Using an agent versus booking direct

[Terry Bill]

We used an agent who packaged the cruise, hotels and flights for the last couple of cruises.  I was economically active then and happy to outsource the task.  They shared some of their commission through a discount, which was nice.

 

Now that I am economically inactive, I plan to book my flights and hotels directly with the airlines and hotels.  However, I wonder whether I should book the cruise part directly with Cunard or via an agent.  Apart from offering a discount, will the agent offer any benefits, or is it just another layer of communication to work through?

 

I'm leaning towards booking directly as I prefer that approach with hotels and airlines, but I wanted to seek the collective knowledge of cruise critics.

 

Thanks

 

Terry

[CDNPolar]

Short and sweet, we often find the Agent one more layer of communication to work through, but we still use an agent.

 

We book directly with the cruise line and then once we have all the details of our booking worked out we transfer the booking to the agent for the perks such as OBC.

 

This is a mixed bag of reasons why you may want to use an agent and everyone has a different experience.

 

We also book some air through the cruise line and some on our own.  We book some pre or post extensions with the cruise line and some on our own.

[JDincalif]

Relating a couple of one-off situations that we probably could have handled on our own, but these illustrate some of what what a good TA can and will do to provide service and support in difficult situations.

 

As the Viking Sky limped back to port after the 2019 near disaster, our TA actually got up in the middle of the night to check on us, offer support and coordinate our unexpected early return home. Our TA contacted both Viking and the airline to arrange the most optimal itinerary. More important, *she* was the one to give us our flight information while Viking was struggling to reschedule the other 900+ passengers.

 

In 2011 a week before a scheduled cruise, my mother suffered a medical catastrophe. Our TA not only handled the cancellations but provided us with all the forms and documents we needed to submit a claim to our travel insurance.

[Terry Bill]

Thank you for your comments.