Booking Direct??

fendigal

Hi there,, We are at present still trying to book our honeymoon, have come to a decision on where we want to go but now we're having hassle with the travel agents where they cant fly us on certain days and they cant book certain hotels we asked for. We are thinking of booking it all direct ourselves flights and hotels. Im just wonderin have many people done this? is there any major drawbacks of cutting out the travel agent??
thanks..

Boggles

fendigal wrote: »

Hi there,, We are at present still trying to book our honeymoon, have come to a decision on where we want to go but now we're having hassle with the travel agents where they cant fly us on certain days and they cant book certain hotels we asked for. We are thinking of booking it all direct ourselves flights and hotels. Im just wonderin have many people done this? is there any major drawbacks of cutting out the travel agent??
thanks..

Drawbacks are you have to plan and book everything yourself, could be dealing with several different companies.

If anything is not up to standard or goes wrong, much easier just deal with your local travel agent if your looking for compo.

fendigal

Yeah i realise that the travel agent takes the hassle out of it for us but to be honest having looked around on the internet i cant see it being a big hassle! We went with the travel agent on a recent city break and all they done was book flights an hotel, i had to arrange transfer and tours etc myself. I've emailed a couple of hotels and they've been so helpful in their replies.
Thanks for the response though..i suppose it'd be nice to have somebody to answer for any probs we may encounter.

Boggles

fendigal wrote: »

Yeah i realise that the travel agent takes the hassle out of it for us but to be honest having looked around on the internet i cant see it being a big hassle! We went with the travel agent on a recent city break and all they done was book flights an hotel, i had to arrange transfer and tours etc myself. I've emailed a couple of hotels and they've been so helpful in their replies.
Thanks for the response though..i suppose it'd be nice to have somebody to answer for any probs we may encounter.

There is nothing you can't do yourself that a travel agent can do for you. Some agents do get discounts thou, so spec something yourself, go to a few travel agents and see if the can better the price.

The piece of mind thing is the only major concern, I imagine honeymoons are quiet a large investment.

Oryx

Its quite simple to book it all yourself, but as has been said, you will have to deal with any problems that crop up. For simple travel arrangements Id never use an agent, but this is your honeymoon and you dont want hiccups or any rows over taxis or dodgy hotel rooms.:) Maybe do your pricing online, and then give an agent the opportunity to come up with a similar package and see how the costs compare. You can decide from that if its worth the possible risks to go it alone.

My sis in law is a seasoned traveller and would never use a travel agent for anything. She gets much better deals online and did successfully book her honeymoon in Thailand, which went without a hitch.

Savman

Completely depends on how organised you are. Loadsa web checkin forms, confirmation numbers, email printouts etc etc.

skinnybop

We arrrnaged our honeymoon ourselves and had no problems. it depends where you are going but generally i think you can sort everything yourselves. we did go to a travel agent orgiionally but didnt real feel that they were listening to what we wanted - we had done all our research before hand so knew what we wanted. if you have time to plan it all, i would recommend you do, good luck

fendigal

Thanks for all those replies guys. Skinnybop we feel exactly the same the travel agents are so unflexible, they either wana charge us the earth or they not interested at all. Its in furiating..we've done a lot of research on hotels etc an we know where we wanna go. As somebody else said there's nothing they can do for us that i cant do myself with a bit extra effort. I guess i just wanted to hear a few past experiences from people...thanks! Hopefully wont live to regret it..

Ms Inquisitive

Definitely book it yourself, get too read proper reviews on hotels and trips and the like if you use tripadvisor.

And if you're travelling via States, using orbitz or travelocity could save you a bundle on exchange rates!

I never use a travel agent and had a voucher for one burning a hole in my pocket for over a year and I've never had a problem while travelling abroad (fingers crossed)!

shrapnel222

what we usually do, is book our holidays through a french or english online travel agent, so they look after the long haul flights and hotels, transfers etc... and then we just sort out the trip to from the departure city, for example london or paris. By doing this, it usually comes out cheaper and you have a lot more choice with regards to hotels and destinations

Savman

More fun too!