[StaceyDarling!]

Originally Posted by vthokiegirl

I'm working on our trip for September, have you all found you save money or spend more money by booking through a travel agency. If it is more expensive is it worth the money for the time you don't have to spend booking everything? Also I would love any hints on getting free dining or any other deals!

We book through the same Disney Travel Agency every year, and yes it does save us money, not a crazy amount, but it helps! We orginally startted using an agent because she is a customer of my dads and when she found out we go to disney often she told us about how she could get us deals. They are experts, and amazingly helpful. They can find the deals, because they know where to ask! The trips cost is pretty much the same like if you just went to the website and typed in your vacation information. But they find other deals, like promotions going on that the website won't tell you about, or if free dining is being offered. Things like that.

As for free dining. They offer free dining I know around the time of year I go, end of August beginning of September, lately they've been pushing it further into September though. But they don't announce the free dining until a little bit before it actually goes into effect. So it's great for us to have a travel agent, because we can book our trip in March, and then in the end of July when they announce free dining our agent can get us free dining.

She gives lots of great tips too. We use the same agent every year, I have a lot of good things to say about her and the company she works for! We handled all our other reservations, like dinners and such. She just gets us there!

If you have any other questions, I'd love to help!!

[WDW Rules]

Originally Posted by WishUponAStar

Maybe it's just me but I can't for the LIFE of me figure out why anyone has needed the services of a travel agent since the mid-90's? I just don't get it. What are they doing for you that you can't do yourself? I find that the person who gets you the best deal is the one controlling your wallet.... you.

Unless someone is an extremely busy executive who can't be bothered with the small details of life I just don't get why anyone would use a travel agent.

Saving us over $500 is what does it for us. And it seems like the older I get the more I fell that if I can get someone else to do something for me, why should I do it myself. Especially when they save us money.

[dixie]

For our WDW holiday we always use Mousektrips. Keith always finds us the very best deal and modifys our bookings to take account of any offers Disney might come up with after we have booked.
As International guests telephoning Disney could be a lengthy and costly process and Keith is always willing to do any ressie for too.
Last year's vacation we had over 14 days free dining and I can't tell you what an enormous saving that was for us. Also we had AP discount on our room- all things that would have taken me enormous time and trouble to organise.
I agree with Wish on some things like I always do our own flights, and car hire etc and in Las Vegas I do the hotel too, but for WDW, I prefer Keith!

[WishUponAStar]

Originally Posted by WDW Rules

Saving us over $500 is what does it for us. And it seems like the older I get the more I fell that if I can get someone else to do something for me, why should I do it myself. Especially when they save us money.

I don't know, the two times I attempted to get quotes from a travel agent one quoted me actually slightly HIGHER than the deal I found on a Disney Cruise & didn't offer me the 'onboard credit' that I was able to get if I booked directly myself.

The other time was for our honeymoon in '03 when I wanted to book a couple tours in Edinburgh, Scotland. Well, it turned out the travel agent sent us a premature booking confirmation & then told us LATER that their booking never went through and the tour was now full. Luckily we ended up changing our plan COMPLETELY & doing the coast of Cali but I would have been REALLY dissapointed if we had gone with the original plan.

So, I don't know, I guess I've been exposed to unfortunate circumstances. Still feel pretty confident that I can get the same deals they can find but I am also a control freak & would rather do it myself.

[Remy]

Originally Posted by WishUponAStar

Maybe it's just me but I can't for the LIFE of me figure out why anyone has needed the services of a travel agent since the mid-90's? I just don't get it. What are they doing for you that you can't do yourself? I find that the person who gets you the best deal is the one controlling your wallet.... you.

Unless someone is an extremely busy executive who can't be bothered with the small details of life I just don't get why anyone would use a travel agent.

When I called Disney to book my trip I gave them all the information like date, resort, package...I then gave AAA the same info and she saved me $400.00. I then called back to Disney and they could only give me AAA discount for the room only and I wanted MYW with dinning. Only through AAA was the discount available for a pakcage. If the difference was only $50-100 I may have not booked with AAA because I do not like the fact I can not view our vacation on the Disney website and I am a CONTROL FREEK. With todays econ I could not help but book AAA-heck...even if the econ was doing fantastic I would grab a $400 discount.

I will always check AAA for a better price. They also told me at AAA they only had so many rooms and packages with that price and usually sells out before the 6 month period before your stay.

[WishUponAStar]

Originally Posted by Remy

When I called Disney to book my trip I gave them all the information like date, resort, package...I then gave AAA the same info and she saved me $400.00. I then called back to Disney and they could only give me AAA discount for the room only and I wanted MYW with dinning. Only through AAA was the discount available for a pakcage. If the difference was only $50-100 I may have not booked with AAA because I do not like the fact I can not view our vacation on the Disney website and I am a CONTROL FREEK. With todays econ I could not help but book AAA-heck...even if the econ was doing fantastic I would grab a $400 discount.

I will always check AAA for a better price. They also told me at AAA they only had so many rooms and packages with that price and usually sells out before the 6 month period before your stay.

Yeah, AAA is cool. I was talking more about the conventional travel agent.

[WDW Rules]

Originally Posted by WishUponAStar

I don't know, the two times I attempted to get quotes from a travel agent one quoted me actually slightly HIGHER than the deal I found on a Disney Cruise & didn't offer me the 'onboard credit' that I was able to get if I booked directly myself.

The other time was for our honeymoon in '03 when I wanted to book a couple tours in Edinburgh, Scotland. Well, it turned out the travel agent sent us a premature booking confirmation & then told us LATER that their booking never went through and the tour was now full. Luckily we ended up changing our plan COMPLETELY & doing the coast of Cali but I would have been REALLY dissapointed if we had gone with the original plan.

So, I don't know, I guess I've been exposed to unfortunate circumstances. Still feel pretty confident that I can get the same deals they can find but I am also a control freak & would rather do it myself.

I have heard of horror stories like that before. That would turn me off to TA's too. I guess we lucked out. She's a big Disney fan/freak herself so maybe that helps. Dealing with AAA this year is new to us so hope all goes well. So far, so good.

[Goofballorama]

It may be that I am partial to these particular travel agents, but I think Mouseketrips is a utterly lovely choice. Very nice people. Inspirational, really.

[johnkimv]

Originally Posted by WishUponAStar

Maybe it's just me but I can't for the LIFE of me figure out why anyone has needed the services of a travel agent since the mid-90's? I just don't get it. What are they doing for you that you can't do yourself? I find that the person who gets you the best deal is the one controlling your wallet.... you.

Unless someone is an extremely busy executive who can't be bothered with the small details of life I just don't get why anyone would use a travel agent.

Agreed!!!!!!!

[smee57]

We've used Mouseketrips in the past and were happy. This year I tried to book directly to get the 'buy four get three' deal but was told our dates were blocked out from that deal (the week before Easter). So I tried Small World Travel Agency, which I found through Mousesavers and gave them a shot. She was able to get us the 'buy four get three' and sent us 64+ pages of great information. For us, it was way worth it to use a travel agent.

[jensimonoff]

I use AAA, and love them, they do everything for me that I ask. Last time we went with a group of friends and AAA was so helpful and took care of everything with no problems.

[vthokiegirl]

I see a lot of people use Mousektrips what is their fee for them to do all the planning for you?

[smee57]

No fee.

[dixie]

Originally Posted by vthokiegirl

I see a lot of people use Mousektrips what is their fee for them to do all the planning for you?

There is no fee! no fee, no catch, just great service with everything taken care of. I have use Mousektrips several times now and we are International visitors, they arrange everything we would ever need, do our ADR's our AP's and even ME if we needed it (we didnt)
Our agent of choice there is Keith, and we give him our dates and he does the rest, if any offers or discounts come up he applies them immediately or contacts us to see if we wish to take advantage of offers available at other WDW resorts.

[vthokiegirl]

So how do they make money if they do that stuff for free...almost sounds too good to be true!!!