travel agents

I don't usually use the services of travel agents, but I can tell you right now that I certainly never will in the future.
Normally, I would have simply gone on line and made my travel arrangements myself. But there were a few obstacles, the most relevant was that my laptop is old and will no longer take updates, and is therefore vulnerable. Not a good idea to do anything regarding money using it. I could have used the computer I'm using at the moment, a Surface which I bought in October 2016. But this thing has a mind of its own and often suddenly decides that it doesn't like my project, and simply moves onto something else. For example, this very blog entry. I started it once and it changed pages on me. So I had to start again. Not the sort of instrument that you want to use to arrange complicated travels.
So I went to a travel agent. The company name and the name of the agent will not be mentioned, but their actions have turned me off all travel companies and all travel agents everywhere. Some, I'm sure are reputable. Some, clearly, are not.
Rather than give all the details here in one entry, I'll just post how my recent trip went, and you can fill in the blanks for yourself.

Let me state once and for all, just for the record, that I have no problem with people earning their commissions, although that is something I mention frequently in these blog entries. I do, however, take great exception to having unnecessary additions to my journey for no observable reason other than padding the commission package.