Never Use Sandals All Inclusive Resorts! You might not be able to get to your honeymoon!

mdowdle

My fiance and I had planned our honeymoon back in December, which was 9 months in advance from our wedding, to go to Sandals Regency Golf and Resort in St. Lucia. We were so excited because they had an option to include the flight with the total package that included an all inclusive resort. At one point we changed our vacation time from ten days to six days. We find out about 14 days before we leave for our honeymoon that apparently when we changed the amount of time we were staying from ten days to six days that Sandals canceled our flights. Now we have no way to get to St. Lucia and have to pay an extra amount around $1500.00 and sandals will not help compensate for our flights! Sandals has the worst customer service and should have made it more clear that if we changed the amount of days we were staying that then they would no longer be handling our flights. Bottom line: worst customer service and not worth the time!

[Deleted User]

Personally I love sandals and have had no problems with them at all nor their customer service (I've booked two trips on my own directly though them and one using a TA).
 Oh and btw, it's really kind of common sense that if you change the amount of time at the resort you would need to also change your flight times/days..  That I am aware of Sandals CSR's (customer service reps) are NOT travel agents they won't automatically do it for you.  They will cancel it of course but to rebook it even a TA needs to work with you to find out what kind of flight you are looking for ie: times day/days ect. J
ust an FYI if not using a TA you are better off booking resort and flight seperate so as not to have this issue occur.

strlzfan11

I agree with the above poster, but if the flights were cancelled shouldn't you have some type of future airfare credit from the airline that you could put towards your new flights?

golden1215

Did you change your arrival AND departure date?  So both flights were no longer needed?

Sucky situation but like PP- I've had an awesome experience w/ Sandals and we booked our flights through their website.  We even get immediate updates if our flights times change by like 5 mins!

kristinanddan

A) Use a travel agent - they're free for crying out loud
Common sense - you changed your stay, you should check up on your flights yourself
C) This one's your fault, sorry

AmoroAgain

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_honeymoon_never-use-sandals-inclusive-resorts-might-not-able-honeymoon?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:11Discussion:488fda8d-c6de-41cb-8a5e-7c24d3b084b0Post:8aac1818-e1c7-4feb-ad55-8886953a54aa">Re: Never Use Sandals All Inclusive Resorts! You might not be able to get to your honeymoon!</a>:
[QUOTE]A) Use a travel agent - they're free for crying out loud B) Common sense - you changed your stay, you should check up on your flights yourself C) This one's your fault, sorry
Posted by kristinanddan[/QUOTE]
Agree completely.

Chrissya03

To the original poster who is bashing Sandals -
This seems blatently obvious to me, and apparently all of the other PP, that it was clearly your own fault. YOU changed the itenerary, YOU should have also changed your flights. Dont bad mouth someone else for your own ignorance.
Have a nice HM.

kaesha

I'm not a Sandals fan, but I'm with everyone else on this one: totally your responsibility.

karagal

awh that is so sad....I agree about using a travel agent...but let's help this girl ladies.  There should be other options,.  Have you contacted a TA?   I loved Sandals...so it is not sandals fault.  BUT you should be able to do something. 

irshis20

It sounds like you obviously purchased a package. Did you really purchase it through Sandals or through a Web site? Although you should have been totally on top of this as soon as you changed the dates (weren't you wondering where the revised itinerary was, or did they send it to you and you just didn't read it?), I do think it's odd that apparently Sandals kept your hotel reservation but not the flights. If it was a package you purchased, the whole thing should have been cancelled, or the whole thing re-booked and re-priced with the new itinerary. The only way I could see this getting screwed up is if you actually booked through a third party, but called Sandals directly to change your dates at the hotel. In that case, the third party you booked through wouldn't know to change your itinerary. Regardless, a change in dates is likely to change the price of any vacation package.

j&n3

Maybe you can find a travel agent and try and get some of your money back. Would it be worth it at this point to try to find a new location? If you have the money to spare, go for it still to save yourself the trouble, but I wouldn't.

alithebride

did you not think to ask when you shortened your stay about the flights?!?!?!?

teacup0618

If you changed the dates then obv. the flights and prices are going to change. How did that not come up in your conversation with Sandals? I'm sure there is some way to fix this. Who did you originally book through? GL

KerriCornell

2 words: travel insurance

Hopefully you can find a good travel agent for your next vacation.  They would have recommended it to you.

Whippet8

honestly...we're leaving to sandals tomorrow..and we also used their option for airfare. I have a couple comments, and I'm not trying to be rude, just blunt and honest...

1. Sandals does not magically pick your flight. They give you a list of options just like travelocity or other websites, and you chose what is best for you. This means that you do have control over your options, and you should not have expected that they would be magically changed for you if you had to pick them yourself in the first place.

2. Once you book, Sandals gives you your airline confirmation number, which to me, means that everything flight related is now in our hands.

I'm sorry you had to deal with this, but it really is your fault that you did'nt think to check on this.

coleandalexia2010

Sounds like an airline problem, not a Sandals problem... why would they be responsible for flights? I get that it was a package deal but they are two completely different lines of business... 

Even if they were in the same business, did you not think to double check that everything would be hunky-dory? Sorry, but this one's on you.

lisalaroc

My parents have stayed at Sandals were more than pleased and we just booked our honeymoon with them.  Our TA told us not to book airfare through them - to wait a bit and see what kind of rates we get.  THat being said, we booked our honeymoon over a year before the wedding and got insaaane discounts. Anyway, flights weren't really available yet anyway.

Long story short, sounds like you should have checked up on the flights on your own.  When it's something that important, never leave it up to someone else.

vegasgroom

Not sure what you got quoted, but the price of the sandals airfair that they quoted me to get from Tampa to Antigua was about four times higher than what I could book on my own, so perhaps by your tickets getting cancelled you'll come out ahead.  It was literally about $1600 more for me to go through Sandals air.

You also didn't mention when you changed the number of days, but I'm sure how far in advance you book greatly affects what they charge for it, and if you change those dates, they're probably no longer to get tickets at the same discount if it's closer to the trip date, so assuming you could just change the dates at any point and have matching airfare was a little nieve.

I haven't booked yet so to the PP's who said they werne't fans of sandals I'd like to hear more about that; we're looking at six days at Sandals Antigua.

sunshine_day_dreams

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_honeymoon_never-use-sandals-inclusive-resorts-might-not-able-honeymoon?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:11Discussion:488fda8d-c6de-41cb-8a5e-7c24d3b084b0Post:4c68fa8e-0f56-43cb-b722-8b23fdea212c">Re: Never Use Sandals All Inclusive Resorts! You might not be able to get to your honeymoon!</a>:
[QUOTE]I haven't booked yet so to the PP's who said they werne't fans of sandals I'd like to hear more about that; we're looking at six days at Sandals Antigua.
Posted by vegasgroom[/QUOTE]

We stayed at SGA in January.  Overall, it was a nice resort, but we wouldn't go back.  If you have specific questions or want my review, you can PM me.

vegasgroom

Just sent a message.

vegasgroom

Sent you a new reply; I know I never check the private messages on here unless someone tells me. :-)