Booking the honeymoon - online or at travel agent?

I have always booked my holidays myself, without the middle-man. I know how much commission the companies take and it's pretty ridiculous. I'd suggest taking a trip to one of the branches and getting a quote? No harm in doing that at all and at least you get a better idea on the price differences.

Ah, thanks Claire. Will have a look at those.

The Paradisus R.de.oro in Guardalavaca, Cuba.

How do you search on Blue Bay, or do you have to call them? Tried all the others and TC is still cheaper (only by about £50 or so).

I agree with Claire, we had prices varying by £500 between the smaller online agents and the high street travel agents.

We had the same, a Kuoni holiday booked through Tropical Warehouse (Blue Bay Travel) and it was £500 cheaper than Travel Counsellors and Kuoni said that they had no availability left!!!

We also asked for extras and got half price seaplane transfers! Don't ask don't get!!!

Got any more for me to try? Found it £100 cheaper in total with Blue Bay. Tried the others too.

Claire, did you mean co-operative travel or coop travel? There are 2 that sound similar.

we took the quote from online and asked them to matchor get cheaper, three shops later we got 300 pp off the honeymoon and an upgrade!!!! they are cheaper online as you dont have the convinience of having someone there to talk through stuff!!

DEFO worth doing it through the shop with the inline quote in hand!!

also, we were in the hotel nxt door on holiday last year and visited the Paradise, its lush!! the beacj is kidna shared with the hotel i was in and is the best beach i have ever seeeeen ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have you tried on:

http://www.opodo.co.uk/opodo/HomeServlet?locale=en_GB

http://www.ebookers.com/

http://www.expedia.co.uk/

Or even booking your flight and hotel seperately? My OH and I normally look on the above sites for ideas and then book flights directly with the cheapest airline and the hotel directly.

Thomas Cook have matched their own online quote in store. Called First Choice yesterday, who said they may be able to match it depending on what day I book it?! Said it's due to prices changing on a daily basis, so they won't know until the day I call them!

Called Thomson as well, who couldn't match the TC price. Just called Blue Bay, who will beat the TC price by £35 pp.

We booked with Thomas Cook branch after looking it up on their website.

They didnt match the online price but it was close enough to have them do it for us if that makes sense.

IE when booking on their website you cant request anything or advise that you are a honeymooner etc. Booking in branch allowed us to inform them we are honeymooners, wanted a third floor room with a view etc.

I have booked 'normal' holidays on line & will do again for next year im sure but I wanted to keep myself right for honeymoon x

Thanks, I'll try these. Although I must admit, I like the idea of booking a package.

yep, prices are going up and down daily!! dependant on how quite stuff gets booked up, its mainly the flight prices that creep up! hence us booking within 2days of looking, so we got the best deal (and had longer to pay off!)

You have to be cheeky, go into the stores and get them to print off your quote, then take that to another shop and so on!

Think there is only one travel agent in the town I work. May have to check that though!

We always sort our own holidays out and never book packages. However, for our honeymoon, we wanted to feel secure that we had booked stuff OK, that we were down for free upgrades/ honeymoon gifts etc. We went with Kuoni in the end (tbh, didn't know we could use another agent to book their holidays) but it was really worth it. We got suggestions and recommendations to do stuff we wouldn't have thought of (or even found out about) and at no point did we feel pressurised.

We took the Kuoni quote to the blue travel agents (either TC or Thomson, can't remember which one) and they could do one cheaper but in marginally worse hotels, slightly more difficult flights etc.

We usually do that too, but want a package holiday for the same reasons.

Might call TC back and see if they will match Blue Bay Travel's quote!

I always enjoy booking all the different bits of holidays myself, and have a file full of colour coded itineraries full of booking references as mementoes LOL

However, for something as massive as our wedding holiday (we're getting married while we're away), we're going through an agent. I'll still be arranging day to day things for us to do but I've got enough to organise without having to keep checking for hotels etc.

We're visiting various places in Canada and finishing in NY so we've used North America travel and I'm so pleased we have. The prices for the hotels are exactly the same as if I'd booked myself on the websites, flights are the same too. The only thing we couldn't have booked the exact same thing is one of the trips but we're happy to let the travel agent sort that for us.

It's just nice to know we've got their insurance and cover.

Call Gill Hossack on **** 571. More often than not she beats any quotes I send to her as she works for herself.

We usually book on online but with it being our honeymoon wanted to request certain things so booked in a travel agent this time. We took the quote from internet into store and they matched it, we were also able to upgrade things for free via the travel agent which we may not have been able to do online.

Today's update: TC have matched Blue Bay's, now waiting for Blue Bay to call me back to see if they can beat TC's price again! This could go on and on...