I used to use a travel agent to book all my flights, and then Kayak came along and I assumed it was cheaper just to run a search that way. It’s certainly a lot easier to do it online, rather than ring up and wait for an agent and then painstakingly talk through the dates and locations. On balance I do prefer to do it on my computer.

But sometimes, an agent can not only save you money but get you all sorts of extras. Have you ever, for instance, tried to book a stopover using Kayak? It’s absolutely impossible! Last year I took a trip from London to Dubai, Hong Kong, over to Bangkok and then back to London. If I’d done it using Kayak it would have cost me about £3,000 and routed me via Sydney! A call to Emirates sorted it out, and I got it for a fraction of the cost.

The lesson? Sometimes it pays to ring up.

I found another site where you can enter a destination and various agencies will be dispalyed that give you the best deals to that destination, as well as the months they’re available from.

Just go to : www.cheapflights.co.uk and enter the destination. Then you can browse through different agents. If you’re booking business or first class, these agents can usually get you a better deal than searching online. And one last trick is to ring up FlightCentre who will actually give you the flight for free if you call them and they can’t beat the quote you’ve got from another agent or website.