TBH I thought until recently that its cheaper and easier to just do it yourself because the holidays we've had since having kids have either been domestic or staying at Club Med, when you book direct with them. We've just come back from a holiday in Hong Kong and got an agent to book it for us. She got a much better rate on both hotels we stayed at than I could find on the internet. We got an upgrade at one hotel and the offer of one at the other (turned it down cos we could see the fireworks at Disneyland from our original room). I don't know if that was because we were just lucky, or something to do with the agent. It also made it easier with transfers etc. Having previously used trains and buses to get from the airport to our hotel with the kids, I'll never do it again so having a coach or private car (with car seats) waiting for us was a bonus too.

Finally, I got lucky with the agent we used. The first one I spoke to was TBH pretty hopeless - didn't put in any effort, no suggestions etc. The second one I spoke to gave really good advice and had actually been to HK 6 or 7 times herself so gave us some brilliant information and advice.