How do you book your trips?

jewelsonu

Do you go through a travel agent, the place directly or the internet?

I have contacted 2 different travel agents and their rates are higher than the internet and the resort.  The resort is the best price.

Does anyone know the best time to book? is it better farther in advance or last minute?

Mrs.AngelaA

Internet all the way.  For our yearly Vegas trips, I usually stalk different sites until the price is right.

For our yearly cruises, I also stalk the various sites until the price is right, then we usually call the cruise line directly since the customer service is very good and they make it easier to choose your specific cabin.

As far as booking last minute or far out, it depends on the vacation.  We book our cruises about 9 or 10 months in advance so that we have the room and floor that we would like.  Also, they will do a "price match", so if we haven't paid our balance yet, the price will be reduced.

Vegas, we wait until about 2-3 months out.  Its not urgent and we can get good prices no matter when we book.

ArcticFox

We have never,ever used a travel agent.  We do lots of research on our own, compare prices online, and book online.  we have done a LOT of traveling (canada, mexico, caribbean cruise, ecuador, galapagos, NYC, all over the NE) and never had any problems. 

I think it depends on time of year and location for best prices.  For example, there are slow seasons depending on where you go.. like we got married in Mexico over Thanksgiving and there was no one there, and the rates were awesome.  Galapagos, we went during the dry season and rates were great, it was also right before Christmas, so people weren't traveling.  You can usually google when slow season is.  We booked last minute for South America, our wedding in mex, and our cruise, and got major discounts.  In fact, if we had booked our cruise a week later than we did, we saw that we could have gotten even cheaper rates, but it is a gamble.  we booked about 6 weeks in advance so the rates were already pretty low.  I think the more flexible you can be, the better deals you can get (like take a gamble on booking late, or booking when most people dont' want to travel).  

Labbie

When we booked our HM to Couples Swept Away, we used a Travel Agent and found their price to be the same as the resort directly.

When we wanted to go back to Jamaica we felt comfortable enough to book ourselves, but we called the same agency and they were able to beat the price slightly, plus get us better flights.

We felt that with leaving the country it was nice to have a contact in case something went wrong with anything. But if the price had been significantly different we would have probably done it on our own.

For cruises, we booked our 1st through AAA (and will never use them again- they screwed up our flights big time). The other 2 we booked directly with the cruise lines and did our own flights with no trouble.

Mitzzi23

We could do it on the internet, but DH likes using a travel agent.  It is nice to have someone to call in case something goes wrong or there is a weather situation.  For example, when NYC had that blizzard over Christmas our travel agent spent an hour on the phone with my aunt and uncle and managed to get them on flights the following day.  When they tried to call the airline directly, they couldn't get through at all.

LadyRed7

We use a travel agent. For one, i don't have the time to do all the research. Plus, i get so nervous with all the news stories and the scams out there.