We’ve all had that thought when passing a travel agency on the high street; with Skyscanner, Agoda et al, just how do they stay open?
Fair question. Booking a holiday in 2026 is straightforward enough: compare prices across a few tabs, read some reviews, click confirm. For a week in Tenerife or a long weekend in Lisbon, you probably don’t need anyone’s help. But there’s a surprisingly long list of situations where a travel agent earns their cut many times over, and knowing when to pick up the phone can save you real money, time and stress.
Complex, Multi-Stop Itineraries
The moment a trip involves more than two destinations, the logistics multiply fast. Internal flights, border crossings, visa requirements, transfer times, regional holidays that shut everything down: these are the things that catch DIY bookers out.
Take a three-week trip to Southeast Asia covering Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. You’ll need to factor in overnight trains versus budget flights, wet season timing for specific regions, and the fact that some border crossings are only open on certain days. A good agent already knows all of this, and more importantly, they know which connections actually work in practice, not just on paper.
Specialised & Niche Travel
This is where agents really prove their worth. Certain types of trip demand specific knowledge that booking platforms simply don’t offer. Safari holidays, expedition cruises, ski touring trips, religious pilgrimages, dietary-specific travel: these all benefit from someone who’s done the legwork.
If you’re planning a safari in Africa, an agent specialising in wildlife tourism will know which camps have the best guiding, when the migration passes through specific areas, and which permits you need to sort months in advance.
Travellers with specific dietary or religious requirements benefit just as much. As the specialists at Bespoke Kosher Travel tell us, hotels will often claim to cater for kosher or halal diets on their websites, but the reality on the ground can be very different. A niche agent will have already verified dining options, checked supervision standards and built things like Shabbat-friendly scheduling into the itinerary before you’ve even packed.
When Your Time Is Worth More Than The Savings
Here’s the calculation most people don’t make: if you spend 15 hours researching and booking a holiday that an agent could have put together in a single conversation, what’s that time actually worth to you? For anyone with a demanding job, a family, or both, the answer is usually a lot more than the agent’s fee.
AI travel planners have muddied the waters here. Tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI overviews will happily generate a day-by-day itinerary for you in seconds, but the results tend to be generic, occasionally outdated, and confidently wrong about details that matter: opening times, visa requirements, whether that hidden gem restaurant closed two years ago. They’re fine for initial inspiration, but trusting one to actually plan a trip you’re spending thousands on is a gamble most people shouldn’t take.
A good agent doesn’t just book what you ask for. They’ll push back, suggest alternatives you hadn’t considered, and draw on their own travel experience to flag things you’d only learn the hard way. That’s not a service you’ll get from an algorithm, and it’s certainly not one you’ll get from a chatbot that doesn’t know the difference between a hotel that’s highly rated and one that’s actually worth staying in.
Access To Rates & Perks You Can’t Get Directly
Agents with strong supplier relationships can unlock pricing, upgrades and extras that aren’t available through public-facing booking engines. This is particularly true in the luxury hotel space, where preferred partner programmes give agents access to complimentary breakfasts, spa credits, room upgrades and late checkouts as standard.
The margins here can be significant. On a £3,000 resort booking, the added extras an agent secures might be worth £500 or more, effectively making the trip cheaper than if you’d booked it yourself.
When Things Go Wrong
Flight cancellations, lost luggage, a hotel that looks nothing like the photos: these things happen, and they happen more often than the industry would like to admit. When you’ve booked everything yourself across five different platforms, you’re on your own. When you’ve booked through an agent, you’ve got someone whose job it is to fix the problem.
If your flight is cancelled due to bad weather, an agent can rebook you, sort alternative accommodation and advise on compensation, all while you’re standing in the arrivals hall trying to get your kids to stop crying.
Dietary, Accessibility & Other Specific Needs
This one is underappreciated. If you have specific requirements, whether that’s wheelchair accessibility, severe food allergies, halal or kosher dining, or travelling with medical equipment, an agent who understands these needs can verify arrangements directly with hotels and airlines in ways that online booking forms can’t.
Ticking a box marked special dietary requirements on a booking form and actually having those requirements met when you arrive are, unfortunately, two very different things.
When Is It Better To Book Things Yourself?
Plenty of the time, honestly. For a weekend city break or a single-destination beach holiday, you probably don’t need an agent. Booking platforms are well designed for simple trips, and if you enjoy the planning process, there’s no reason to outsource it.
Budget travellers will also usually do better on their own. Agents can’t match the savings you’ll find by being flexible with dates, stacking cashback offers, or grabbing last-minute deals. And if you’re the kind of person who has 47 browser tabs open comparing room rates, you’ll likely find the agent experience frustrating rather than freeing.
The rule of thumb: the simpler the trip, the less you need an agent. The more moving parts, niche requirements or high-value bookings involved, the more an agent earns their keep.
The Bottom Line
Travel agents aren’t relics of a pre-internet age. They’re specialists who add the most value precisely when a trip gets complicated, expensive or specific. For a straightforward holiday, book it yourself and save the fee. For anything involving multiple destinations, niche requirements, luxury properties or tight timelines, a good agent will almost certainly save you more than they cost.
