Survey

Research on-line, then present at the travel agent with the really cheap prices (associated urls etc), which they (sometimes reluctantly) find - and match.

I'd never rely on the Travel Agents to find the good prices - they're more interested in the good commissions!

Last paid trip I booked online via cheaptickets.com. However all my other trips have been on FF miles booked directly with the airline(s). That said, I booked 1-way short haul flights in Nepal and India via local travel agents after checking fares online.

On-line. I've never found a travel agent cheaper than I can research myself - even using the same flights.

I'm the opposite, I have never ever found a cheaper price on-line. Except with Ryanair and Easyjet, of course. I test with a destination where I already know the fare; did this with cheaptickets, travelocity and one-whose-name-I-forget: the cheapest return Vancouver/Fiji online came up as US$3,000, whereas the TA I use for travel to the SP was Cad $1,399. I might find it works with a package holiday - like Jubilee's current package of 7 nights, air and 4* hotel included in Dominican Republic for Cad $499 (unheard of price from the West Coast) but I never take package holidays so can't compare. What is the secret!??

Having said that, my son found a good fare to Japan (direct from Vancouver, no transit stop) online, on the JAL site. The same fare was also offered to him by the TA he uses here in Vancouver without his mentioning that he had already checked the JAL site; however when he checked with the other supposedly cheap on-line sites, they all quoted higher prices and none of the flights where direct.

Someone help me with my on-line flight searches ... puleez.

Hmmm - maybe Canada and the UK are different in that respect.

I know that I can get a good price on the internet, though I do see different prices quoted for the same flight on different websites, and when I've tried asking 'recommended, cheap' travel agents they've added a substantial premium to the amount I've found.

I usually look at two or three [or more] websites - including 'umbrella' ones like expedia and travelsupermarket and also fool around a little with dates to get the best prices.

Both. Do lots of flying on points so that is through their agency. Always book straightforward return trips myself online. Book more complicated itineraries with a local agent. Recently he got me a flight into Hanoi and out of Bangkok for about $600 less than anything I could find online so I may go back to him more often.

Thanks for the responses. That's the thing living, sometimes mine gets a little more complicated with the whole stopovers thing. Also the flight requests online usually seem to default to a online booking service not the actual airline. I think only booking directly through the airline would be cheaper.

I have discovered that it is always best to check with the airline themselves. Two years ago I was booking a flight from Brisbane to Darwin. The internet sites (like travelocity) were all telling me something like $487. Got to talking to my friend who lives in Brisbane and she said, "That's crazy! They are advertising in the papers here for $189!" So I went to the Qantas site itself and sure enough, the flight was $189. I didn't even have to pretend to be an Aussie. Another time the cheapest flight I could get Vancouver or Seattle to Hawaii off the internet sites was about $600. Checked the Northwest Airline site itself and scored tickets for less than $400 AND they were advertising a points-redemption deal where I could redeem points (didn't have enough for the whole flight) and doing that lowered my flight to just under $100. THAT was really great coup because I'd had these point for years - not enough to go anywhere with, but enough to partially redeem for this flight.

I find the internet booking sites to be really useful for showing me who flys where ...and from there I can go to the airline sites and check further.

What I find difficult to do on these sites is flying in and out of different locations/countries. We like to do lots of road tripping and don't like to retrace so these kinds of itineraries can be hard to arrange online becuase the software gets cranky when you want to be creative and look at different options and dates and so on. THAT is when I find a good travel agent who know a lot about the smaller airlines in specific areas can be very helpful.

Same as oonks, travel from downunder to where I want to go can get fairly complicated and a good travel agent can find me routes and options I hadn't thought of.