Getting Discounts for International Wedding Guests

When planning our wedding I did some internet research and there seemed to be very little information on obtaining discounts for wedding guests.  I was very keen to obtain discounts as it was going to be an expensive journey for friends and families to make.

Flights

Some airlines (such as British Airways I'm sorry to say) didn't respond to my enquiry.  Others such as Virgin Atlantic told me that they do not offer any discounts to wedding guests.  If you have a favourite airline try calling them and see how far you get.

Two airlines where I did have more joy were with Continental and American Airlines.  Both gave me a booking number to give to guests and blocked off a 15-day travel period.  If you plan on calling them or any other airline try speaking to somebody in the corporate and group travel departments as they are the persons who usually deal with it.  I believe the discount is around 5%.

Hire Cars

Depending on where the celebration is (obviously, it's worth trying to arrange discounts for any large gathering be it a christening, bar mitzvah.) your guests may require a hire car.  If they can pick a car up at the airport they are more likely to receive a cheaper rate (definitely true in Manhattan at any rate).  I got in touch with Budget, Avis, Enterprise and Hertz.  All gave me a discount apart from Enterprise .  The first person I spoke to at Hertz advised me that he was "pretty sure that we won't give you a discount", I asked him to try anyway and sure enough a very competent lady was emailing me PDF's with all the relevant information.  Thus persevere.

Hotels

Gaining a group rate at a hotel is quite common.  The hotel we used gave a 10% discount and also threw in a free room.

Do these things and your guests should be very happy.

BY: JJ