Eugene, You raise a fair question, and relative to Regent I'd suspect that you're right. In my case due to the volume of business that I've done over the years traveling on certain airlines (over 7 million miles) and staying at certain hotel chains (gazillions of points), I've found that their statements to me that they will offer up availability, lower pricing, and guaranteed upgrades to me that are absolutely NOT available to TAs or the general public, and that they will over-ride almost any rule or restriction for me, have proven consistently to be true when tested. As a result, I'm pretty comfortable in dealing with certain companies (certain airlines in particular) as that's the ONLY way that they will offer me that level of service. There is one major airline that hasn't had me in anything but a First Class seat for about the last 10 years, regardless of whatever fare I book, including free tickets booked using miles. This holds true for some companies even when compared to my company's corporate travel department, who although they are a large customer for virtually all major business travel carriers, some companies view the people in the airplane seats or hotel rooms as the real customer, over the travel department. As a result, I'm very accustomed to dealing with many travel related suppliers directly, as that's sometimes the only way to get lower rates, or a guaranteed seat on an already sold-out flight.

In this particular situation however, I don't have ANY kind of status with Regent let alone elite status, since I've only cruised with them once before. So yes, possibly I could do better than booking myself, but as Ngaire has insightfully deduced regarding my character, I simply like to manage these things myself, and ultimately I have yet to have a travel-related issue that I wasn't able to resolve. ;)

Cheers,
Ken