What is the point of a travel agent?

[stocktake]

I have always booked on line direct, either for flights, with the owners for property or even direct with the airline for a package holiday.
With the demise of Thomas Cook and the subsequent rescue of the majority of the shops by Hayes Travel I decided to go along and see if they could beat the price of a package holiday to the canaries we are looking at.

Turned up at Hays Travel with my spreadsheet and explained the above, "don't think we can match internet prices " was the first thing the rep said. Good start.

Rep checked my figures and agreed the price I had come to. Then she went onto her travel agent site for the same company and looked at the rates for the same package and came back with a price that was almost £200 more than I had got to

She then got her calculator out and hit the buttons with amazing speed and as such I couldn't follow what she did and then announced she could match the price.

She never tried other operators, never tried tweaking the dates by one or two days to see if the price altered and never tried or asked about airports nearby. I didn't say but I had already spent many hours doing this on line and selected the most cost effective dates.

I said I would think about it but I just had the feeling I had just wasted a couple of hours, travelling to the store, paying for parking and returning home.

Even if the saving had been £10 I would have taken the offer, if she had tried a little harder to get a better price but still only matched it I feel I would have also taken it but to not even go through the motions just didn't cut it with me.