Booking through AAA?

[cornfed]

Has anyone booked a Disney trip through AAA? The past two times my wife and I have gone, I've done all the booking through disney.com. Pretty simple. Now that we're AAA members, I figured I'd check on that and see if the discounts were worth it.

I tried doing a search here, but AAA is too short for the search filter and I couldn't find much relevant.

Thanks much.

[Strmchsr]

First off, :welcome: to Intercot!!!

It depends on when you're going. If you're looking at going during a time when WDW generally doesn't release a discount then AAA is worth it. Otherwise, the WDW discount usually beats the AAA one. I would recommend Magical Journeys (http://www.yourmagicaljourneys.com/). With AAA you rarely get an agent that actually cares about you and works with you to make your vacation as perfect as possible, and they certainly don't keep an eye out for better discounts like MJ does. MJ can also book a AAA room-only discount, though you have to go through AAA to

[kakn7294]

:welcome: to Intercot! I've done it before. It depends on whether you want a package or individual components. If you want a package, you MUST book your AAA discounted package (actually only a room discount of 10 - 20% depending on the resort and season) through a AAA travel agent. If you want to book only a room and purchase tickets separately and don't plan on getting a dining plan, you can book the room with a AAA discount rate (same as above) either directly through Disney or through Magical Journeys. I don't like my local AAA agent so I refuse to use. I recommend Karen (or any of the ladies) at MJ.

[caryrae]

You really should give Magical Journeys (MJ) a try. I am using them right now for our trip in Sept 2009 and it has been nothing but excellent. Right now I have a room-only ressie with a AAA discount but if Disney comes out with a better rate room-only or package at any time, then MJ will let me know and ask if I want to get the better rate. They will always keep an eye out for you. I am using Kathy and have changed our Resort a few times and she has always done what I wanted and it gets done fast. One thing I love is I can just send her an e-mail or call saying I want to make a payment towards our Resort with what ever card they have on file and she has always responded the same day, alot of times in less then a hour even minutes.

MJ is free to use and they do all the work for you, it is so easy and the people are so nice I can't imagine not using them ever again. One other cool thing is some of the MJ people are on this forum (Hi Kathy).

Just go here http://www.yourmagicaljourneys.com/ and get a price quote.

[CanadianWDWFan]

:welcome: to Intercot!


I have to agree with going with MJ! We have booked our own, booked through AAA and with MJ. What we have found is the level of service is second to none. Booking with Disney won't get you any future discounts unless you are on top of it. We found with our AAA Disney agent that while she knew about Disney but not how to get the discounts that were available. MJ knows when the discounts come out and then they have any discount applied to your reservation automatically.

Thanks Terrisue!:number1:

[faline]

I've booked a couple of trip through AAA in the past. In my opinion, I found that I did not receive a high level of service from AAA. I'd recommend using Magical Journeys.

[cornfed]

Thanks all!

Well, our trip is booked. I didn't go through MJ for the sole purpose that it was an 'emergency' trip, i.e. - 'If-I-Don't-Leave-Work-Soon-I'll-Go-Bonkers-...-er-More-Bonkers'.

So in two weeks, I'll be spending 7 days at Port Orleans French Quarter. Woo!

I think next time, when we plan it out further in advance we'll use MJ for the reasons everyone stated.

[mkymouse0206]

I would warn anyone to NOT use AAA to book a Disney vacation! They are the most difficult people to deal with on this planet. I booked our first trip with Disney Travel back in 2002, not a problem. Our second trip went with AAA. Everything seemed okay, the travel agent was a little scatter brained to put it mildly, until check in. She got our room ressie so messed up we didn't check in until 6 pm and we arrived at 9 am. For this trip I gave AAA another try, the travel agent we had in '06 is no longer with them. Well ... it was worse. Could never get anyone on the phone, voice mail messages were not returned for days, never quoted the same price twice. Finally when Disney came out with the book 4 get 3 deal I asked for a quote and told her if she could not get me a lower price than Disney I wanted to cancel my reservation with AAA. My reason being, I can pull up my reservation online with Disney, make a payment anytime I want, get a live person on the phone without waiting for them to return my call, etc.. She got so angry when she couldn't talk me out of canceling. I had to call three different supervisors in three different states to get my money back!! :mad:
Anyway, sorry to rant on and on about this. My short answer is I would pay more before I would use AAA. I do here MJ is wonderful!! I am going with Disney Travel again. :mickey:

[crltkcagle]

Thanks for the info. We are AAA members I was considiring booking a trip through them.

[brian2000boston]

sorry for the experience... We didnt have quite that experience but we did have one that was a little dissapointing. We were working with our agent from AAA over the phone and she found us a deal that we had liked. When she read it back it was perfect, value resort-- which we wanted with free dining. Unfortunately we didn't love the flights so asked her to leave that package for us and check for different flights. We wanted to maximize the times we were out there and wanted to fly different airlines. To make a long story short when she did that, she released the package we wanted--and lost it, must of been the last room available at the value resorts for that promotion and ended up having to spend an additional $700 to stay at CBR, now she may of in the long run done us a favor, but to me that was a huge mistake an experienced travel agent should never make. anyway, just my rant!

This years trip i booked myself as a bounce back while at Disney.

[Soul_Power]

I really wish I would have gone through MJ to book my trip rather than AAA. When we first went in 2007, we didn't really know where to start and I had not discovered Intercot at that point, so it "made sense" to go through AAA. The second time around, my boyfriend surprised me with the trip and he went with AAA because he doesn't know about Intercot or MJ.
I really wish we would've went through MJ, though. Although we really like our AAA agent, I find that she's not as Disney-savvy as I would like. When it comes to certain things, I know more about her!

[ewasilau]

We used AAA, they were great and were able to change our reservation and get us an even better deal when the "buy 4 nights get 3 free plus $200 gift card" promotion came out. (Before the new promotion AAA rate was way better than Disney's or MJ's - we got quotes from all 3.) We're 3 weeks out from our trip, got our luggage tags for Magical Express and all our trip docs last week, etc. Maybe it depends on who you use. We got Rosann Wassum in the AAA midatlantic office.

[dan24]

We have been many timed to the world. We are booking a trip for our 5th time. We have used AAA for all trips. And our agent is great to work with anytime a new promotion has come out .. one call and she has it changed. We went last April American had cancelled our flight I got on the phone to her she had us another hotel booked and had a rental car lined up in case we had to drive back. AAA from where we are is great. Now I do realize is AAA is a franchise deal so just because mine in great doesnt mean someone in NJ is going to get a great agent. But we have a agent that knows us by name and if i need something I call and they are great to deal with. :mickey:

[emmbowles]

My AAA agent has been WONDERFUL!! He is very knowledgeable about Disney. The day that the 4/3 deal came out, he called me and changed our booking immeadiately to save us money. He does everything he can to do that. Its such a shame that all AAA agents aren't like him. If they were, I bet no one would be dissappointed with AAA.

[gueli]

When we used AAA they were very nice, accomodating & it worked well for us.
If I didn't use AAA, I would check into MJ.

Based on some of the posts, it would appear that depending on where you live would have a lot to do with how good their agents are.

:mickey: