Everyone is trying to squeeze in that last summer, vacation getaway but make sure you take extra care when trying to book your flights online. There are some unscrupulous people out there that are looking for your inattentiveness to take your money. This is when it pays to have a standard travel agent that you can trust and that you do business with regularly, the same way you take your taxes to the same person every year or visit the same doctor for common ailments. That travel agent will value your repeat business and always provide you the best level of service and insure that your travel plans are always suited to your liking.

Some of these so called discount websites can help you lose big money, only adding to your travel getaway headaches .

Unfortunately just Googling discount travel to… won’t always yield you the best results. This is where having a trained professional you trust can comes in handy. Many of these websites present great discounted trips to far away exotic locations but they don’t tell you all the details because they want to give you the illusion that you are going to be cutting out the middle man (i.e. the travel agent) and saving all this money. What the sites are banking on is that you wont understand the industry and what to look for in their offer and take the bait. First know that travel agents don’t have to increase the price of your trip in order to get paid. Save yourself the headache and let the travel agent do the work for you but you should also let them make your reservations so they can get compensated for their time. By asking a travel agent to coordinate a trip for you and then taking the information and paying essentially the same price to a DIY website like Priceline, Expedia or Travelocity is the same as eating at a restaurant, requesting extra bread, drink refills, and having your food recooked and then giving the tip to another waiter at a different table.

Faceless websites will not always include things that are really quite necessary on a foreign trip just to keep the price low, again to appear that you are saving money by eliminating the middle man, but its the trained professional middle man that is ensuring you have an enjoyable vacation experience commiserate with the money you are spending to get there.

It is not uncommon for people to fall prey to minimalist vacation offers that after purchasing they can’t get in touch with anyone to get clarity on what was supposed to be included in their package or if there are any additional charges due upon arrival. Believe me, that is not the time to find out you owe an additional $458 for charges that were not included when you made reservations for your dream vacation get away.

Do yourself a favor and find a travel agent that you can build a relationship with and that knows your travel preferences and needs. In the long run they can probably help you squeeze out an extra 1 or 2 vacations a year between savings and promotions that they get all the time if they already know your travel preferences.