Travel Agent Recs?

caseyandlizzie · September 2010

Our wedding is in less than 6 months and we decided that we should plan our honeymoon soon and wanted to book through a travel agent. Does anyone have any recommendations on who to work with locally?
TIA!

kelklump · September 2010

I have worked with a travel agent and honestly, you can do most of it yourself with Apple Vacations or Funjet. They do most of their booking that way anyway. Do you have a place you want to go? It might help to start there and look around. Play with dates (which is all they actually do) and then you can figure out what you want to do.

caseyandlizzie · September 2010

We really don't know where we want to go and all the resorts are looking the same to me. I would really prefer to book through a travel agent as opposed to a website, we don't go on big vacations and I like the idea of having 1 person that I can work with to make sure that we get the best deal and if something goes wrong, I have someone on my side.

cincy32011 · September 2010

We used VIP Vacations. We asked a million questions, and they were very patient and always got back to us within a few hours with answers. Our main reason for using a travel agency was that we wanted a point of contact with a good reputation in case we had any problems with our resort and/or flights.

http://travelbyvip.com/

stephhotze · September 2010

Try Bobbie Murphy! She helped me plan our honeymoon to Cozumel in October/November this year . I had no clue where we wuold end up when I contacted her. She helped me figure out what we both wanted & where we could go that was in our budget. She was also great at getting us the most bang for our buck . We were able to afford 10 nights in a 2 story suite with a private pool & roof acess. She kept price checking until we made out final payment about a week ago & ended up getting us about an extra $200 dollars off of her initial price quote. Also super nice & easy to get in touch with via e-mail which was really important for me. Good luck!
btravel@fuse.net
www.bobbies-travel.com

hccpsu · September 2010

I recently used Susan Braun at the AAA office downtown and was very happy with her service. We booked a week at Sandals back in March, and Sandals sent me an email the week before our trip in August, and I noticed the price was cheaper. She got us a refund of almost $500, which I doubt I'd have been able to do on my own. Plus she puts all the paperwork together for you, which I appreciated.

I liked that she'd been to a lot of the places we looked at, so she could give us opinions on the type of room we wanted, etc. She also signed us up for their frequent guest program, and if you go through an agent rather than doing it yourself, you end up with more points. We have a $465 credit off another visit to Sandals.

I don't have her number handy, but as I said, she's at the AAA on Central Parkway.

odonnellj · September 2010

We found our travel agent online and she was based out of New York. Her name is Janet and works with Simplicity Travel. I usually plan our trips myself thru expedia, priceline, orbitz, etc. We already knew where we wanted to go so we just started contacting TAs to see who would give us the best price. I am not sure how, but Janet ended up getting us a rate of close to $500 cheaper than anywhere else I looked. We are staying at the Royal Playa del Carmen for 10 days for a very reasonable price. One thing to keep in mind is to be patient and keep checking the prices. We kept waiting and waiting and kept asking her to recheck the rates and when we decided it was low enough we booked. This can be dangerous because you might end up waiting to long and it going back up, but by doing this, the cost for the two of us went down apprx $1500 from the time we started looking to the time we booked. Good Luck!

muamanda18 · September 2010

I'm going to send you a PM.

caseyandlizzie · September 2010

Thanks ladies!! This is very helpful!

jrtool4 · September 2010

Mindisu suggested her TA last year and I fell in love with them. Yup VIP too.
I personally used Jen and she was wonderful.
I am now living in Pitt but come here often to see what is going on back home and see if there are any GTGs when I am in town.

hsnodgra · September 2010

Ok, I'm going to admit to my lack of knowledge regarding travel agents... Can someone give some information on what they cost? I have always thought they are not worth it, and agree with Kel that I'm all about doing it on my own. But sounds like some of you got some really good deals though the agents... so now I'm wondering if it might be worth it to use one! Thanks!

stephhotze · October 2010

I'm not sure how much they cost in general, but I don't feel as though I paid anything more for Bobbie Murphy's services. In fact, I looked up the trip that we bought through her on orbitz the other day & it was only about $25 less than we paid her. So I guess we paid $25 for all of the advice & guidance which believe me was a ton! I think I've sent her more than 60 e-mails asking questions over the past 5 months. I know that she's only a phone call or text away if something goes wrong, we want advice on a restaurant to go to, etc. I really can't say enough good things about her!!!!

caseyandlizzie · October 2010

In general a travel agents is going to charge a small booking fee, which websites like travelocity and orbitz also charge a booking fee. They can find deals that aren't advertised on the web. I got some quotes the other day from an agent that were between $400 and $600 less than any other website I had found online. It doesn't hurt to get quotes from one too, and usually if the price goes down for a vacation you've book through a TA they can refund the difference to you. They earn commission from the resorts that you book with. In my opinion, its a win-win.

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