3 ms·

> At the end of the day, we just don't need secretaries, travel agents, We keep telling ourselves that, but it's a story. (Presumably so we can feel good about

> At the end of the day, we just don't need secretaries, travel agents, We keep telling ourselves that, but it's a story. (Presumably so we can feel good about income inequality) A good secretary, or a good travel agent, are amazing. I'd pay good money to have either one available, and so would many other people. All we've done is put that work on people who already have another job, the people who used to be customers of that secretary/travel agent. In the process introducing a middle man who makes money off redistributing work. Yes, that middle man is slightly more efficient - but it can only be more efficient because the hard parts of the work are outsourced to you. The difficult part of booking travel isn't making a flight reservation, it's finding just the right thing. A travel agent was a tremendous help there - you're now doing that yourself. Expedia, Orbitz, etc. are completely useless in that department.

jen20 9y ago
I travel a lot (~150 flights some years) and find that the disadvantages of booking through a travel agent usually outweigh the benefit for business travel. You usually end up on tickets with very restrictive conditions which cannot be modified other than via the travel agent themselves, often for more money than a less restrictive ticket could be bought directly with the airline. If you are many time zones away and can forsee irregular operations there is no way to pre-empt them until the agency has staff available. In addition, many loyalty programmes (particularly for hotels) do not allow you to accrue or make use of benefits if booked via a third party. That said, for vacations with a lot of co-ordination involved (think family trips with people coming from different origin points, different dates etc) a travel agent can be useful and worth accepting the more restrictive nature of what can be booked.
- groby_b 9y ago
  Oh, completely agreed. I'm in the same boat, and for "just get me from A to B as cheap as possible", a travel agent is overkill. A secretary - or administrative assistant - is still worth their weight in gold here, though. Plus, the ludicrous "third party" rule disappears, since they book in your name. But yes, your wider point holds: Travel agents aren't well suited for some kinds of travel. That, I'd argue, is more the business model than an inherent problem with travel agents. If there was somebody whom you could tell "A to B, next week, one of these three carriers, cheapest price, here's my calendar, buy in my name" and you'd pay them a $20 commission to just make that happen, would you still decline a travel agent?

jen20 9y ago

I travel a lot (~150 flights some years) and find that the disadvantages of booking through a travel agent usually outweigh the benefit for business travel. You usually end up on tickets with very restrictive conditions which cannot be modified other than via the travel agent themselves, often for more money than a less restrictive ticket could be bought directly with the airline. If you are many time zones away and can forsee irregular operations there is no way to pre-empt them until the agency has staff available. In addition, many loyalty programmes (particularly for hotels) do not allow you to accrue or make use of benefits if booked via a third party. That said, for vacations with a lot of co-ordination involved (think family trips with people coming from different origin points, different dates etc) a travel agent can be useful and worth accepting the more restrictive nature of what can be booked.

groby_b 9y ago
Oh, completely agreed. I'm in the same boat, and for "just get me from A to B as cheap as possible", a travel agent is overkill. A secretary - or administrative assistant - is still worth their weight in gold here, though. Plus, the ludicrous "third party" rule disappears, since they book in your name. But yes, your wider point holds: Travel agents aren't well suited for some kinds of travel. That, I'd argue, is more the business model than an inherent problem with travel agents. If there was somebody whom you could tell "A to B, next week, one of these three carriers, cheapest price, here's my calendar, buy in my name" and you'd pay them a $20 commission to just make that happen, would you still decline a travel agent?