Finally my next trip to the UK and Europe (Portugal) has been booked and will be leaving on the 11th February and be gone for 2 weeks. The big difference this time was I needed help to find the right flights. Yes you could do this yourself, but you are not necessarily going to get the best rates and there are so many hidden fees these days don't even bother. I was fully prepared and did a test run myself before hand and found the agent was far cheaper and got flights I could not get.
When I looked at the various airlines on their websites the prices fluctuated so much it was hard to find a good deal. The out trip was cheaper than the return by as much as 70% which is kind of nuts and when you factor you also have to reserve your seats that added another 10% -25% so prices ae not exactly as they seem. My flight from Johannesburg to London asked for an additional R2K just for selecting which seat and considering the prices was R11 700 this now became R13 700. I learned the hard way last year when I booked my entire family of 7 people and that included paying the hidden fees 4 x which is like buying an extra ticket. Using an agent it seems avoids all of this and why I will always use one going forward in the future.
This time I am going to the UK and the Algarve in Portugal which is serviced by Faro airport which does not have hundreds of daily flights. Most flights were not direct and involved a slight delay at Lisbon which made the flight closer to 6 hours than 2 hours yet these were the same price as a direct flight. TAP the Portuguese airline you would have thought would have the best prices, but were nearly double the other airlines. This is the off season for flights to Faro so there are literally one or two flights per day only.
I could find flights with the biggest issue being the return flight arriving giving myself enough time to connect with my return flight to Johannesburg. Gatwick to Heathrow at 5pm is not a fun trip considering how busy the M25 is and I needed to be there by 7pm latest. The flight I eventually selected arrives at Gatwick at midday so there is no chaotic rush and this avoid possibly booking a hotel at Gatwick and travelling to Heathrow the next day which was a high possibility at one point.
You would think that using an agent you would end up paying more, but this time I calculated a 20% saving which also included the agents commission. I paid $22.50 in total for the agents services which is a bargain considering the savings were around $800. The other bonus is that if there are any problems during your trip you have an agent who can help fix things immediately. I have had this issue before and gives you a huge advantage if a flight is cancelled over every other passenger looking for an alterative solution.
The only thing left to do now is to book hotels and car hire which is the easy part and the positive spin around this is the savings on the flights will cover the costs of the Algarve leg of this trip.