FLIGHTS -these days most of the time its cheapest to go on-line and book the flights yourself. You can use a travel agent. Principle advantage of using an agent is they are bonded (ABTA) so if the airline goes broke you are covered. Also some airlines will only handle group bookings by established travel agents eg, Swiss (who used to be Swiss Air before they went broke!)
If you've got long haul expensive flights to sort out it is sometimes worth checking with the likes of STA Travel, Trailfinders etc They will often have seats held at a certain price.
BUDGET AIRLINES - can be great, but when booking be aware of the extra charges, sadly there is no standard here, so double check and shop around. Sometimes it might be worth re-routing to keep in budget - you might end up flying from London to Milan via Dublin. So when using budget airlines be creative with your routings as they often fly from surprising places like Norwich, Coventry etc, which can be really useful.
EXCESS BAGGAGE - if you have lots of equipment try and negotiate with the airline, sometimes they allow musical instruments on free or at advantageous rates - use your charm and guile. Obviously things have tightened up considerably in this area, long gone are the days when you could slip the baggage handler £20 to get a whole band's back line on a flight to NY for free! NEVER try and make tight connections - something WILL go wrong, baggage WILL be lost etc.
BIG corporate travel agents inc. BCD, Alltour,
CHARTERING AIRLINES - you may think you're not Led Zepplin with the Starship so forget it, BUT with even middling bands it can be cost effective, particularly doing European Festivals.
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