for travelers

How much do travel agents charge?

Written for the person deciding whether to hire one. There is no industry price list, but there is a straight answer about what you would be paying for.

Brianna “Bri” Hill

Travel advisor since 2012

If you have started looking for someone to plan a trip, you have probably run into two confusing things at once: some advisors charge a fee and some say they are free, and almost nobody publishes a number.

I am a working travel advisor, so I am not a neutral party here. What I can do is explain honestly what the fee is, what it pays for, and what it does not, so you can judge whether it is worth it for the trip you are planning.

The short answer

The nearest thing to a real number I can offer is my own. I publish every planning fee average I have charged since 2012, year by year, including the years it went down. One advisor is not an industry, and I say so on that page — but it is a real record rather than a guess.

What the fee actually pays for

Not the booking. The booking takes minutes. You are paying for the part that happens before and around it:

• The conversation where someone works out what you actually want, which is often not what you first said
• Research you would otherwise do yourself across a dozen tabs, weighing options you have no way to compare
• Knowing which resort's “ocean view” means an ocean and which means a car park with a gap in it
• Building the itinerary, and rebuilding it when you change your mind
• Reservations that have to be made months out, at the moment they open
• Someone to call when a flight is canceled at six in the morning in a country you have never been to
• Handling the changes, the payments, the documents, and the supplier who moved your schedule

Some of that you could do alone. All of it takes time, and the fee is what makes that time someone's job rather than a favor.

Three things the fee is not

It is not added to the price of your trip

A planning fee is paid to the advisor, separately. The trip costs what the cruise line or resort or tour operator charges for it. Booking through an advisor who charges a fee does not make the travel itself more expensive.

It is not a deposit

This is the most common misunderstanding, and worth checking before you pay. The planning fee is usually not credited toward the cost of the trip. It is payment for the planning work, and the trip is priced separately on top.

It is not the advisor's only income

Most advisors also earn commission, which is paid by the supplier out of the supplier's own money after you travel. That does not come out of your pocket and does not raise your price. It also does not pay for the planning, which is the whole reason fees exist.

“But some advisors are free”

Some are, and some of them are excellent. An advisor working without a fee is relying entirely on commission, which means they are paid only when you book and only on products that pay.

That is worth knowing rather than worth avoiding. It means the incentive sits on the booking rather than on the planning, and it means an advisor who does a great deal of work for you and earns nothing has no way to absorb that indefinitely. Whether it matters depends on how complicated your trip is. For a straightforward week at a resort, probably not much. For a multi-country trip with moving parts, a lot.

How to tell whether it is worth it

Ask what the fee includes, in writing, before you pay it. A good answer will cover what work is included, what happens if you change your plans, whether the fee is refundable, and what support you get while you are traveling. An advisor who charges professionally will have that written down already.

Then ask yourself the honest version of the question: how many hours would you otherwise spend, and what is it worth to not spend them — and to have someone accountable when something goes wrong at the worst possible moment.

Sometimes the answer is that you do not need an advisor for this trip. That is a legitimate answer, and any advisor worth hiring will tell you the same.