I hope all you girls are having better luck than I am with travel agents!!
I started off by going through AMA travel in Edmonton in AUGUST 2010 and they told me I had to wait until November because I was putting in a request too early and the hotel didn't have their prices out yet. So i waited and waited then the travel agent gave us a quote $900 more than what she had said it would be originally!!! So we made some tweaks and again, I waited and waited... I tried contacting her over and over again but she wasn't returning my phone calls or anything!
So i called around to a bunch of different travel agencies and finally got a good quote that we were happy with - from itravel2000 in Toronto. The travel agent has been great and we gave her our Visa number to go ahead and put the deposits down for all immediate family and the bridal party to hold the price and our seats. We made our invitations and got them out well in advanced and we were bombarded with people asking us when and how they could book to go! I sent them out last Friday and was so excited that we could now offically start seeing who was going to come. I have the photographer booked, the florist booked, the band and my family have their vacation requests put in at work for the time off...
I get a phone call from the travel agent this morning saying that Our deposit didn't go through because the "tour operator" - Air Canada Vacations is at a stop sell with the hotel and cannot get any more hotel rooms for the dates that we want!!!!! She called Sunwing and Signature Vacations and they all said the same thing!! So i called the hotel myself to see if there's anything I could do and to see if it is true that they are actually sold out for August already?! They told me they have plenty of room for my 50 guests but I would have to book through the hotel if i wanted them....
I'm totally boggled on what to do... it's going to be so confusing to make our guests book their flights through one travel agent and the hotel through another.... ekkkkkkkkk!!!! I'm so confused and upset... of course this would happen after we were told everything was a go, the invites are sent and we have stuff booked!