Whenever I'm at a loss, I turn to the interwebs for help. With great reviews, I thought for sure ABHT could help, but am left feeling sad and kind of insulted after my experience.
I tend to plan our trips myself because I enjoy it, but when we received vouchers from American Airlines that said you have 2 options: 1 - call the airline to book, or 2 - use a travel agent, after waiting on hold for 30+ minutes a few times I contacted ABHT hoping they could help. I sent an email over the weekend explaining the situation and budget and listed off a few places on our bucket list, saying that we'd be open to other suggestions within our budget given their experience with travel planning. Enter Angela...
I received an email on Monday (hey, at least they're prompt), followed by a phone call on Tuesday, where she told me that I'd have to pay them out of pocket (duh - did you really think I thought you chose a career you wouldn't get paid for??), but of course no explanation as to the cost, then she told me the places I listed were all outside my budget (fair enough, thanks so much for your suggestions!) and that I should just call the airline myself and that "sometimes you have to be patient."
I would have loved to use ABHT (and paid them for their services, gasp!), but wasn't given the opportunity. It felt a lot like them saying, you're too poor/cheap so we don't want your business (ouch!) or to even pretend like you're worth our time. I wish they would have taken more time helping figure out what we can do instead of the incredibly awkward and disheartening interaction I had.
All in all, they're prompt, but if you're not spending oodles and oodles of money and/or planning a trip with 50 of your closest friends, you're not worth their time.