TL;DR here; Do NOT recommend. Please find an agent who wants to work with you, not just get your deposit.
Full review below, for those curious.
I began working with RJT travels on August 8th to plan a trip for beginning of October (last week). I sent out an email blast with what I was looking for and heard back from a few agents, but ultimately went with Mr. Tallon. This was in part due to him letting me believe my girlfriend's parents had booked with him previously and recommended his agency. While he did not outright lie to me about this, when I brought it up he changed topics and did not correct that he had not worked with them. I wish I had caught this type of behavior sooner.
Mr. Tallon was also, admittedly, very knowledgeable about his craft and the resort we ended up staying at. I took a lot of his recommendations and found his insight helpful. So why the bad review? First, as soon as he received my deposit the tone shifted. We initially spent a few hours on the phone discussing options, and this process went smooth. As soon as he had the deposit though, the words "there's no reason to bother me until the trip" actually came out of his mouth. I figured this may have been a momentary slip, and didn't pay it much mind.
This trip was meant to propose to my girlfriend, so secrecy was a must. I stressed that over and over again, yet multiple times received mail from "RJT Travels" pertaining to our upcoming trip. Had I not been diligent in getting the mail before her, this alone would've blown the entire trip. On top of that there was a secret dinner booked at our resort where menu's needed filled out and turned in in advance. I initially asked Mr. Tallon for the menu's to fill out August 22nd. I received "As I said on the phone yesterday I will send you over the menu". As I had repeatedly felt my planning was bothering Mr. Tallon I left the topic alone. I had to follow up over a month later, September 29th, myself to remind him I needed the menu's filled out. The ultimately never got turned into the resort, which meant the menu's were left printer in the room for us to fill out, for the secret private dinner I had booked for us. So that was pushed to the second day of our trip, with the secret exposed.
I also wanted a photographer to already be at the location I had requested so I could just "take a pre-dinner walk" with my girlfriend, show up at the spot, and surprise her with the proposal and not have her know a photographer was there waiting. He told me this was impossible (which Sandals later corrected, and fixed) and instead came up with a sort of compromise which I found begrudgingly agreeable. I wish he had put in a little work to just ask the resort, because they were very happy to work with me and do whatever they could to help. I did, in the room, receive documentation confirming the photo appointment Mr. Tallon made for us, again blowing the "secret" aspect of the proposal.
Mr. Tallon was knowledgeable about the resort, and flights (which I had to book myself after he did not get back to me with the info when he said he would). If all you need is someone with knowledge, then I suppose this may be a good fit for you, despite him purposefully misleading me about my girlfriends parent's using him in the past, so proceed warily. However; if you're looking for someone to go above and beyond, who wants to help, this is not your agent. RJT dropped the ball on every aspect of my proposal, and keeping it a secret. I was able to salvage the situation by working with the resort, but I feel my situation would've been better had I just worked with the resort myself to begin with, since I needed to go to them to fix the situation anyway. Mr. Tallon often left me feeling my communications bothered him (which I brought up to him and he never addressed). I will not use this agency again, and I would recommend you don't either. read more