Booking lots of people

jax1182 · February 19, 2009

Hi,

I am booking a destination wedding for Jamaica in July 2009. I went through a travel agent and had all of my guests book through the same agent. We are now up to 75 guests with deposits paid!! I am wondering if we should get some sort of perks for our trip, being that we are booking sooo many people through her. (I am just remembering back to spring break when 1 person would get a free trip if they booked ten other people). Our travel agent is booking all of our trips through apple vacation.

* I am just wondering about this, as I am not familiar with the travel industry, but my mom keeps getting on me that we should be receiving some sort of perks! Please let me know what you think!!

soon2bePowers · February 19, 2009

I may have the numbers slightly off but we were told that every 21st person gets their trip free. This can be broken down several ways, for us we weren't going to give anyone the free trip. Instead we were going to divide the free trip cost up and give a bit to each guest. That way each person would get a discount on their trip. We were also told that we could make our booking free or select people to make free. We had the flexible and it was not mentioned to our booking guests.

With 75 people I would think that would be like 3 people free. Although the numbers may be different depending on the resort. Also the free trip was the shortest trip length booked. So if most people booked 5 night and a few booked 7 nights and a few 9 nights, the free trip amount would be for the 5 nights, does that make since?

We are using apple vacations as well.

**By the way I do not work for apple vacations, this is all coming from my travel agent!

JenniferSS · February 19, 2009

Hi Jax!

Hopefully this will help!

If you booked as a group, with a group contract then free rooms should have been negotiated prior to deposits being placed.

Howeve I am assuming that all of the guests are booked individually and not into a group ~ if that is the case then unfortunately there will be no amenities such as a free room, as the supplier ( Apple Vacations) will not offer any to the travel agent and so at this point it is out of the travel agents hands. Typically we do not make enough commission on 25-35 rooms to offer a free room on our own and still cover operating expenses and our time

That is one of the advantages to having a group contract ( the contract is crafted between the resort and supplier with the TA providing the negotiation on your behalf) - the free rooms or upgrades. The disadvantage are-the guests all have to travel on the same dates (although there may be room for a little flexibility) and deposits for the entire group must be paid within 10 days of contract being recieved- usually this falls as a finacial obligation on the bride & groom as many times the guest may not have enough time to get the information and deposits to the travel agent. The other disadvantage is that if some of those rooms are not utilized by guest then the bride & groom may forfeit deposit or worse yet have to pay for unused rooms.

Also for a group contract they typically only count doubles in a room- not triples or quads toward the total count numbers for the free room/person.

There is alot more to group wedding contracts and there are additional variables that I haven't taken into account in this post.

It never hurts to ask your TA to go to Apple and see if there is anything that the resort is willing to do at this point but don't be suprised if the resort says no- especially if your guests are only staying for a 3 day weekend as is typical of DW's.

jax1182 · February 19, 2009

Thanks for the input!! I wasn't sure what to expect as I have never booked such a large party before. I think I am going to call my travel agent today. I'm not sure if she booked us as a group or as individuals.