Miss Espresso, Corona/Big Bear
Age and Occupation: 23, Recent Grad & Professional Interviewee
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 22, Maintenance Technician
Engagement Date: December 21, 2007
Wedding Date: October, 2008
Blogging Since: June 25, 2008
Venue: Outside a rustic b&b in Big Bear Lake
About Me: I'm a lover of all things good: coffee, music, travel, rain, and of course- my handsome fiance! I'm a full believer in the "Life is Short," mantra - and therefore, eat lots of dark chocolate. I'm a Geographer by degree and nerd by choice. I cook to the sound of French and Portuguese music even though I speak neither. I love road trips, camping, hiking, and capturing life through the lens of my camera. Take me to Anthropologie and I may never leave. I'm a sucker for pretty packaging, bargain finds, and old movies. Mr. Espresso and I are high school sweethearts and I am so blessed to be this amazing man's future wife.
Overconfident Travel Agents Anonymous
July 2nd, 2008 @ 2:38 pm by Miss Espresso
Hi, my name is Miss Espresso, and up until yesterday, I thought booking an international vacation was going to be a breeze. Ha! No- no it wasn’t.
Send me to “Overconfident Travel Agents Anonymous,” because I was wrong! The websites, they all say different things and make me feel crazy. Yay- I’m getting a cheaper flight over here- but hey- I’m getting a cheaper hotel over here- and guess what… they both equal out to the same price! I’ve never booked international travel…I’ve booked travel deals within the state before, but never anything like this, and never for this much money.
So let’s just say I spent waaaayyyyy too much time trying to figure out our honeymoon travel arrangements, because I thought I could, nay, I was determined, to crack the system and get an awesome deal.
Our goal was to get international round-trip airfare to Canada with multi-destination flights, three different 4- and 5-star hotels, and a rental car for under $3,000. Oh, and did I mention that the nearest airport to our destination was 2 hours and 45 minutes away? And that we wouldn’t be flying in until after dark? And that some of the hotels were off of unpaved roads? You see my dilemma. Yes- I’m a Geographer by degree, but how well can I really find my way around a foreign country in the dark? Yeah- not too well. So, after secluding myself for days, changing some plans around, and forfeiting a good part of my working brain, I did it! And we’re even under budget! YAY! YAY! YAY!
But believe me- it came at a price. Check out scary/frustrated face of me below (embarrassing as it may be).
This was me signaling ditto to William Shatner on Priceline. Yes- it had gotten to that point. Look at my desk: travel books, cups, scattered papers and pencils… it wasn’t pretty
Are any of you traveling abroad for your honeymoon or having difficulty with the travel arrangements?
21 Responses to “Overconfident Travel Agents Anonymous”
Congrats for getting everything to work out! Where are you going in Canada?
We’re going to Panama for our honeymoon, but thankfully FI is taking care of that.
Yay that you’ve gotten yours taken care of, though! 
We’re off to Belize for our first trip to South America. I’ve booked several European vacations without help from travel agents or package deals but gave in for the honeymoon. We got a recommendation from a friend of a friend who had been to an eco-friendly resort we were interested in, did some research, then booked one of their packages. I broke down the numbers to determine if it was a deal or more expensive than a la carte and the prices turned out to be rather close, especially once we considered the time and hassle involved in making our own arrangements while wedding planning and decided to make it easy on ourselves and just book the package. We reserved our flights and need to book one night of hotel at our airport destination, then we will be completely taken care of for our remaining stay, including meals, activities and transportation. Not our usual mode of travel, but we felt that is what we needed.
You’ve got a lot of energy to tackle your trip and come out triumphant - congrats!!!
we’re only booking airfare for now, but i just monitored kayak every couple days. one day fares went down $700 each and we booked.
Ooh I feel your pain! It’s so frustrating…and i haven’t had a large chunk of time to devote to online deal stalking yet! I’m curious to find out where you guys are going in Canada…we REALLY want to go to Banff/Lake Louise!
Ok - i’m convinced. When we go to book our honeymoon, we are using a travel agent. an extra $100 or $200 might be worth what remains of my sanity.
bte - I love the crazy face photo!
Kayak.com is an awesome website to compare international travel prices. They will compare priceline.com with cheaptickets.com etc. I’ve always gotten the best deals on there.
Sign up to the Travelzoo.ca newsletter. Every Wednesday they send out a list of Top 20 awesome travel deals in Canada. Also, WestJet has sales usually every Wednesday so check often :)!
Good luck!
I love using farechaser on yahoo to scout out prices- it is similar to kayak! good luck!
Where are you going in Canada?
I’ve lived in 4 different provinces in the last 5 years so if you’d like to know anything about Sk, Ma, On or Qu I can help.
We had a hard time booking our travel too! We are going to Hawaii and after we bought our tickets they airline changed our itinerary and messed up everything! They wanted us to leave at 9am the morning after our wedding (original purcahse was scheduled to leave at 4pm)! We knew this wouldn’t work so we changed around the itinerary again and it ended up costing us another $250 for air fare!
I feel your pain, Miss Espresso — but good for you for sticking with it!! FI and I always book our own travel, and feel like we’ve gotten rather good at it, so the honeymoon is no different. I did have to talk to FIVE different airline agents exactly 331 days before the day we wanted to fly outbound to Europe before I found one that would do what we ideally wanted, but it finally worked, with one woman I spoke to at 3:30 am Pacific time (!). And just this past week, I was able to book our return flights (331 days before our desired return date) and add on a connecting flight into Spain on the outbound leg. All in business class and all on frequent flier miles. SO THRILLED. Now we can start booking hotels/apartments/restaurant reservations.
So it can definitely be worth it, everyone — have patience. And if you want to catch a glimpse of the depth of knowledge/obsession on this topic (miles and flights — but also tons of stuff about hotel membership programs and general travel), check out the message boards at flyertalk.com. Many people are super helpful there as well, as long as you run a search to try to find your own answer before posting a new question.
My mom is a travel agent.. 30 some years. If you can find someone with this much experience and you mesh well…then grab that agent. My Mom has tons of experience with all types of traveling and have by now..has many people she can get hooked up with to assist with those little to big questions. I will never book my own travel…unless I have been there before and know the ropes. For travel over to europe..etc..I will have my mom to line everything up…especially those details we forget about.. My mother doesn’t charge for “sit down” time to discuss trips..only if you book does she get commision from the company.
Why is this agent getting a lower fare than my Mom did? Probably because that other agent didn’t put in all the time researching and threw out a dollar amount 50 dollars cheaper!
hope that helped!
@missbean: We’re going to Central Vancouver Island. This way we have the mountains for me, and the beach for him 
@missm: Belize how exciting! And that’s great that there was no real price difference between the travel agent and booking a la carte. I’m a wee bit jealous
@livvie: Isn’t it crazy how much travel costs fluctuate. $700 though? Wow- good for you!
@MollyJane: oooh too bad since we’re going to BC. But I’m going to have to hit you up when I someday make it to Quebec City
@Miss Pinot Noir: That’s terrible! I am really hoping we don’t have that happen to us… because then we’d be over budget 
@Nicole: How nice to have a travel agent as your mother! I definitely may have looked into her if I hadn’t already booked our trip. Thanks so much.
And thank- you everybody for making me feel a lot better about my temporary insanity. :)BTW- we ended up booking through Expedia for the majority of our trip and by booking 1 of the hotels, car, and airfare together- we saved a lot!
@Miss Espresso: Lucky you! There is much love in my heart for Vancouver Island - it is SO beautiful. My family has a cottage near Parksville that is one of my favourite places on this planet.
Are you going to Tofino? That area is so gorgeous, so I’d suggest at least making a day trip out there if you’re not staying there already!
@missbean: How nice! I don’t know how you’re able to leave with all the pictures I ‘ve seen. And yep- we’re definitely heading to Tofino- we’re going to split our time between there and Ucluelet
I have a sad travel story to share. Well, perhaps not sad in the crying sense of the word, more like sad in the pathetic sense. My finacee and I have been living together for many years and didn’t want to register for ‘things’. So, we decided it would be a wonderful idea to do the honeymoon registry thing. We registered with The Big Day and as with most online registries, they charge a pretty hefty (7%) fee on all gifts unless you book travel through them. So I tried, and I tried…and I tried. It was over one month before I got a quote and it was totally off the mark. In the end, I opted to do all of my research and travel arrangements myself. Using tools like http://www.tripadvisor.com, http://www.virtualtourist.com, among many others, I built the trip of our dreams…and it came in at about 50% less than The Big Day’s prices. I’m not sure the additional work would be good for everyone, but it worked well for us.
@Miss Espresso: Yeah, I don’t know how I leave either… but I guess life goes on. Are you going anywhere else on the Island?
It’s a fun drive out to Tofino. Hopefully you do not succumb easily to car sickness, or else a gravol might be in need. But for driving in the dark, the drive from Parksville/Island Highway to Port Alberni will probably be okay, but the drive from Port Alberni onwards might be a bit sketchy.
I can now understand your frustration, especially if you are flying with Air Canada. So double congrats for figuring it out!
If you have any more questions about the Island, don’t hesitate to ask!
if you’re going to the island…. be sure to visit COOMBS to see goats on the roof of this awesome little market! and then further down is this place called cathedral grove where they’ve got a forest of gigantic ancient trees. it’s really cool
tofino and uculet are pretty cool, although it sucks if the riptides are going.alex and i got a rental car from nanaimo and drove down there with ZERO plans… we ended up sleeping at this shady inn in uculet above a bar…. but it was worth it. the island is really beautiful!
Great write-up! I was on KIIS FM’s site this morning, and I found out they’re giving away THE PERFECT WEDDING!! Check it out:
