Booking with a travel agent vs booking myself

[lookame]

i was wondering, is there a benefit to booking a Disney hotel/package with a travel agent over booking the visit myself? Is there a special incentive? Are there additional fees?

 

[Marionnette]

i was wondering, is there a benefit to booking a Disney hotel/package with a travel agent over booking the visit myself? Is there a special incentive? Are there additional fees?

There should not be any additional fees. Some TAs can get some great deals but most will only offer the same deals that you could book on your own thru Disney. The advantage would be if you're a Disney newbie, a good TA can help direct you thru the miasma of planning needs. Some will book your ADRs and FP+. In some cases, they will offer an incentive to book with them like a Disney gift card. A few TAs have been known to send a welcome/thank you gift to their clients' room. And if there is an emergency that requires you to cut your trip short or extend your stay in Orlando, your TA can handle the arrangements for you.

OTOH, when you use a TA, you forfeit all control of the reservation. If you want to make changes or make specific requests, it has to be done through them.

 

[china mom]

Ditto on what Marionette said but with one small clarification.

"OTOH, when you use a TA, you forfeit all control of the reservation. If you want to make changes or make specific requests, it has to be done through them."

This only applies to your reservation and tickets. If you want to change date, accommodations, package, etc, the TA has to do it. BUT you still have total control over your FP and ADR. Also, you can still fax in room requests even if you have a TA

I am only clarifying because I have seen people say that they don't use a TA because they don't want to give that up.

 

[plainoldt]

Agree with China mom. I'm a TA and no, we don't get any better deals at disney than you can get for yourself and it shouldn't cost you anything extra, however.....I will always search out the best deals, figure out which is fiscally better for your family (dining vs OOP), get up early to get your fp+ and work to get every ADR for you if you don't want to OR many times, in conjunction with you. Sometimes a hard ADR requested late can benefit from more than one pair of eyes!

Also, yes, I try to gift my clients in some fashion.

If you are not getting that from a TA, then you have the wrong TA!!

 

[lookame]

So right now we’re debating if my parents will come with us. I’d like to go ahead and do a room only reservation right now as we’d like to stay at Art of Animation (I understand to do this it’s the most expensive nights stay to reserve). We would like 2 mermaid rooms right now but if discounts come out and it’s cheaper to upgrade to the family suite or even go to a moderate resort then we’d like to switch. Is this all better to do with a travel agent?

I don’t think we have any hard ADR planned. We are thinking one character breakfast the day we go to downtown Disney, sci-fi cafe for a day we go to hollywood studios but no Cinderella’s royal table. Ideally we’d like my daughter to get her first haircut in Magic Kingdom. I guess FP+ help may be helpful considering we’ve only gone while the paper FP were around. I also dunno how busy Jan 7-13 generally is so idk how much microplanning I need to do

 

[plainoldt]

again - its all about how much you want to do and remember to do and keep searching. SOme people live for it, others just don't have the time. It doesn't cost you anything so find a good TA that you like and its like 2 sets of eyes!

 

[lookame]

again - its all about how much you want to do and remember to do and keep searching. SOme people live for it, others just don't have the time. It doesn't cost you anything so find a good TA that you like and its like 2 sets of eyes!

Is it possible to make a room only reservation myself then transfer it to a travel agent? Or do I need to book with a travel agent to begin with?

 

[plainoldt]

Honestly, I've never had that situation on a Disney rez, so I'm not the right person to answer

Listen, worse case scenario.... book ut2 yourself and I know the disboards people will help you

 

[plainoldt]

Honestly, the dis board has been one of the most powerful tools that I have used in booking Disney trips for my entire short travel agent career. The people who come here and the information they give are among the most helpful tools that anyone can have.

I've been booking travel for less than 5 years and for Disney... the fabulous people hereanswers more questions than anyone else

 

[ariane37]

Is it possible to make a room only reservation myself then transfer it to a travel agent? Or do I need to book with a travel agent to begin with?

Hi lookame! You can transfer a reservation to a TA as long as: 1. it isn't paid in full and 2. you transfer within 30 days of making the reservation. Let me also point out that you cannot simply change a room only to a package as they are two different departments. Therefore, if you make a RO reservation and then want to change to a package, you have to cancel the RO and rebook which also means making a new deposit. Something to think about as for a short period of time you'll have two deposits tied up since it take 7-10 days for the $ from your RO deposit to be credited back to you. Hope that makes sense

 

[Dave006]

Is it possible to make a room only reservation myself then transfer it to a travel agent? Or do I need to book with a travel agent to begin with?

If you have an existing reservation or plan to make one, either can be assigned to a Travel Agent. There are a few restrictions: you can't have already completed the final payment and the reservation / package must be less than 30 days old.

Is there a reason that you would want to make the initial reservation?

Here is a link to the official Disney form that needs to be sent to Disney. You can complete the process or a good Travel Agent will offer to handle this process along with other services that they can provide.

Link: https://media.disneywebcontent.com/...ic/pdf/BookingTransferFormAllDestinations.pdf

Dave

 

[izzylovesmickey]

I have booked reservations by myself and with the help of a TA. As a rule, I get my quote then decide if I like the pricing or not-I use a TA that gets special discounting on certain rooms at certain times. That is an advantage over booking a res on my own. I have also had her change the res to a WDW discount, usually an AP discount. She controls the reservation but since we do room only not a package, I am free to have her purchase my tickets or find a deal on my own. She will help with ADRs or FPs if I want but I do those on my own since I can retain control of those and make changes on the fly as I desire. She generally can get me the room type I want when I use a WDW discount, but there have been occasions that the WDW website is showing availability that her access is not showing. In that case I will book the room I want but I will transfer the res to her since she has been doing the work for me up to that point. I tend to make several changes because of cheaper flights or work schedule changes, so I don't feel it's fair for her to lose her commission since she's done a lot of the work for me. She's also a great source if something new comes up-I have asked her questions when something pops up on DISboards and she is great about confirming or adding any additional information that her agency may have.

 

[lookame]

If you have an existing reservation or plan to make one, either can be assigned to a Travel Agent. There are a few restrictions: you can't have already completed the final payment and the reservation / package must be less than 30 days old.

Is there a reason that you would want to make the initial reservation?

Here is a link to the official Disney form that needs to be sent to Disney. You can complete the process or a good Travel Agent will offer to handle this process along with other services that they can provide.

Link: https://media.disneywebcontent.com/...ic/pdf/BookingTransferFormAllDestinations.pdf

Dave

The reason why I’d want to book myself is because it seems a lot of travel agents are telling me to wait until late June to book anything. If I can make a RO I’d feel better and I can also get tickets a little cheaper elsewhere. That being said if a travel agent can get me a discount or keep an eye out for discounts and grab one for me when it comes up that would be awesome. Unless free dining is possible we won’t do a dining plan, tickets, again, would need to be discounted so we just really would prefer a RO discount. It’d also be nice to have another set of eyes for help with ADR and FP+. We’re pretty set on dates but rooms can be a little flexible depending on what possible discounts appear...

 

[Nancyg56]

The reason why I’d want to book myself is because it seems a lot of travel agents are telling me to wait until late June to book anything. If I can make a RO I’d feel better and I can also get tickets a little cheaper elsewhere. That being said if a travel agent can get me a discount or keep an eye out for discounts and grab one for me when it comes up that would be awesome. Unless free dining is possible we won’t do a dining plan, tickets, again, would need to be discounted so we just really would prefer a RO discount. It’d also be nice to have another set of eyes for help with ADR and FP+. We’re pretty set on dates but rooms can be a little flexible depending on what possible discounts appear...

My first question is if your parents are going with or without a discount? If they are not going to travel without a RO discount, I see no reason to book, either with a TA or without.

I have used a TA and have booked my own trip, and both have advantages, IMO. Our first few trips I used a TA because I was in over my head. I did plan all of our dining and booked CL so they booked our meals. I think that a good TA can be a world of help if you are worried about more than booking a room. My friend is a Disney TA and she was up all night long, along with every other TA she knew ( On the night before her own trip) waiting for FD to drop. She works on FP and Itineraries for her clients. If you need or want this assistance, I would certainly ask a TA to help.

I also am not sure how much savings buying tickets through venders really is. I priced and the difference was not enough for me to simply book RO. I do book a basic package, but do not add tix or dining upfront, and tehn I only need to place the $200 deposit down. If a RO discount drops, I then call and see if I can make the change.

 

[lookame]

My parents hang up is more the time of year we plan to go. They don’t want to go in Jan right before the marathon. They want to be there for my daughters first trip....but feel we should wait until she’s older and can remember the trip. They’ve also been to Disney with my sister and did all the special stuff-all the character breakfasts and the dining events before the shows to get special seating. They’ll also have just gone to Disneyland with my sister in November and then going to Disneyworld 2 months later might just be to much for them.

My family of 4 (without my parents) are going no matter what. We’d like to stay on site and staying at a value resort isn’t more or less expensive for us than staying off site. We plan to have a car so the resort parking fee is an inconvience. The other option we’ve discussed is renting DVC points via a vender. Staying at AKL in a studio is a little cheaper than staying at AOA without a discount. I think we’d also get free parking but I’m not 100% sure on that...but we couldn’t change our reservations should it be needed.