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| An Explanation About Travel Agent Fees |
| Wednesday, 11 July 2007 | |
 I wanted to add a note to the news article I posted yesterday. I received an email from a friend regarding how I could refer to travel agents with the statement "leave it to the pros who cost you nothing" since the last time she had to purchase airline tickets through her local travel agent, she had to pay $35 per ticket – their standard ticketing fee. Most agencies do charge a ticketing fee for things that they don't make any or very little money on, like airline tickets, car rentals and sometimes hotels but in most cases they do not charge on larger ticket items like tours, cruises, resort packages, etc. With those types of travel products, they are reimbursed with commissions by the travel product suppliers. Plus cruises, tours and resort packages are more complicated products where the knowledge and expertise of the travel agent provides real value, as compared to an air ticket that is a much more straightforward purchase. Yes, it's hard to believe that there was a time less than 20 years ago that travel agents could sit at a desk all day, book airline tickets and make between 10 - 7% commission on each sale. That's why every little town had a travel agency at that time. Any agency that had that as their only business model is long gone and the survivors have to charge fees for non-income generating products and services. When I started selling consolidator tickets online 8 1/2 years ago there were still a few airlines paying 5% although that soon went away. The airlines made their seats a commodity, fired their sales people (travel agents) by stopping commission payments and can't figure out what went wrong. What's your opinion on your local travel agent? Post your answer to our forums. |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 05 November 2008 ) |
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