Is It Cheaper to Book Flights Online or With a Travel Agent?

The concept of the high street travel agency has had some serious competition following the emergence of online travel sites. Before the mid-90s, the high street travel agent was the most popular way of booking a cheap flight for your family. In recent decades, though, a barrage of sites emerged online, and the availability of the internet in homes across the world became widespread.

With this, transactions became more secure, and consumers started to feel safe spending their money online. Thus, the public began booking their travel itineraries in droves on online travel sites, finding that they could search for a flight at any time of day or night.

They no longer had to rely on a traditional travel agency to do the work for them. By comparing many airline prices online, they could review fares easily and book at their own convenience from the comfort of their own homes.

Not just this, but over time, the public began to realise that online travel sites could produce better prices than the traditional high street travel agencies, which were sometimes guilty of inflating prices by employing dubious tactics in favour of themselves. 

Fast forward to now, and while booking flights online has become as popular as ever, in-person travel agents are still on the scene and favoured for many reasons. But, when it comes down to the big question of whether online booking sites or in-person travel agents offer the best value airfare, you need an expert’s wisdom. 

That’s why our team at FlightsFinder has answered the all-important question for money-minded travellers: Is it cheaper to book flights online or with a travel agent? And, of course, they’ve compared the two so you can better understand which offers better value relative to your needs and wants when you’re planning a trip. 

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using a Travel Agent

Still a popular option among many when booking flights, travel agents have stood their ground in the travel industry despite technological advancements. It’s undeniable that they offer convenience, industry expertise, and even, in some cases, exclusive deals that can make booking flights all the more affordable and convenient. 

While they have their advantages, there are also many disadvantages of using a travel agent, including additional costs that you wouldn’t come across when booking flights online by yourself and even limited flexibility, in some instances.

We’ve explored this briefly below to help you determine whether using a travel agent aligns with your travel needs: 

Advantages of Using a Travel Agent

Knowledge from a Travel Expert

One of the main advantages of using a travel agent to book flights is that you gain knowledge and expertise from someone who specialises in booking travel experiences regularly.

Many ask the question: Can travel agents get cheaper flights? And in some cases, they can, but this isn’t always the case, so don’t hedge your bets on it if you’re looking for the best value deals! 

A First-Person Service

Many people might appreciate the first-person service that a travel agent can offer when you’re booking flights, and we appreciate that sometimes it’s nice to see a friendly face and discuss your wider travel plans when finalising your itinerary.

Many travel agents can easily establish preferences for your flights, too, like whether you prefer an aisle or window seat, if you need a special meal, and so on. 

Time Efficient

Getting someone else to plan your flight itinerary for you can save you time in the grand scheme of planning an entire trip. So, many might choose to lift this weight off their shoulders and use a travel agent to secure their online travel bookings. 

Disadvantages of Using a Travel Agent

Limited Working Hours 

For many high street and independent travel agents, you’re limited to booking and altering your flight details depending on their working hours. 

Many travel agents operate on a 9-5 basis daily, meaning if you decide you want to make a last-minute change - or urgently need to get in touch - this may have its challenges. 

Potential Industry Bias

The worry with many travel agents can be that they may have partnerships and incentive agreements with particular airlines or travel providers. 

As such, they may be more inclined to recommend particular flight routes and itineraries as a way of securing higher commission rates instead of offering you the best value flight deal. 

Reduced Control

When you’re booking your flights through a travel agent, you’re essentially booking through a third party, which means you have less control over your booking when you initially make it, and when you want to make changes later down the line. 

This is why it’s all the more important to ensure that any communication between you and your agent is clear, as you want to be certain that all of the important details about your flight are correct. 

Service Costs

With many travel agents, you’ll normally have to pay for the pleasure of their services, which can increase your overall travel costs. This can vary depending on the complexity of your flight itinerary too, with more complex itineraries normally resulting in higher fees, and you could still be looking at a fee even for the smallest and easiest flight booking. 

So, it’s worth considering whether it’s really worth the additional expense, especially as you could be saving this money for when you reach your destination of choice instead!

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Booking Flights Online

Flight comparison sites and online travel booking platforms are mainstream in our current day and age. Many flight booking platforms offer a much more convenient, transparent, and easy way of booking flights online and offer many more advantages compared to travel agents. 

Not only this, but the disadvantages that come with a travel agent are not the case when you use online travel booking platforms to book your flights, giving you all the more reason to explore them as an option to plan your next getaway! Find out what booking flights online can offer you below:

Advantages of Booking Flights Online

Transparent and Comprehensive

By booking flights online through a flight comparison site, you know that the flights that you see are all of the options available to you. This is unlike a travel agent, who - as we mentioned earlier - may be more inclined to recommend you particular flights based on incentive plans and rates. In other words, you don’t have to worry about missing out on the best deal!

Convenient 

Rather than having someone else secure your flights for you, you’ll have the freedom and convenience of knowing that you’ve got the reins when booking and altering your itinerary. And you can do it whenever you want (even if it’s the early hours of the morning!) because you don’t have to wait for travel agents during their operating hours. 

Avoid Fees

We already mentioned the fees that you likely have to pay when booking flights with a travel agent. But, if you secure your flights yourself online, you don’t have to worry about paying additional fees, so you can avoid any additional charges entirely. 

Disadvantages of Booking Flights Online

Many Different Options Might Be Overwhelming

While you’ll have all flight options laid out in front of you when you make an online travel booking, some people might find this overwhelming, which we can understand! 

With this, you might want to narrow down your search by picking specific flight dates - if you haven’t already - and filtering for things like price and direct flights to make a search more manageable, rather than it feeling like an information overload!

Longer Itineraries Can Be More Difficult to Book

If you’re planning a longer trip with multiple flights in the mix, we can appreciate that it might feel complicated to book your entire itinerary yourself. With our multi-city flight search engine, you can easily and conveniently find the cheapest multi-city flights from the best websites, making this all the more simple for you to do yourself! 

Here at FlightsFinder, you don’t have to worry if you encounter a problem booking flights yourself using our flight search engine, as our team of flight experts can support you in finding the best and cheapest deal for your travels. 

You can also find out more about the benefits of hiring a flight expert over on our blog! 

The Cost of Booking Flights Online vs. With a Travel Agent

Ever since the next generation of flight comparison sites began to emerge, the high street travel agents have had serious competition.

These comparison sites enabled hundreds of airlines and travel agents to be searched in seconds, making it practically impossible to beat their fares. We previously tested a few quotes that we could get offline and online to see if this is still truly the case.

We went to a few existing high-street travel agencies and compared their prices with the prices we could find online. Some of the more popular travel agents still in operation on the high street include Flight Centre and Trailfinders.

We compared their high street prices against flights discovered by the best online Metasearch engines today. Here are the results: 

Flight 1

Flights from London to Bangkok - Flying in April

High Street Travel Agency Prices:

• Flight Centre = £575
• Trailfinders = £588

Online Comparison Site Prices:

• Skyscanner = £550
• Momondo = £559
• Kayak = £571

Flight 2

Manchester to New York - Flying in August

High Street Travel Agency Prices:

• Flight Centre = £595
• Trailfinders = £607

Online Comparison Site Prices:

• Kayak = £559
• momondo = £571
• Skyscanner = £572

Flight 3

Birmingham to Marrakesh - Flying in May

High Street Travel Agency Prices:

• Flight Centre = £375
• Trailfinders = £388

Online Comparison Site Prices:

• Kayak = £294
• Momondo = £307
• Skyscanner = £371

Is it Cheaper to Book Flights Online or With a Travel Agent?

As you can see from the above examples, an online metasearch engine wins over a traditional high street travel agency price every time. This is due to the superior number of airlines and travel agents that can be searched in a very short period of time.

Even if you go to a few high street travel agents, it still pales in comparison to the breadth of the search that can be carried out online. Carrying out these searches is particularly easy on our FlightsFinder search engine, which compares the most powerful online flight comparison sites for you in seconds.

What is the Role of the High Street Travel Agent Today vs. the Online Booking Flights?

High street travel agents still have an important role today as computers, despite being highly advanced, can still not compete with the power of the human brain.

Travel agents are particularly useful in putting together complex itineraries and sorting out the booking process in its entire minutia from A-Z. In today’s day and age, you can compare the modern travel agent to a kind of personalised travel concierge service that takes the headache out of particularly demanding trips.

So, the future is not all doom and gloom for travel agencies. It may be less helpful for straightforward flight trips, which can be easily booked online, but for more complex itineraries, a travel agent can be very helpful.

For straightforward round trips, we recommend using our powerful online flight comparison tool.

Why Using a Flight Travel Site is the Best of Both Worlds for Booking Flights

Booking your flights using a powerful online flight search engine and specialist actually offers you the best of both worlds when it comes to making an online travel booking.

Not only do you have the convenience, ease of booking, and full control over selecting the best flights for your needs, but you also have the option of enlisting the expert support of a flight expert, should you need it, like at FlightsFinder. 

So, if you consider this, you can have the most seamless travel experience booking your flights - blending the benefits of both travel agents and booking flights online - using our specialist flight comparison search engine to find you the best value deals available!  

Summary

Booking flights yourself online or booking with a specialist travel agent both have their benefits. But, it is cheaper to book your flights online compared to directly with an agent, according to our research! 

If you truly want to benefit from the advantages of travel agents and booking flights online yourself, choosing a powerful flight comparison search engine is the best way to do this, while making sure you find the best value for your money! 

Ready to book your next flight? Head on over to FlightsFinder now, or contact our team if you want to speak to a specialist flight expert to support you in finding the best value flights available.