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Though there are a handful of times where there are mistake fares get out in the travel agency realm in a very useful way. I keep an eye on Flyer Talk because they're a good source for mistake fares, and they've had info lately on a semi-obscure Norwegian travel agency that's had access to a few mistake fares to Europe and Asia where the fuel surcharges were left off the ticket prices, effectively cutting ticket prices in half or more, and United and alliance partners have been honoring those tickets. (Alas, that hole in the system has been plugged, but it could happen again.)
Yup, FlyerTalk is one of those "certain forum sites" I was talking about that I consult for obscure deals.
I booked my recent trip through cheaptickets.com and they were pretty good with pricing. I got a round trip ticket for $1,048 for Kansas City- Bangkok and back. I looked at united and delta and their prices were between 1300-1600.
Depending what we are doing: if taking a road trip or just spending a few in Vegas we do it directly through the hotel. We have a favorite chain. Normally, we check Travelocity, and other travel sights, never really find much difference in the pricing. When we are taking an extended vacation, cruise or going from place to place we always use a travel agent. They normally have saved up money and know how to find all the little ins and outs. I love to do research, but still like to know a professional has helped us. Not all agents are top of the line, but the ones that are, are worth their weight in gold.
A little while ago I mentioned in another thread that I was looking through websites to book my travels and eventually I booked through http://las-vegas.hotelscheap.org/. It went really well and the service was pretty fast, so I guess I could recommend it.
I think it's really hard to just choose any site or discredit any site. If you're looking for a deal and not faithful to any specific airline or hotel then ANY of the sites could have the best deal at any time. My most recent flight was booked through Statravel, however I see good flights on orbitz. Kayak and cheapflights are nice because you can compare a lot of sites. Not to mention a lot of times the airlines have the cheapest fares directly. That's always the best way to go.
Hotels are almost never booked directly through the company. I like using hotwire because I don't worry about elite status anywhere. I have always had great luck with the priceline negotiator and hotwire.
I've booked direct via airline/hotel websites, brick and mortar travel agents (rare), and all manner of online travel sites.
My personal favourite for hotels is agoda.com. They have some great rates for properties in the Asia-Pacific.
Different vendors will be best suited to different markets. I wouldn't book a flight Beijing-Shanghai on expedia, as ctrip has better prices, for example.
My favourite aggregating sites (ie compare multiple vendors) are skyscanner and fly.com.
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