What to know when meeting with a travel agent?

Personally, I want to know what they specialize in. I have used different travel agents (TA) for different types of trips. For example, when we went to Bora Bora, I used a TA who had lived there for 6 years and got us free upgrades. When we went to Africa, I used a TA who had been in the peace corps and was very familiar with the places we were traveling.

If you're just booking something to Jamaica or Mexico - pretty much anyone can do that. Also, whatever price they quote you, take it home and try to plan the trip yourself and see if you could get it cheaper. Often they just get a kickback from the hotels.

Certain TAs work with certain hotels, and can get better rates for them than if you just booked it yourself (like the free upgrade we got). However, this only works if you like the hotels they are recommending.

Thanks! @Mrs. H

That's good info.

I did not have a good experience with our travel agent. We used Pro Travel Network, and it had great reviews online so we went in, talked with an agent and booked it. Well, once we booked it, our agent fell off the face of the earth. She was impossible to get ahold of. My grandma wanted to give us $100 toward the honeymoon and spent 2 weeks trying to get ahold of them. For every single thing we did, we had to call multiple times and get copies of everything because no one followed through on what they told us. They kept getting my name wrong, which freaked me out because of airline tickets. Finally, we showed up one day to make the final payment. Our travel agent, and the manager we had been talking to because our travel agent sucked had both quit months ago and no one had bothered to tell us.

So with that said, my advice it-if you decide to use a travel agent (and like Mrs. H. said-you often don't get a discount because the discount the travel agent gets is her commission, and trips to the Caribbean/Mexico are far to easy to book yourself) do your research! Talk to people who have used them. Don't only rely on online reviews or how helpful they are on their first meeting.

If DH and I were to do it all over again, we would've booked it ourselves. If you use a travel agent, the resort will not talk to you. I was so sketched out by our travel agent, I tried calling Sandals and asking to confirm my booking and they wouldn't confirm it because I had a travel agent. With that said, DH and I are planning to go to Europe in a few years, and because we will be dealing with multiple countries, currencies, and languages-we will probably use a travel agent again. We'll just make sure we do our homework first.

Any particular reason you are using a travel agent? I mean - most of what you need can be found via google. Unless you REALLY are dealing with a lot of moving parts - it's not to complicated to handle it yourself.

You should know your max budget and places you want to go.

We told our travel agent Mexico/Caribbean and our budget. That's all she searched! Got us a great deal at a good hotel and monitored prices. We went in 10 months before our honeymoon, and ended up booking 8 months ahead of time because she watched prices for us. 8 days all inclusive with airfare for $2000 total.

We went through AAA and had a great experience. Our travel agent was easy to contact the entire time, and she emailed us after to see how our trip was. She was super helpful booking excursions and getting all the documents we needed ready in a little folder for us.

We are wanting to use a travel agent because neither one of us has ever left the country and we are thinking the Caribbean/ Mexico. Thanks @Nowaseptmrs we will tell our agent that tomorrow

I would research yourself- Caribbean or Mexico are really easy places to visit.

My advice is to prepare by the meeting by the doing the following: 1) list top three to five places you want to have your wedding/honeymoon; 2) think about your favorite activities and what you want to do e.g., beach, active, relax; 3) think about whether accommodation is the focal point, or is the visitor experience more important e.g., sightseeing, experiencing culture, adrenaline-pumping activities; 4) decide on the length of the trip and the approximate budget per person.