group and partner rates. But we would rather you chose us for the routing advice and the support than on a promise of always being cheapest, because nobody can honestly make that promise.
What can you do that a booking site cannot?
Group fares, correctly built multi-city itineraries, visa document checks, honest hotel distances, and a real person to call when something breaks mid-trip.
Can you guarantee my visa?
No, and nobody can — the decision belongs to the consulate. What we can do is make sure it is not refused for a preventable documentary reason.
Do I have to book everything through you?
No. Plenty of people use us only for the flights, or only for the visa paperwork. Take the parts that are useful to you.
Need help with this?
Send us your dates and we will come back with a real quote — usually within the hour.
