Do you know any travel agents?
I see travel agent job postings here and there, but I don’t know how it could be a profitable endeavor with so much valuable information online about how to find the best travel deals.
After a quick search, I realized why independent travel agents seem to still be competing.
We decided to see just how useful travel agents are by planning a hypothetical trip to Germany during Oktoberfest, with multiple stops in different cities.
We asked a handful of travel agents to quote us prices for the trip, and then compared those prices to fares we found online ourselves.
The prices we received from four out of five agents were more expensive that what we had found online ourselves, confirming our inkling that they just might not be able to keep up with the world wide web.
However, these exchanges also showed us the one excellent reason why travel agents are still relevant — and just might be around for years to come: personal service. (Source)
Makes sense.
Time
People still value their time. I admit, it can take a couple of hours to find the best deals. More like a few hours over several days if you are like me and always feel like the best deal might pop up if you just wait one more day.
So, a traveler might say, “Hey I’d rather pay a travel agent a couple of hundred bucks if it saves me 5 hours of searching online for a plane ticket.”
Expert Knowledge
Travelers also value expert knowledge. Everyone isn’t cut out to find the best airfare or the best hotel. Sometimes, you would rather have a travel agent do the work for you and give you their top picks to choose from.
People can be overwhelmed by all the options presented in front of them. It’s better to just have someone who they have faith in choose. The travel agent might even tell you about something you would never have found by yourself like a special deal or excursion.
Resources For The Independent Traveler
But if you are like me and you aren’t looking for resorts or tours, you probably just need to book the best flight and the best place to stay. And in many cases, bundling them together in a package is not the cheapest or best way to do it.
Planning on a trip to Brazil this year?
You can find flights to Brazil by yourself. And it doesn’t have to take forever as long as you know where to look.
The Best Sites To Find Flight Deals To Brazil
1. Fareboom
Fareboom is a cool, family-owned flight website. The way the service finds cheap deals goes like this:
1) You put in your departure/arrival destinations and dates
2) Fareboom shows you the cheapest flight they can find that usually has a stopover. Nonstop flights are usually not the cheapest flights available.
3) Fareboom has a flex search option that gives you various price points. Flexibility is key to landing a great steal.
“Depart between March 11 and March 22. Stay for 8 days with optional ±2 days flexibility. Preferred departures on any day of week.”
Straight from the site:
Fare Cruncher
Use the unique FareBoom Fare Cruncher to learn quickly and easily whether you are getting a good deal for your specific itinerary and travel dates. The Fare Cruncher airfare analyzer provides you with up-to-date statistics on lowest available fares applicable to your itinerary within one month of your desired departure, enabling you to pick precisely the cheapest days to travel, without having to guess which travel dates might be cheaper than others. We are obsessed with exposing excellent airfare opportunities to our customers and Fare Cruncher is your ultimate tool for the job.
FareBoom Flight Search Engine
Using FareBoom’s exclusive airfare search technology, we focus on a market that is not covered by our big online competitors, instead offering fares that the big airlines use to quickly fill empty seats on their planes. Such fares usually come with complicated restrictions, making it especially difficult to find matching flights – but this is exactly what we do. Additionally, we frequently offer rebates on established fares you might find elsewhere using our own fare discounting technology.
2. Brazilian Express
The name had me from first sight.
So you want flight deals to Brazil? Why NOT book with Brazilian Express?
Let’s search for a flight from Los Angeles to Sao Paulo sometime next month and see what pops up.
The prices speak for themselves.
Those airfares look great for Los Angeles.
Similar to Fareboom, flexibility is key on Brazilian Express to finding a cheap deal to Brazil from your city. Signing up to the site gives you even cheaper airfares.
For example, check out this flight from Boston to Rio de Janeiro:
That ticket price doesn’t even make sense.
The round trip ticket for $321, not the $900.
Please, if you are in the Boston, Massachusetts area, book that flight for me and enjoy.
Now. How does Brazilian Express get deals like that? Beats me. There has to be a catch though right? Something must be up with this company?
Well, I did some google investigating and I didn’t find too much to go off of. But like any company, the reviews were mixed. Some people had no problems, others said don’t use them.
The usual.
I’ve used the company personally and I’ve had no issues.
I recommend them.
3. Skyscanner
The last of the Big 3 sites to find flight deals to Brazil is Skyscanner.
The website design is much more pleasing to the eye than our other flight sites, but you still get the same type of results.
Let’s do another New York City to Rio de Janeiro flight for March, 2016. I really like how Skyscanner let’s you pick the depart and return days separately with the side by side view.
There’s no doubt about it. Brazil is very affordable. And there’s no signs of it not being so for the foreseeable future. So what are you waiting for?
Go to Brazil.
Related Article – The $1,000 Trip To Rio de Janeiro
Other Flight Resources
Flight Deal – Sign up to this email newsletter and find flight deals to Brazil in your inbox. It’s like a travel agent emailing you daily. Just subscribe to their list.
Secret Flying – Same email newsletter style as The Flight Deal for the most part. Click to subscribe.
That’s it. With a little flexibility, you will always be a few days away from finding great airfare.The Big 3 plus those 2 flight newsletters are all you need to find flight deals to Brazil.
Check them out and see what flight deals you can find.