Full disclosure: Roxane Satterfield is our travel agent.
Here are some reasons why you might consider working with a knowledgeable travel agent. Each of these are real instances where Roxane’s knowledge was most useful for us in our travels, with Viking & otherwise.
1. Planning pre & post excursions for less $$$. She put together packages for us for stays in Reykjavik, Sydney, & Panama City for substantial cost savings over the Viking options.
2. Airlines are notorious for changing schedules after you’ve booked. For one of our cruises, we found that Viking pricing was best for us, and after booking with Viking air plus, the schedule changed 4 times. She handled each of those changes knowing our flight preferences, and arranged a 3 way phone call with Viking for the most significant one. I didn’t have to do anything but check on seat assignments - no long, on hold while I get a supervisors, phone calls with Viking air needed (by me, anyway).
3. Validating that Viking air is the best deal. Price shopping can certainly be done with Google flights, but she finds more options than I do when I do my own searching. As our travel schedules are flexible, moving departure days by one day can sometimes save lots of $
4. Preventing costly errors. For an upcoming cruise, Viking doesn’t offer business air, so we’re doing our own. I searched, found what I thought was a good deal based on kayak prices & airline websites for using our frequent flyer miles, and emailed her. She did a separate search and found us a similar itinerary for the same price in cash, saving us 500k miles to use on another holiday.
5. When things go wrong, it’s nice to have a personal contact to help remedy problems. Our flights were delayed into Auckland, and we ended up spending the night in Sydney. Because we were aware of the potential problems due to the weather there, we had already lined up a list of hotels close to the airport in case we had to stay over. By the time we got our luggage and were in a taxi, I had a room booked for that unforeseen stay. She also rearranged our car pickup for Auckland, and helped us file for our travel interruption claim.
5. Upgrades and on board credits. Some Travel Agents have the discretion to add extra free money to your cruise booking. We use this for excursions. We’ve also benefited from a surprise stateroom category upgrade.
Food for thought.