I’ve been debating whether to post this or not for the last few months and decided I would just to see if anyone has had a similar experience and also to pass on my experience to hopefully stop people going though the same thing.
I got married a few months ago and myself and my wife met a travel agency at a wedding fair in Lausanne who said they could handle the whole honeymoon for us, giving the impression they really knew the place we were going etc and had the facility to allow people to contribute money towards it. Given we were busy planning a wedding for the next three months we agreed to use their ‘expertise’.
The upshot was they just suggested the most expensive flights, hotels and transfers they could find, apparently subcontracted the hotel and transfer booking to a company in that country who refused to take any responsibility for anything that went wrong. It was us (or the missus to be more accurate) who chose the first hotel. For the second hotel they just thumbed through a Relais Chateau guide and again picked off the most expensive one. The woman at the agency swore blind it was the best in the area. However, when we got there it was total crap. Luckily a five minute walk allowed us to find a far superior hotel at a much better price so we moved the next day.
When we contacted them to sort this out they refused to give us a breakdown of the costs involved saying it was in the hands of the 3rd party they used and not their problem. When I asked why would anyone bother to use a travel agency these days when you can go online and book it yourself, the owners reply was, “When it goes wrong you can come to us.” Not ‘if’ but ‘when’!
In my honest opinion, anyone looking to book a honeymoon through some agency promising outstanding service, I’d recommend you book it all online with decent travel insurance and if you want to do the ‘wedding guest donation’ thing they just open a post office account and get the money paid in there.
We were very lucky in as much as, we could afford to change the second hotel we stayed at very quickly and we took a lot of decisions ourselves on the flights and first hotel we stayed in. I couldn’t say it was the ‘honeymoon from hell’ as we had a fantastic time. However, it wouldn’t have been if we’d have just left everything in their hands.
I’d just like to know if, 1 anyone has had a similar experience and (2) genuinely and without any sarcasm, what is the point of using a travel agency these days, when in our experience they subcontracted most of the work, and charged us a massive markup to do so without providing any breakdown of the costs involved which was a lot more than if we’d have booked it ourselves online in under an hour. Any thoughts?
