Travel Agent or DIY Honeymoons

We did ours through a travel agent, but purely because it was an amazing deal. I'd tracked prices for what we wanted for the year before we wanted to go and the prices for the hotel we wanted with a concierge room didn't go anywhere near the deal we got via the agent.

If there was no price saving, I'd totally book DIY, as I really enjoy piecing together the individual bits to get exactly what I want, and searching for the best prices. I always pay on credit card when booking DIY as 1) I can earn air miles and 2) I can claim back from the credit card company in the event of supplier failure.

Ah that's brill! I've had initial chats with travel agents so will see what they come up with. Fingers crossed they can bag extra deals

Can you still collect air miles when booking through agents?! We're collecting air miles with BA so as we're planning on going to Thailand/Vietnam would hate to miss out!!

I'm booking through InsideAsiaTours. I've used them loads before for tailored holidays and they're great - you have complete freedom in terms of how many experiences you book (even stuff they don't offer as a matter of course. They really go out of their way!) and what sort of accommodation you get. They send out really detailed infopacks before you fly as well, so you don't have to worry about how to get to your hotel once you're there or making a major etiquette faux pas or whatever. ? We've got a meeting with them in early June to discuss our honeymoon.

You can claim the airlines back after you fly, with the appropriate loyalty scheme - but we have Virgin Atlantic credit cards so all our spending earns us miles, so we always use them for big purchases. We also use them for day to day spending and pay off each month. We had 2 x flights to Orlando in 2014 for £200 each - full price for our dates was £700 each.

Ooh I've not heard of them - will take a look!

That's amazing! Intended to book on CC anyway for protection & also to spread the cost a little so will take a look at Virgin offers, thanks for the tip

I'm most likely doing my own DIY. I am doing all the research and choosing the hotels and getting prices for booking it all separately. I will then go into trailfinders and see how much they can offer the same package for. If it is cheaper, I guess I'll do it through them but if not, then I'll do it myself. This is USA though so if it wasn't an English speaking country then I would unlikely do it myself.

We usually do complete DIY whenever we go on holiday but I was so glad when we had booked our honeymoon through an agent! They covered everything including private transfers, welcome cakes and decorated rooms and free massages we wouldn't have got this if we booked ourselves.

The other plus point was we were both planned out by the time we went on honeymoon that for once having someone else do it for us was exactly what we needed!

I do think it depends on the kind of honeymoon you want.

We are going to Barcelona, and although some travel agents did arrange it, they were thin on the ground! This meant that it was very expensive

So we decided to DIY it- bought our flights on Ryan Air and then have booked a lovely Air BnB apartment for 6 nights.

This has saved us money so that we can spend it on activities when we get there

I agree. I would DIY it in Europe but would be far too worried to DIY it to Mexico/America/Jamaica and thereabouts. We're currently trying to decide between South of France, Mexico or Jamaic - just can't decide what we want!

I went to Barcelona two years ago and can safely say it was one of my favourite holidays I've ever been on - just wonderful!

We were always planning to DIY, both of us love researching where to stay and planning the trip.

Somewhere along the planning I must have entered a competition that sent my details to honeymoon planners, and one called holidaysplease contacted us. We were very vague and just gave a rough idea of what we were planning, and we were actually given a suggestion of a better hotel, for cheaper prices than we were about to pay! So we booked through them and don't regret it at all, they have arranged transfers to airports etc so we don't need to think about any of it.

We are still booking activities for once we're there ourselves, so we do still get to do some planning. Like you, I'm still researching everything possible! I don't really feel like I've missed out by booking through an agent

In short, I always thought DIY would be the better, cheaper option, but I would definitely recommend having a look and seeing whether you can get a better deal by going through an agent. If it doesn't work out better, at least you won't be wondering

We were planning to go through an agent, but we couldn't find anything that would be ideal for us, so in the end we did it DIY - best decision ever!

Andy

I always DIY every trip we take & really enjoy the process, but I think we're going to look into the possibility of using someone like Audley or Trailfinders once we've decided what we actually want to do! We've both got loads of Virgin airmiles so want to make sure if we go somewhere that we can fly with them, that we can use them to upgrade, but other than that we're considering all sorts of places at the moment (from Caribbean, to Thailand, Borneo, Costa Rica, USA road trip... the list goes on!). We're also not used to taking relaxing holidays & so we can't decide at the moment whether we should just this once, or make sure we can see a whole lot more of the world whilst we're spending the money!

The minimoon will be 100% DIY though - a nice hotel for a few days & then Glastonbury Festival, if we can get our tickets in October! ?

I've booked my honeymoon through Audley Travel and they have been wonderful! They took into account all of our interests and planned a honeymoon completely bespoke to us. We had a meeting in their office with somebody who has been to all the places we want to go and knows the best places to stay and excursions to go on.

In addition, we've had a couple of calls since (it's been booked well over a year in advance!) and they have had somebody else stay in a hotel where they haven't been happy, so they've cancelled the hotel on our trip and re-booked somewhere else free of charge. They also let you pay a deposit and then the full cost nearer to the honeymoon, which was perfect for us as we couldn't afford to do everything right at the beginning - which we would have needed to do for the DIY approach. I'd certainly recommend them, has really taken the stress out of honeymoon planning and now I get to spend time planning the wedding and looking forward to my lovely honeymoon afterwards.

P.S: They also offer a Honeymoon Gift Service!

Fab tips, thanks everyone!! I've messaged a couple of the agents suggested so excited to see what they come back with.

Do any of the ones that have gift services allow guests to select what they are contributing to? e.g trips/meals/experiences? I'm not keen on just asking for money upfront so would like to give people options for what they're contributing to.

Audley let you personalise the gift service, I got a phone call to go through and set it all up. They gave me some suggested ideas but the gifts and amounts were what we chose in the end. They also let you choose the quantities too. The whole honeymoon bit is like a mini website where you can personalise the theme and wording, it's pretty cool. I hope that helps!

Sounds fab!! They were one of the first to get back to me actually, scheduled a call for Thursday evening to discuss ideas

Does she have a website? I guess it's no more advertising than previous recommendations!

I'd love to do something like that as a part time job/hobby

Yay! Best of luck, hope they're as nice to you as they were to me! Don't be afraid to change things if you're not happy with any part of the itinerary, we literally went through everything they sent through and asked to change some of the hotels and even the date of the honeymoon (from August -> Sept) to save costs.

I did a lot of research into where we wanted to go, including when, what we wanted to see and do etc. I looked at what was available and then contacted companies which did similar trips - these included Imagine India, Corinthian Travel, Audley Travel and Hayes & Jarvis...and another who I can't remember!

Imagine India and Corinthian Travel were both really good - they put together amazing itineraries, offered advice from their own experiences, chopped and changed things to suit and were really attentive. In the end we booked with Imagine India but it was a very close call between the two! It was incredible how much time and effort they clearly put in to trying to get your business. Our agent has also said she will make sure everyone knows it's our honeymoon so we get treated amazingly - I imagine the hotels etc. will go above and beyond as they want the travel agent to keep using them!

Audley Travel seemed a bit lacklustre and weren't very enthusiastic and after about 2 weeks of not getting an itinerary back from Hayes & Jarvis I had to tell them I'd booked with someone else in the meantime!

Hi

i would highly recommend going with an agent even if going to Europe. We did for the first time ever and thank goodness. The Monday we were due to fly out Luton got evacuated for 5 hours, some confusion over some hair straighteners!!

Needless to say our flight was cancelled and we had to go home (but our agent offered to find us a hotel but we live near the airport) and return the following day. The morning after our agent called us and they'd rearranged our private transfer, informed the hotel in Italy to have food ready for us when we arrived. Told us everything would be fine.

We met another couple in the check in que, they were flying out on their DIY honeymoon. Had to sleep in the airport, hadn't been able to get hold of bookings or hotel to let them know they would like us be arriving in Naples at 2am their time on the Wednesday. Poor things were terrified the hotel assumed they weren't coming as didn't arrive Monday evening.

It really not worth the stress with a wedding to plan on top of it all. I mean evacuated because of suspicious tangled up hair straighteners!! Not even Mystic Meg could have foreseen that one!!

Good point! Hadn't really thought about that. Probably even more valuable as we plan to move around a fair bit during our time away so increased risk!

Spent this evening talking to a couple of travel agents to get a better feel for our honeymoon plans, eee!

We've budgeted what I feel is a more than healthy amount (particularly after wedding cost!) but was made to feel like it was just pennies by one of the agent. It's fair to say I won't be picking them!!!

Sounds exciting, do you have a rough plan now? Where are you headed?

We're hoping to do a mix of Vietnam & Thailand over 3 weeks

Have fun planning your honeymoon! It has probably been the most enjoyable part of my wedding planning so far!! Already wishing I could plan another one!!

Sounds amazing! I'm very tempted by Bali! How long are you going for?

Had a couple of quotes back - as much as I'd like to put it in the hands of an agent it's looking like it'll cost over £1K more to do so eek!