One thing you need to realize is that it can be really, really difficult to make money in travel, and to see the "perks" from it. This is for the benefit of people who think oh the travel business is easy... well let me burst that bubble. By the way I'm not only a
travel agent but I own my
travel agency, so I have some idea of what I speak.
First of all in many cases "perks" are no longer there so for anyone thinking of going in to travel for the perks - don't. Unless you're producing like a million dollars in sales airlines aren't going to be flying you places for free. For a lot of the hotel chains the travel agent discount is the same as the
AAA discount, if they even offer a TA discount. And to even qualify for a TA discount you have to have an official IATA card - to qualify for that you need to be able to prove that you have over $5000 in EARNINGS that are directly from travel sales. Now you're thinking that's not so bad, but that's YOUR earnings, not sales. Most places will pay you 10% commission, some will pay 5% commission, some won't pay any commission at all. Airlines for examle. So figure maybe an average of 7% commission across the board. That means that in order to hit your $5000 in personal earnings you have to sell over $71000 in travel, per year. One host agency I really saw was talking about how their agents start out at making 50% commission! Well yes, 50% of the commission for the booking. So if the booking is $1000 and the commission paid to the host agency is at 10% that's $100, and the agent sees 50% of THAT for a total of $50.
Making money can be difficult on a number of fronts. First of all everyone and their dog thinks they can do a better job by booking themselves online. Think you're going to be booking all your family and friends? Nope. Most travel agents will tell you that family/friends don't generally book with them. Maybe it's because they don't really want you know how much they're spending on travel, or they like you but not enough to give you their credit card numbers, who knows. But once you do have bookings, then the fun starts:
- You need to try and book things as packages rather than separately if YOU are going to make any money. Why? Airlines don't pay commission anymore for one thing, so the $4000 that family is spending just on airfare you're not going to see a penny of.
- Hotels and car rentals will sometimes not pay the commission that they owe you. They find any number of ways of doing this. When I worked at another agency it was part of my job to try and track down commission that wasn't paid - that took a lot of time each day! As a traveller don't you love it when hotels and car agencies give you an upgrade? Wonderful isn't it? For a travel agent many times when they do that they take over the booking, so it's no longer regarded as an agency booking and they don't pay commission on it anymore. Their upgrade, their booking, your loss. I've also had many, many times when bookings were shown as "no shows". I argued for weeks with one hotel who said they weren't paying commission because the client never showed up - I was the client!! I had receipts to prove I'd stayed there on the dates booked but they wouldn't budge and never did pay commission on that.
- And aside from making money there's also money that you may need to PAY in order to operate as a travel agent. Totally aside from any fees that your "host agency" may require you to pay. You will need to research your state and local laws to see if you're required to be licensed or registered in your area - an unscrupulous host agency isn't going to tell you that. And frankly the person you reach by phone may not know even at a good host agency. You also need to check to be SURE that you're covered under the hosts Errors and Omissions coverage, and that the coverage is sufficient. Make sure it covers YOU the individual agent and not just the host agency. Nice of them to cover their butt, but make sure yours is too! If it doesn't then you'll need to purchase one yourself.
As an example of some of the costs involved:
- Where I'm based any travel agent that sells
travel insurance has to have a government license to do that. No big deal, it's a whopping $35.
- I own my own agency, we're fully independent and don't have a host therefore I buy my own Errors and Omissions insurance. My agency is small so I'm at the lowest cost tier for the insurance - it comes to around $1200 a year. I know it's lower in some parts of the US, I've heard figures from $600 and $800.
But if you're paying $600 a year for E&O insurance, and $500 a year to a host agency, then that's $1100 a year that's coming out of YOUR pocket.
Even if you forego the E&O insurance (which is dangerous and risky) and just go with the $500 you're spending for the host agency, if you're fortunate enough to get 10% commission on all your bookings then you need to sell $5000 worth in order to offset that. And remember that's not including things like airfare that you don't make any money from. And with 10% commission you still need to sell $50,000 in travel before you can qualify for an IATA card and start to earn that big 10% off the hotel rooms.
Yes there are some better perks out there, but in general you need to really produce before you can earn them. And that's the key - they don't just hand them out, you do need to earn them.
If you think I'm being overdramatic, I'm not. Binny and I can both tell you stories about how much work goes on behind the scenes for a travel agent that the client is never aware of. It's not as simple as point, click, book and forget about. If everything goes smoothly then it can be great. If there are any problems whatsoever then it means a lot of late and sleepless nights because those problems are YOUR problems. Remember those cruises hit by Norwalk viruses? As a travel agent if you have clients on that cruise guess who's problem it is? Yours. Child having a birthday that day or you have plans? Too bad - you've got clients that have paid for and expect (and should receive) service. That's your job.
Wow! I just checked out that report---stay away is right!
as usual you are much more eloquent than I. 
