I've seen no stats on this but I'll bet the Internet has decimated the occupation of Travel Agent. I used to have one…a cheery lady named Brenda who always knew a great way to get a bargain on airfare, a great hotel in which to stay, a terrific limo service to get you from the airport to the hotel, etc. She knew everything about travel I didn't know…like when my grandmother died and it became necessary for me to take my mother suddenly to Connecticut for the service, it was Brenda who told me about Bereavement Fares. Those are special rates that most airlines offer if you suddenly need to fly somewhere to bury your grandmother. She knew which airlines did them and she knew the people to contact at each and which forms to fill out and what we had to produce to prove grandma had died and we were going to her funeral insread of on a surfing safari in Barbados. Brenda made a nasty chore a lot less nasty and a whole lot cheaper.
She was also smart enough, I now realize, to get out of Travel Agenting at about the right time. I did not go look for another. I then, like so many people, learned the ease and economy of booking travel myself on the Internet. It turns out to be an acquired skill…something you have to learn like you learn Adobe Photoshop. And like Adobe Photoshop, you can never possibly learn all you need to know and things keep changing on you.
A big thing these days with airlines is luggage fees. You have to remember that if you intend to check one bag, a $125 flight on Southwest is cheaper than a $110 flight to the same place on American. That's because American charges $25 for the first bag and Southwest charges $0. Here's a chart of what they all charge for luggage. A chart like that's handy because some airlines' websites kinda hide that information and some of the online travel brokers don't tell you at all.
The same problem crops up with hotels and "resort fees." These are those mandatory, you-gotta-pay-it add-on costs that are often not disclosed in advance. They aren't always bad but they sometimes make the math more complicated. For instance, if you go to Vegas and stay at the Tropicana, they'll tack on $9.99 a night to whatever base rate you thought you were paying. That's their resort fee but it may not be a bad thing since it includes high-speed Internet access in your room (which runs at least that much anywhere in town that charges separately) and includes a bunch of other goodies like access to their fitness center and some free cocktails and faxes. Depending on how much of what your resort fee covers is of value to you, it might be a bargain. You just need to remember that when you do a search for available hotel rooms at different hotels and you click to put them in descending price order, those rankings probably don't cover resort fee surcharges…or other surprises you may have in store.
There's probably a website out there that shows you all the available deals and includes that information but I haven't found it yet. If I had the wherewithal, I'd start such a site and I'd also have it give you little tips for each city and prevent you from doing anything stupid in your booking. And I'd name it Brenda.
