Who knew planning a destination wedding would be so frustrating?

[midnight24]

i was having a frustrating time too dealing with TA's and group rate quotes. we ended up deciding to let people pick their own dates and book their own trip. we'll see how many people actually end up coming, but bottom line i didn't think it was fair to have everyone pay $300-500 more for their trip cuz of a group rate quote. it was cheaper to go online and book it yourself.

 

i also noticed...your wedding date. we are getting married april 23rd, gbp -coba!

[vdaybride]

Quote:

Originally Posted by midnight24 i was having a frustrating time too dealing with TA's and group rate quotes. we ended up deciding to let people pick their own dates and book their own trip. we'll see how many people actually end up coming, but bottom line i didn't think it was fair to have everyone pay $300-500 more for their trip cuz of a group rate quote. it was cheaper to go online and book it yourself. i also noticed...your wedding date. we are getting married april 23rd, gbp -coba!

Same here, it was waaay to frustrating trying to accomodate everyone and continue to focus on the fun part of planning a wedding. I decided in the end to just let everyone book their own as well.

[Raykel]

Herefishie....Maybe you can look into where Signature does fly at the end of the second week? If they fly into another city nearby...you could fly there and then hop a flight home? If it does not cost a fortune.

We booked everything and then had the TA figure out dates and rates for out of town guests. For us the big ones are Maritimes...who have no flights out until a month after our wedding - so they have to fly into Toronto and then head south, which means they may not come...still waiting to decide. The ones coming from Victoria are flying a day before. so we got lucky I guess. I would say plan the whole thing around what you want and then go from there.

[ChristinaP]

We had the EXACT same situation when initially planning ours. I do mean EXACT.

(I am from Calgary). We also have guests from all over (NL and AB) and were told the same things. It is because of the switch to the spring/summer flight schedules from the fall/winter ones, and we couldn't be guaranteed on our flight back.

In fact, we ended up pushing our dates in to May. Our TA also just had a horror from another bride where because of that flight thing, they switched her flight days, and it caused a problem with her legal ceremony and the four day rule.

Hope this is not too confusing...

BUT I have no idea why your prices would be MORE? I was told they should be less...and our Calgary ones ended up being the same, but the Toronto and Montreal departure points went down $200.

Have you already booked your date at the resort? Are you willing to change?

 

I FEEL YOUR PAIN! I was lliterally in tears at work (not to mention that something with the resort got confused, and they took my original wedding day away and we had to push it back another week). I promise you, it will work out. You have lots of options.

 

Keep us posted... and take some very deep breaths!

[HereFishie]

We haven't booked our date yet because its been a moving target up to this point. We've emailed with the WC a couple times but she needs a reservation to confirm the date is held so its been frustrating.

 

Our original date was actually May 22 (our 1 yr anniversary) but after waiting 2 months for rates for May to be available we gave up and moved the date up a month to April. Since then, its been a huge PITA. Last we heard, we could get the 21st of April 1 week departures but only if we wanted our honeymoon on the 14th. Nothing since. Its been 2 days since that email from my travel agent.

 

Oh and of course the rate is guaranteed for 30 days to pay in full by Nov 30th. They have some whacked out math... 30 days would make our pay in full date Dec 9 not Nov 30!

 

Also, are they INSANE thinking that we're going to have 40 ppl with $1500 to pay in the next 3 weeks a month before Christmas!?!?

 

I'm totally PMSING which makes this worse. I'm on my last nerve with Signature and the travel agent. My FH has to do all the calling because I'm going to lose it on someone if we don't have something useable by the end of this week. If they don't come up with something amazing tomorrow, I so want to tell them where they can shove their crappy group rate rules and restrictions.

[ChristinaP]

Yikes herefishy!

Is there a reason you are dead set on signature? We also looked with them, but transat holidays ended up haveing better payment options, although we did book in August after a couple of months of back and forths and deciding.

Transat offered us a hold on our seats for 90 days with only our $400 deposit. That would be Aug. 25 to Nov.25. Then guests only had to put on $200 deposit, to be paid in full 70 days before travel.

Signature was telling us the same thing with everyone having to pay full trip right before Christmas. I thought that was crap too. Our TA even went back to them asking for the same as we had with transat. they said no.

NOw, transat even gave us an extension on our deposit date (6 extra weeks) which we didn't ask for even. They also had better freebies (every 16th guest free, upgrade of seats etc.).

Anyways, I hope your TA is looking in to all options for you two. Again, good luck, and breathe!

It will come together.

[Melidell]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChristinaP Yikes herefishy! Is there a reason you are dead set on signature? We also looked with them, but transat holidays ended up haveing better payment options, although we did book in August after a couple of months of back and forths and deciding. Transat offered us a hold on our seats for 90 days with only our $400 deposit. That would be Aug. 25 to Nov.25. Then guests only had to put on $200 deposit, to be paid in full 70 days before travel. Signature was telling us the same thing with everyone having to pay full trip right before Christmas. I thought that was crap too. Our TA even went back to them asking for the same as we had with transat. they said no. NOw, transat even gave us an extension on our deposit date (6 extra weeks) which we didn't ask for even. They also had better freebies (every 16th guest free, upgrade of seats etc.). Anyways, I hope your TA is looking in to all options for you two. Again, good luck, and breathe! It will come together.

I'm dealing with Transat for most of my guests (the ones from the Maritimes) and for myself and I have to agree that I've found them very easy to use and flexible. They don't seem to require the crazy deposits to hold seats and give plenty of perks, too.

[HereFishie]

We were going to deal with Transat but their group rates were way higher than Signature's regular rates even. I've used Transat before and like them but they just didn't cut it when it came down to price. It would likely have cut our guest list by 1/3.

My travel agent is a personal friend so she's really working hard to get this to work for us and is even trying to come up with options for going thru the US instead of direct to get the dates we want.

[CaraW]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HereFishie We did think of that Melidell but unfortunately its Signature that's the problem because they don't have flights the week after back home. We may have come up with a solution for our guests coming from Kenora & Winnipeg though which is a great relief. They're going to drive down to the states and pick up a cheapo flight down to Cancun and just book the hotel instead of getting a package vacation. Now we just have to worry about our Comox guests...

I'm also travelling with Signature vacations and they have been NOTHING but a headache. We are waiting on our flight schedule right now, but they currently only have up until the end of April. We are assured that there will be flights for our wedding though, in May.... but by the sounds of it they're saying that they don't? Or am I jumping to conclusions? We are flying from Calgary, maybe your departure location is different than us... I will try not to panic....

[HereFishie]

I don't want to stress you out but... our wedding was originally in May too. 2 months of waiting for prices and we gave up and moved our date to April just so we could book something. Our guests had been hassling us for rates and when/where for so long. We've been fighting with Signature on this for a long time now. We have guests coming out of Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary & Toronto. We couldn't get a flight out of Winnipeg so our guests coming from there are going to have to probably drive down to the states to get a decent fare.

 

I do hope you have better luck than we have so far. Air transat had better incentives/payment options but their rates were too high. Same with Sunquest, Westjet, Aircanada....