Corporate Travel Agents - Do they provide value?

[GroundedSLF]

OK, I just want your opinions regarding Corporate/Business Travel Agents, and if, in your opinion, they provide value for money or not.
Also, what are your biggest "gripes" when using them?

Please note - I am only looking for opinions on Corporate/Business Agents, NOT leisure/Holiday booking agents.

Thanks folks.

[Ray Dahvectac]

Personally, I cannot see why the company I work for uses them. I can normally (90% of the time) find better deals on the Internet for both travel and hotel bookings.

I do not think they provide vfm.

[GroundedSLF]

But how long does it take you to find a cheaper deal? How much cheaper is it?

One other major concideration is CRS (Corporate & Social Resposibility), in that if you book direct (ie not through your Company Agent), then (god forbid) something happens to your flight, would your company have a mechanism in place to know what flight/hotel/train etc you were on?

[radeng]

The corporate agent was charging us £30 to make an airline booking - and, because we were a low volume user, requiring a credit card number for the fare. BA charge £4-50. A previous corporate agent had never heard of D class fares on BA. They also told me that you couldn't go by train from Stockholm to Copenhagen, and when told that there was a bridge, said it took 24 hours and three changes - they couldn't charge as much for booking train tickets as air tickets!

So my experience is that they aren't worth it, unless, maybe, you are big company with a lot of travel happening where they negotiate deals with airlines. They also come up with unreasonable ideas on which airports to use - again, either to maximise the commission, or in some cases, pure ignorance.

[GroundedSLF]

Wow - £30 for a flight booking is high.

I guess its the same in any business- good agents & bad agents...

For me, it is interesting to note that "agents" are often the bad guys, when in fact, most of the time they are only "enforcing" a your own companies travel policy - ie "go for cheapest cost" - if an agent is any good, they will consider the whole end to end journey, rather than just airport to airport. Not much good offering Ryanair from Stansted if your passenger works/lives near Gatwick for example.

Again, the above does also need the "buy in" from your own companies procurement dept ;)

Personally, I believe business travel should strike a balance between cost to the company, and the needs of the traveller.

A friend of mine has worked in both leisure and corporate travel as an agent, and when asked what the differance is, said "In leisure, you are dealing with travellers who want to travel, in corporate, you are dealing with travellers who dont"

[MathFox]

I have used travel agents some of the times; made my own bookings some other times and delegated the travel arrangements to the company's secretary yet other times.
My experiences are mixed. Best experiences were with the company secretaries who had fun arranging trips; I prefer to book simple trips myself (if it can be done in 15 minutes on the Internet...), but in more complex cases it is good to have someone who is willing to spend the 30 minutes on hold arranging things with airlines... even if it costs some $s

Biggest issue with an agent is that it requires time to explain all the requirements and preferences; things like "find the ticket that is cheapest if we have two changes in flight dates"...

I have had no complaints about the service from the agent I've used; but seen little value, considering that I can book on the Internet without paying their fee.

[Chuchinchow]

My business travel is insufficient to warrant retaining a corporate travel agent, but the following story warned me off travel agencies in general

Early in March 2008, I was contemplating a trip from London to Columbus OH. I visited a certain travel agent in west London, told the employee there that I wanted to travel in business class, that my preferred airport of departure was Gatwick, and sat back to see what she would come up with.

She told me that "the best and preferred" routing was STN-JFK - in premium economy - a transfer to EWR and then on to CMH.

I gently reminded her of the parameters outlined above and asked her why I could not fly LGW/LHR-EWR direct thus eliminating a completely superfluous ground transfer. Again the agent told me that her routing was far better. I reiterated that I wanted to travel in business class; her riposte was that "premium economy was much better".

As reporters on the late (and unlamented) "News of the Screws" used to write, "I made my excuses and left". That particular west London travel agency was so greedy for commissions and kickbacks that it clearly had not the slightest regard for customers' requests or needs.

Travel agencies? Who needs them?

[Three Thousand Rule]

I had a similar experience with a travel management company last year.

Having looked for an A-B-C connection (it took them 7 days to reply), they then announced that it was impossible without an overnight stay.

Within 30 seconds, I found three suitable connections on Amadeus.

It does make one wonder about the commissions.

[radeng]

I think it is fair to say that company travel policies are produced by the people who don't travel, and regards it as a privilege. One gripe with my last employer was the use of Concur for expenses - what previously took 20 minutes then took at least an hour, and that when I was conversant with the system. But the people who introduce these systems look at saving their department time, not other departments where, for exampl, engineers were charged for at $150 an hour, but accounts people at $100 and hour.....Similalry when the travel agent wants a longer journey time.

Letting purchasing loose is even worse. Going to Sweden? Use Ryanair - it's only £30. Except if I want to go next Monday, and I want to go the north side of Stockholm, not over an hour the other side, and Stansted is an extra hour and a half away.......at $150 an hour but they don't see (or want to see) that.

But my experience of corporate travel agencies over the last 30 years is definitley not brilliant. At one time, when the company was part of Plessey, it was policy to use a certain travel agency owned by the wife of one of the directors - and they were hopeless, as well as expensive. The directors, too, in some cases.

During the volcano shutdown, Mrs Radeng was stuck in Israel. She could get to Madrid, and travel agent said,'Oh you can get on a train and go ot Caen for the ferry, but we can't issue you a ticket.' I checked - no seats on trains for 4 days, except by using multiple local services which would not have got there in time for the ferry. Agent couldn't book a car becasue Avis didn't have any at Madrid and wouldn't book Hertz because of 'company policy'. (She did rent from Hertz!)

[easyflyer83]

We can all sit here and reel off bad experiences. However, each post just seems to give one bad experience that doesn't demonstrate and indemic problem.

I have no affiliation to business travel agents, I once worked in a leisure agent part time whilst at uni but I do know that the business agents are normally very knowledgable and skilled in what they do. In an age where times are hard and where businesses are becoming ever shrewd in how they spend their money, the business agents appear to still be valued.

The problem on a site such as this is that we are all interested in aviation, and quite often, wider travel/transportation. Thats why we enjoy making our own travel plans, tailoring it so that we can catch the A380 etc etc but your average employee usually couldn't give a toss, let alone be asked by their employer to search for the best deals themselves. And thats where much of the misinterpretation lies. Business travel isn't just restricted to businessmen/women and executives but the wider workforce including blue collar workers. Employing someone internally to search and book travel might well be an option but probably just as, if not more, expensive than using an agency. Plus, as someone else has mentioned, agents usually add value purely for being there when things go tits up. Easyjet has also benefitted from selling through business agents, it's model once being dead set against such practice.

So yes, you might get an agent who doesn't know there is a bridge between Sweeden and Denmark and you might get the odd one who is so focused on incentive rather than requirements (the actual Agent wouldn't endorse such practice as ultimately they lost a sale regardless) but by and large I would hazard a guess that they do provide value due to the fact they are seen as providing a valuable service by the business world.

[radeng]

Looking at the problems that both myself and Mrs radeng have had over the last 30+ years of corporate travel agents, we have had enough messed up trips. Then my colleagues. have had as much trouble..

One of them was booked to arrive at Phoenix from London on BA at 1730, and booked out on America West to San Diego at 1830. The agent said 'an hour is plenty of time for a connection'. It's a hell of a long way from the B stands at Phoenix (where BA ariives) to the A stands where the San Diego flights generally left from.....and forgetting immigration.

I had a trip to Paris. They had sent me confirmation of the flights, but when I came to check in to return, they had never booked the return - only the outward..

They booked me on a flight into CDG and a departure 45 minutes later from Orly....seemed amazed when I said it wasn't long enough as the airports are on opposite sides of Paris.

And so it goes on. Yet when I book myself, it nearly always works except for weather or tech failure - on about 30 trips a year.

The original question was 'Do they provide value for money?'

There may be some that do - the radeng household have just never come across them.

[Businesstraveller]

From personal experience, if you know the route/options you want then they offer no value and just increase the cost (typically +£5 for bookings made via agents websites and +£20 if you speak to an agent on the phone). They also don't successfully pass on all your seat/journey preferences that would be embedded in a booking if you made it direct with the airline.

If ever I need to change a booking detail, request a check-in over the phone etc I always contact the airline directly and don't waste time with the agents.

I would accept that they offer some use in showing routing/comparitive price options for routes you're not familiar with however.

A frequent reason trotted out for using agents for all bookings is that companies have a corporate responsibility to ensure employees safety and to know where employees are at all times. Well, the view of everyone I've worked with and canvassed their opinion on the subject is the first place I'd go to find out where a colleague was would be a secretary, other colleagues etc - not a travel agent.

It's an established fact that airlines offer travel perks (like BA Exec Club black cards) to those who control corporate travel policy for large companies. I wonder if a similar policy operates with travel agencies?

[Aksai Oiler]

Radeng - I would concur about Concur - I hate it... :yuk: I'm actually trying to do them as I write this

We now have a recommendation to use the Corporate Travel Agents online booking tool rather than speaking to an agent - which from perspective defeats the object of having a Corporate Travel Agent in some respects.

I don't know what kind of value the Company gets at the end of the day. As the end user, I find the service agents can either be helpful or useless. I travel on average 10-20 sectors a month - so for example being able to call them at 1AM (when you arrive from Tunis into Gatwick to find your flight next day to Malaga has been cancelled) is great.

On the other hand to be told my only option is to fly at 7AM to London to get a 9PM connection to India is not, particularly when I know in reality I can take a 2PM flight with another carrier to catch the same 9PM flight - its just a case of helping them along the way and explaining the do's and don'ts.

Going back to value and slightly off subject - my company issues us with a Corporate CC from CitiBank - in USD - they charge 1% commission on every foreign currency transaction - which in my case is 99% of all transactions made. If you consider I am one of 51,000 employees - they should be making some commission....

[PAXboy]

I can speak of positive experiences but they were in the boom times - the second half of the 80s - so I guess there was enough money around.

I was working in the City of London for an American Merchant Bank and we had a well known American travel and charge card company with a base in the building. They were BRILLIANT. You could pop in and make sure they knew your preferences and they could do deals and, if you got stuck somewhere - you could ring any of the local branches. It worked very well.

Later, I was doing mor contract work and so tended to do it myself even before the Net changed everything. Nowadays, if they have a corporate travel agent they normally get minimal fees (or zero) and have to make it all off each booking. inevitably they can't do much. On the other hand, what is the cost of someone spending too long booking a trip than to be doing their job?

So, not relevant but it WAS good when it was good! :p

[1DC]

I spent most of my working life with same multinational.
At first we used a local travel agent in the town where our business was located, they were brilliant and always got us very good deals.We were their major customer and they realised that.
We then had to use the travel agent who had the contract to provide services to the company's European arm based in London, they were expensive but if we could show them a better deal they would match it because of a clause in the contract.After a year the deal was renegotiated and the clause was removed.Fortunately i was senior enough to be able to create a fuss about the extra expense on my budget and my VP took it up. At the next renegotiation the agency lost the contract and i was advised that(because of my vigilance!!) all air travel was being transferred to corporate travel at our headquarters in the USA.
Corporate travel then moved from expensive to very expensive and my travel budget almost doubled, i complained about it and was ignored. I then instructed all the people who reported to me to get a comparable deal from our local travel agent and if it was cheaper use it.The local deal was always much cheaper often 50% of corporate.After about 6 months i was hauled up to the London office and told that if i didn't conform to corporate travel policy i would be disciplined.My proof that my way was much cheaper was ignored and as i didn't understand the big picture i was wrong. I was told that the company received a commission from the agency used by corporate every six month's depending upon the amount spent. I then tried to get a credit to my budget for my share of the commission. I never did get it and i could never find out how much commission was paid although i was told,on the quiet, that it was nowhere near the amount i could save.
In short using corporate travel is expensive but they can be a powerful organisation in the company!

[PAXboy]

Ah yes - it's who you know! 1DC, that is a MOST instructive post, Thank You. Sounds like the kind of deal that was struck on the golf course?! There are many possible explanations but some of the usual ones are:


Old school chum who needs the biz
Paying back of favours
Generating favours for the future
Free holiday travel in F for the Chairman/CEO/CFO and their families
Someone owns shares in the travel company
Someone part owns the travel company
Someone's wife owns the travel company
etc.

Cynical? I wasn't born this way but living amongst humans has made me so. :}

[1DC]

Cynical, Us Paxboy!!
Sometimes our Senior Senior Management were totally out of touch with reality. I remember the markets going south so quickly the Pres. and CEO made an executive decision that the entire company would save 10% of the years budget, even though it was already June. The situation was so serious that he would personally visit the major business centres to make sure we understood. The great day arrived and the company jet turned up at our local airport, the Pres./CEO got off followed by his wife and daughter(she was travelling because she had just gone through a divorce and they were trying to take her mind off it). It cost us about £1K to entertain his family for the day, in the manner to which they were accustomed.
He left thinking he had done a good job and we were left to try and persuade guys that the company was struggling and we had to cut the budgets, they thought it was BS otherwise the Pres. would have been trying to save money as well.
Mind you the corporate travel policy probably arranged for his wife and daughters costs to be lost somewhere!!

[Phileas Fogg]

GroundedSLF,

Very quick and easy to find a better, even if it isn't the best, deal available.

For flights go to such a site as Cheap Flights | Search & Compare Flight Offers - Fly.com (http://www.fly.com/uk/) , select a route and dates then click then, as applicable, make purchase.

Next, select another couple of routes and if it is the same vendor that consistently offers the best deal on these different routes/dates then I shall be VERY surprised thus defeating any object of appointing a sole corporate travel agent.

Now how long did that take you to enter two airport codes, two dates, and click 'go' for a better deal, less than a minute?

There is also one hotel site that springs to mind, for price comparison purposes, but I/we shouldn't really be commercially advertising here.

[pwalhx]

My company just over 12 months ago decided to save my time in booking flights, hotels etc to engage a corporate travel agent. We spoke to a few and eventually settled on one that 'understood' our requirements and could get us the best deal around.

My first problem was on the very first booking where they had ignored my requirement to depart from a Northern airport and offered me LHR or LGW ( I did not preclude transferring via these airports just wanted to start the journey in the North not drive to London). I politely corrected them and they came up with the most ludicrous routings. I therefore worked out my own itinerary and asked them to price it, which they did and quoted £300 over the prices I had seen when sorting my own routing. When this was pointed out they remarkably noticed an error and the price came down.

Since then we have had a catalogue of errors culminating in me standing in the Business terminal at Dubai debating with an agent over whether I was booked on a flight or not, unfortunately the 24 hour helpline wasn't being answered at the time. Eventually I padi £200 for a flight change which was refunded when I returned because of a 'booking' error.

So now I give them the flights I feel will be best suited for my requirements and offer them the opportunity to suggest alternatives, all of which defeats the object so the my directors have now agreed that rather than saving time usung a corporate agent costs time so we are going back to booking ourslves.

[Lance Murdoch]

Speaking from the point of view of a humble employee Ive never understood the point of a corporate travel agent.

I have to travel for business to the Middle East several times per year as well as the odd trip to continental Europe and the USA.

Ive found that it is easier just to go to ebookers or similar, find the flight that you want and then tell the agency to book it. Often the deals found on the internet are cheaper e.g. I had to fly from BHX to Brussels. The corporate travel company quoted £200 more than ebookers for the same return flight.

Im not saying they are incompetent but I am struggling in my particular case to work out what value they actually add.

[sunnybunny]

I work for a US multinational, and we have to use the corporate booking agent. If we don't show the booking number on our expense claim they aren't authorised except in certain circumstances.

e.g. you can only book via their web site and can't book a hotel less than a working day in advance. So if I'm required to sort a problem on site next day I have to book it myself.

I don't fly but use hotels a lot and have noticed they can get good rates not available to Joe Public, it's just cumbersome choosing.

[radeng]

And then....

Many of the conferences and so on have special hotel rates, which are not available through travel agents. That also applies to other organisations - if you are going to ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) in Sophia Antipolis (just north of Antibes) then to get the special hotel rates for ETSI delegates, you must go direct and not through a travel agent.

But it would seem that the general opinion shown here is that they usually aren't worthwhile.

[Load Toad]

A good few years ago when I worked for a Big Corporation with a Significant Logo the corporate travel agent was brilliant - sorted out complex itineraries, found good hotels, worked deals, advised possible perks to be found. Anyway, cost cutting and then the company used cheaper agents and frankly it was easier to simply do it yourself. That was when I was in UK, when I moved to Singapore the bosses secretary arranged travel & hotels - this was great as I got on with her very well and she always sorted the deals I wanted.
Nowadays, self employed and with the internet having all manner of ways to book flights, hotels & packages & with me being pretty experienced when it comes to travel - I frankly don't think travel agents can offer much. If I use them (very rarely) they don't really do anything I can't do myself - if they can't get better deals then finding a way to get some perk or other or finding a way to cut travel time off an itinerary might get my custom - but they don't.

[L'aviateur]

I worked for a US Multinational company which had a fairly good corporate travel department, if you got stuck somewhere in the middle of the night you could call the 24 hour number and they'd handle the rest rather then having to queue with people, and they'd inform all necessary parties in the company what was happening. Unfortunately that companies travel policy was always the cheapest, regardless of inconvenience.

The best guy I had was with my last company, he was an ex travel agent employed by the company simply to do all travel coordination. He fully understood the needs of those in the company and communicated properly on all bookings, and would keep you in the loop (i.e bookings that are held, and when we need to confirm and pay for them, once paid for refunding or transferred to next day etc), and also offer low cost airline flights when schedules were definate and it was the option between a 15 hour business class flight or a 4 hour direct Thomson flight (i.e Sharm El Sheikh to Manchester). The guy was working for the bigger picture, and not just to a budget.

In essence, when your travelling a lot, someone on your side can be invaluable especially when things go wrong.

On the flip side, if it's an outside company that adds extra to the bills and offers your a poor service then it obviously is going to be easier booking yourself.

[Load Toad]

Big corporations should ask themselves if their staff really should be fart arsing around spending time planning travel or working on what is supposed to be their job.

[Phileas Fogg]

You mean it's more time consuming to tap a few buttons on a keyboard. then enter credit card details, than explaining everything, in precise detail, then a number of telephone calls back and forth, with a travel agent?

[1DC]

Dealing with corporate generally took longer because they generally provided a service that required more communication back and forth because they did what they wanted to do not what you asked them to do..

[Phileas Fogg]

Very well put 1DC.

For those not in the know ... airlines, hotel chains etc, offer agents incentives (bribes) to sell their products above all others.

As the saying goes ... "If you want something done properly then do it yourself"

[radeng]

Big corporations should ask themselves if the time spent because of corporate travel agents maximising profit is greater than letting the travellers decide their own arrangements.

Plus a little matter of pi**ing off emplyees because the agents get it wrong - and the employees and their departments suffer, not the managers or corporate travel department.

[WHBM]

I wrote about this in another post recently.

Corp travel agents exist to satisfy their own customer, which is generally the Procurement department of a business who select them, rather than the actual travellers. Procurement generally have no idea of travel (thinking a travel agent is the way to go is a typical example) and also tend not to do travel, hence there is a certain backcurrent of envy against those whose jobs it is to do so.

Because Procurement take their typical approach of believing all purchases are a commodity, they just select the agent they can knock down to the cheapest price, so you get what you pay for.

Corp agents do have access to a range of "incentives" to hand out to their customers, and you can guess which department in your company these are quietly given to .........

Among other experiences (we don't use them any more) were a trip from London to a trade conference in Orlando, Florida, where I was told there were no direct flights (!), and we needed to connect in, of all places, St Louis (this was in the final TWA days). A little research showed TWA were also doing a UK agents incentive at the time based on the number of transatlantic tickets booked. That seems typical of the service you get.

[radeng]

Another example from today. Mrs radeng is in Singapore on business, and has had a trip to Bangalore tacked on at the last minute. Silk Air fly direct (the only carrier who does that she has found) for around £300 return. The corporate travel agent in the UK who she is supposed to use 'can't book' Silk Air. They offer a routing taking a long time, costing £1100 and involving a change..........

Not much added value in using them, is there?

[WHBM]

Singapore .... to Bangalore ..... Silk Air fly direct (the only carrier who does that she has found)...
Singapore Airlines also have a daily B777 Singapore to/from Bangalore SQ502/3. If the agent can't find that, which is codeshared across Star Alliance and with Silkair as well, on their system, or "can't book" Singapore Airlines, then I indeed don't know what they are doing.

Do point out to the agent that if they, rather than employing some substantial GDS-based booking system that they have to go away on a training course to understand, just type "Flights from Singaore to Bangalore" into Google, it shows all the direct flights in about a second.

[1DC]

Probably the silliest corporate booking i had was when i wanted to go to Aberdeen from Norwich.It was a while ago and i have been retired a good time so my memory of the prices quoted are not accurate but not far off.
The local airline(think it was Eastern but not certain) had a flight that had a 10 minute stop at Humberside for about £140. Corporate booked me Norwich to Amsterdam,AMS to LHR and then LHR to ABZ, price about £700. I just ignored them and took the local flight, Corp then tried to give me the hard word and threatened to report me to my VP, I told them to go ahead as i would be delighted to compare prices with him. Never heard any more but probably got another black star against my name!!

[Carry0nLuggage]

To be fair to corporate agents, they are limited by the rules set by the company that they are contracted to, usually price, and they do have their uses when things go pear shaped. In that case they have the great advantage of being connected to the booking systems while all you have is a flaky phone line, and the individual agents do seem to relish the challenge.

My personal experience includes hotel bookings being cancelled whilst I was en route, which is not a huge problem when arriving in a Canadian city in the afternoon but is not a lot of fun when arriving in Bangalore in the small hours; or getting a flight booking one month out which I should have noticed but when the date and day of the week are as expected I didn't check the month. :ugh:

We have to use a corporate online system which is basically a screen scraper. This is notoriously slow and rarely shows the lower prices available on airline websites. Each line item on the travel req costs £25 so straight away for a simple trip with two flights and hotac they've made £75. Cooments have been made about the best use of employee time but I can search two or three airlines websites for the best flight before our system has finished its trawl. Hotel bookings are even worse. Unless you like poor quality hotels in rough parts of town or long commutes in strange cites more time is wasted getting more appropriate accomodation.

Are they a good deal? If you are in travel procument perhaps, as your ticket billings can be lower so that's yourobjective met. From the company point of view, probably not, if all the manhour costs of travel are taken into account.

[L'aviateur]

Essentially, the best way to do it in a company with a lot of travel is to have a dedicated internal guy dealing with travel. This works!

[Dee747]

Essentially, the best way to do it in a company with a lot of travel is to have a dedicated internal guy dealing with travel. This works!

As the Procurement Manager in a Further Education College I am responsible for securing our travel and hotel requirements. Common sense, good geographical knowledge, reasonably extensive worldwide travel experience and a sound knowledge of airline, train and hotel online booking systems means I am rarely bettered in price when compared to the Expedias, Opodos and other booking engines.

I book individuals and groups of students and lecturers on travel throughout the UK, Europe and the US/Canada, occasionally even Japan. While it does take a bit of time to get it right, a 'sixth sense' tells you when you know you've got the right deal, and we wouldn't have it any other way. While our policies are reviewed regularly, we don't feel we could obtain any better value by using a corporate travel agent. And as a public sector organisation, every penny counts, and every penny is accountable.

[L'aviateur]

I agree DEE747 in your situation, that works very well.
With a company moving people constantly, i.e. in my case when working for cruise lines, oil companies and now VVIPs, we have regular changes which need to be planned for and dealt with, in addition to having someone that can answer the phone at 2am and resolve a situation.
Our agent is able to 'hold' bookings on several flights without making a payment, then at a certain point the airline makes us pay for these flights, once paid for we can cancel and refund (takes time) or change the date. When you have complex travel plans for multiple employees changing constantly you need someone.

[Rush2112]

I use one here, even though I am perfectly capable of booking direct with SQ or through a flight booking website as I usually do for personal travel, even though they charge the company S$30 and I am not always sure that they got the best deal.

The main, overriding reason is, if I do it myself and pay with my credit card (we don't have such things as corporate credit cards as HO insist we use a bank here that doesn't do CCCs!!!), said HO take so bl**dy long to approve and pay my expenses that I never get the cash in time for the credit card bill!! They won't pay the expenses until the Travel Authorisation Form has been signed off by my line manager and the Group CFO... who has to sign off every single Purchase Order from every office and regularly takes weeks to get around to it.

I am not too worried if it's a few hundred bucks down to Jakarta, but a flight back to UK and I would be, so it's the agent every time.

[Aksai Oiler]

I have a trip on Sunday to sunny Aberdeen, from Jerez; although I can also fly from Seville, Gib or Malaga which are within a reasonable drive from here, Jerez being the closest and at this time of year nice and quiet.

As I am well aware that our Corporate TA will do the least amount of work, I now make my own recommendations to my "Booker" prior to requesting travel. In this case I recommended to avoid IB and only book with BA, because I had checked the rates and BA was half the price of IB. The email came back the next day saying that IB was over GBP1300 and offering cheaper options from AGP. When I insisted they look at a BA option the fare was GBP585, leaving Jerez.

The Booker had passed on my recommendation, the Corporate TA, just did not bother to read... :ugh:

[Saintsman]

On sites such as Expedia and Opodo, you can get a better deal by booking the flight and hotel together, but I frequently found that Corporate travel booked them individually (or appearing to book them individually and charging us the top rates:hmm:)

I've also found that it was better to find the most convenient flight to suit one's schedule and then tell them to book specific flights otherwise most of their options would be inappropriate.

[WHBM]

I've also found that it was better to find the most convenient flight to suit one's schedule and then tell them to book specific flights otherwise most of their options would be inappropriate.
This is true of much travel arranging, flights in particular, but also to prevent hotels at the wrong end of the city, and such like.

If you travel from Europe to the US you will find a number of bogus "through flights" offered, for example Delta DL15 from Frankfurt to Orlando, which is nothing more than a connection through Atlanta but both legs are given the same number, despite being on different aircraft types and, if the inbound is late at Atlanta, the onward being sent off on time just like any other missed connection. Why do carriers do this nonsense ? Well, research showed them that many agency staff never look beyond the first page in the GDS, and if they use the same number it gets collated by the system right on page one, above any connections, right up there with the Lufthansa nonstop flight.