Need travel agent help for aruba!!!

[Kathie]

I think I posted this in the wrong place the first time so I'm moving it here.

 

I'm planning my wedding for October 2011 and have been working directy with the hotel, the Westin. I think their prices are a bit high. I had a friend get married their on May 6th and her guests paid $159 per room and got upgrades. I know my wedding is 15 months away and prices do go up but October is not the high season and they want $179 per room. I know it's not that expensive, but I know my guests don't want to pay that. I thought I'd get the rooms for around $149. I will have at least 10-15 rooms and about 30-35 people at the wedding but I don't think they are willing to negotiate on the room prices. Is there a travel agent out there that can negotiate a better price and also get a group rate for airfare from Boston?

 

HELP! I thought I was going to book my wedding today and this is a deal breaker for me. I don't want to have to start all over.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Kathie

[MDLady]

I used a travel agent for my guests but she was not able to negotiate a lower rate than the hotel offered. That doesn't mean that you can't, I was just not able to do that. Regarding group rates for airfare, we were told that we could only do that if the flight arrival/departure/location was all the same for all of the guests in the "group". That was impossible to do for us so we had each person book their own trip. But perhaps someone else has better knowledge.

 

FYI, I considered the Westin for my wedding (May 2010) and was given a $169/night price for the group. So the prices are going up slightly but you won't have to worry about that once you sign the contract for a specific price for your group rate.

 

Good luck!

[hat0112]

My wedding is at the Westin this October but I can’t help you with prices. All the prices I have include airfare and everyone booked AI at the resort so I am not sure what the per room cost without AI is.

 

It won’t hurt if you contact a few travel agents and see what they say. Make sure you get them to give you a group discount too. My TA got my family a group discount and there were only 6 of us that booked together. If you want her contact info just PM me, but I think you should definitely check out a few TA’s and see what kind of prices you can get before you start searching again.

[Sheree10]

Check with the BDW TA's. Maureen specializes in Aruba vacations and is a past DW bride. She was very helpful when I asked her tons of questions about the island and group travel.

[traceysteve]

We're getting married in August, and I think the Westin offered us a group rate of $169, my challenge is grouping the room rate along with flights, so I'm pretty much depending on travel agents to get me a deal, and yes, I am having a couple of travel agents work on it.