The assumption we hear most often is that booking direct is automatically cheaper, and an agency's value is mostly upselling. Sometimes the first half of that is true. A single, simple point-to-point ticket, no visa complexity, no connections worth worrying about — book that yourself. We'll say so if you ask us.
What changes the calculation is everything a fare comparison site doesn't show you: whether your passport actually clears for that itinerary, whether a tight connection is realistic or a paper one, whether the "refundable" fare is refundable in the way you assume. None of that shows up next to the price, and all of it is exactly where a booking quietly goes wrong.
What an agency is actually buying you isn't a secret discount — it's a person to call when a flight changes at 11pm the night before, who already knows your itinerary instead of starting from zero. That has a real value, but it isn't free, and we'd rather price it honestly as a planning fee on complex trips than hide it inside an inflated fare on simple ones.
So the honest advice, even though it costs us the occasional booking: if your trip is simple, book it yourself and keep the difference. If it has more than one moving part — connections, visas, a group, a special occasion you don't want to gamble on — that's where we actually earn the fee. Ask us which one your trip is; it costs nothing to find out.
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