How much of a discount do you get with a travel agent?
Question by Lydie: How much of a discount do you get with a travel agent?
This June, a group of students and I are planning to fly to Russia from Washington DC. I’ve been looking at ticket prices online, and they are quite expensive (about $ 2200 to the city where we will be going). I’ve heard that it is usually much cheaper to get international tickets through a travel agent. What percentage of discount could we expect? Thanks!
Best answer:
Answer by Knowitall
Travel agents usually can’t give that much of a discount because there is not much margin on airfares these days. but a travel agent can usually get the ticket for you for the same price that you found on the net, but you have the peace of mind of knowing that you have a human to contact if something goes wrong or if you need to make any changes.
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about 1 year ago
Agents sometimes have access to unpublished group rates. Plus they can recommend flying times that might save some money.
However, you will pay for their services.
about 1 year ago
As much as I hate to say this (I went through travel school years ago and was a travel agent for a short time), travel agents don’t usually give much of a discount, if any. The problem is that nowadays with the Internet giving access to all airlines either via their own Web sites or mass ticket distributors (Orbitz, Expedia, etc.) travel agents are not booking nearly as many tickets and therefore not producing as much income for the airlines. It used to be the ONLY way to book a ticket if you didn’t want to call the airline reservation line or if you wanted to know rates from several airlines. But the problem is that the airline Web sites now offer most (if not all) of their fares to the general public, though they do have the right to limit the number of tickets at each fare – just as they do with the travel agents. The reason travel agents aren’t able to offer more of a discount is because they get mostly the same rates we (the public) gets, but they also take their commission as well. Sometimes they are offered an additional commission and sometimes they add a fee for their services, so you should always check that first.
On a side note, if you email me the dates and city in Russia where you will be going, along with the number going, I will see what I can find for you!
Good luck and enjoy Russia!
about 1 year ago
I also think that travel agents can not provide much discount because now a days they don’t have much margin. Go to spain if someone wants to go for holiday and use hop on hop off barcelona tour to get discount.