Really very very disappointed after having waited one and a half hours to see an Agent, when he was…read morefree he told he was going for his lunch. I am thoroughly disappointed in your Customer Service

Though many people are finding the Internet as the place to book a trip, I've still found that…read moreTrailfinders can beat (in many cases) anything found on the Internet. This branch is located in the St. Nicholas Market area of Bristol, and is easy to get to via bus (parking is not easy to find in this area, though there are parking garages nearby). This branch is staffed with friendly, helpful people who do their best to find you a great deal for your holiday. I looked online first when planning my last two overseas trips, but Trailfinders found better deals and had suggestions for saving even more money. The last trip included car hire and when things went wrong with this aspect of the booking, Trailfinders quickly resolved the problem.

It may look like a supermarket for flights, and the heady window display shouting at you does feel…read morelike online spam, but if you are booking to somewhere unusual, or a complicated trip that you aren't confident of booking yourself, then I highly recommend these guys. The service they provide in the shop is basically that they are experts at finding the best deals - plus they have lots of in-house contacts with airlines. I used them to get flights to and around South America - it meant that she had the headache of matching flights to our schedule. She asked all the right questions, such as how much do we sacrifice cheaper flights for stopover time? It made a big commitment of money a lot more reassuring, and I did fare a lot better than friends who were booking by themselves at the same time. The girl I think was honestly more excited about my plans than I was at the time. I was given her direct number and when I had a query a few months later it was answered clearly and quickly. The company also deals with the high end custom package holidays if you have that sort of dosh, and I'm sure also are very good at doing the quick-fix europe dashes. Brave the red and white and talk to a real person.

Nowadays most people under the age of 40 probably look to book a holiday online, it cuts out the…read moremiddleman costs and can give you much more value for money. But if I've learned anything about recent events (BA Strikes, Volcanic Ash grounding etc etc) I wouldn't rule out an agent just yet. And of all the travel agents, I've always found The Flight Centre to be the most consistent. A fairly small, West-based company, The Flight Centre feels more like a personal experience than a conveyer belt of customers and undertrained Little Britain-esque staff (compooter says nah anyone?). I booked some flights to Australia with these guys and they sure did find me a good deal £600 for return flights to Sydney via Dubai. Sadly, I missed out on the same priced flights with a free stopover in Tokyo but the on the ball staff did everything they could to help me make alternative plans and we had ever such a smooth journey. Win win.

I bought my flight to India last year with Co-op Travel... they were amazing! I normally buy all of…read moremy flights over the internet, but called into the Co-op on a whim one day, just to see how competitive they could be... I had no intention of booking a flight through them at the time. I'm pretty well versed in buying flights off the internet on the cheap and so I guessed that you'd be expected to pay a hefty premium for using the Co-op... surely manning an office on the high street, where business rates are exceptionally high, would mean that their service couldn't compete with a dingy office in the middle of nowhere, that only has an internet presence...? But I was really surprised! Not only did they take away all of the hours of infuriating web-searches that I would have had to put myself through, but the price of the ticket was the cheapest that I'd seen. The person serving me was a woman in her forties, and with plenty of experience under her belt, she made light work of the process. I bought my ticket there and then... I'd have been foolish not to!