Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Look What Your Travel Agent Receives For Booking CX!!

November 12, 2001

Dear Travel Agent,

As a valued CXcyberAgent, we wanted to give you an update on two special offers exclusively for travel agents...

GET A FREE COMPAQ iPAQ POCKET PC FOR SELLING CATHAY PACIFIC!!

Just sell as few as four qualifying Cathay Pacific First or Business Class transpacific roundtrips and you can earn a monochrome Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC.

Sell six qualifying First or Business Class transpacific roundtrips and you can earn a
color Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC!

Passenger travel can depart the USA between September 1 and December 10,2001, all travel must be completed by December 31, 2001.

Don't miss out!

Find out more today at:
http://www.cxcyberagent.com/freepocketpc/

Note: Agents employed by travel agencies that have an existing national sales agreement with Cathay Pacific are not eligible for the Free Pocket PC Offer.

DOUBLE MILES FOR ME CREDIT
Hurry! Time is running out to earn DOUBLE AAdvantage(R) miles in the Miles For Me program.

Simply sell a Cathay Pacific ticket for roundtrip or one-way travel between September 1, 2001 and December 15, 2001, enter the ticket information in the Miles For Me system and you will automatically qualify for the Double Miles For Me offer.

For example you could earn up to 24,000 AAdvantage miles by simply selling a roundtrip First Class ticket.

That is almost enough miles for an Advantage PlanAAhead redemption ticket to anywhere in the continental USA or Canada!

Some terms and conditions apply.

To view the regular Miles For Me award levels, simply login at:

http://www.cxcyberagent.com

then go to the "Explain the Program" section of Miles For Me.


Thank you for selling Cathay Pacific.

Sincerely,

Cathay Pacific Airways Limited
North America Marketing Team

Yes, some of us know already but this post doesn't serve the purpose of being in a FlyerTalk post.

[This message has been edited by Guy Betsy (edited 11-13-2001).]

I would presume that AIRLINE posted the info for those of us who didn't know and thanks for that.

The information posted by AIRLINE is meant for travel agents only. It does not serve us any good as the 'double miles' mentioned is for the travel agent doing the booking and NOT for us the traveller.

Personally, I prefer to make my own mind up as to what serves me good and what is relevant to me, rather than having someone else feel they can decide for me.

The purpose of the post was to advise those of you who fly CX that your Travel Agent may be influenced to book CX over another carrier because of incentives.

CX is one of the few (if any) airlines that awards frequent flyer mileage to travel agents for booking customers on their airline.

Frankly, the amount of mileage that CX offers agents is so high, that after booking 4 round-trip business class tickets, they have a free ticket themselves.

What should happen is that CX should reduce the fare to the person actually paying for the ticket by the amount it costs CX to purchase AA Aadvantage miles.

This is on top of the commission already paid by CX.

The post is to inform those flyers what's occuring in the marketplace.

If it doesn't interest you, then move on to the next post...no big deal.

[This message has been edited by AIRLINE (edited 11-14-2001).]

Maybe CX is trying to reduce the number AD75 and AD50 tickets for the agents?

As one of the few travel agents on FT let me say a few things about this.

First, as a travel professional, we will not influence our passengers to travel on airlines that do not suit their travel needs. We will advise them on the best routing and the best fare possible.

2)Travel websites may do the job for point to point fares but when it comes to searching for the best fare and best routing, it still takes an agent to do the research necessary to succeed. Do you know that sometimes it will take a savvy agent to check the fare calculation and deteremine whether a fare is available for a particular routing and then offer the fare to you.

3) Agents do not make money on tickets these days. Honestly, we'd rather you do the bookings yourselves. Most airlines cap our commission at $100 for a return international ticket. BA for example caps it at $10 ! So it doesn't mean that if you buya $10K ticket , we'd get more . We get $10. Doesn't even cover paper costs!

4) Agents will sell airlines on what they believe will provide the best possible product for their clients. CX inthis case, instead of offering money to the agent, awards them in AAdvantage points. Mind you, if you decided to book the CX ticket on CX.COM, you'd actually get about 10k BONUS miles on your AAdvantage account.

5) RTW fares still need the work of knowledgeable agents to do the work for you. Not everybody even at the AA RTW desk knows the rules very much and have any knowledge of other RTW fares available on other airlines.

6) It has nothing to do with AD tickets either. That is a perk as a travel agent gets. It's standby. You don't get points for travel, and it's based on office output before you can get an AD ticket approved.

7) Other airlines gives other incentives. It's just that they never advertise it and you'd never even know what is being offered. Some airlines just offer FREE passes to agents who support them. I used to have so many free tickets on AS I had to throw them away!

8) Being a travel agent isn't a glamorous job. It's just something that I like to do because it's challenging.

I have other businesses that permit to travel full fare and not have to rely on an AD ticket. That said, after being in the business for over 12 years, maybe it's time to hang up the towel... and miss out on the fun? No way!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by AIRLINE:
Frankly, the amount of mileage that CX offers agents is so high, that after booking 4 round-trip business class tickets, they have a free ticket themselves.

What should happen is that CX should reduce the fare to the person actually paying for the ticket by the amount it costs CX to purchase AA Aadvantage miles.

This is on top of the commission already paid by CX.

[This message has been edited by AIRLINE (edited 11-14-2001).]</font>

AIRLINE - note that after booking 4 roundtrip Business Class tickets, all the agent will get is a roundtrip ticket in economy class within USA ... ie 20,000 miles! Hardly even enough for a ticket to asia!

Cathay's fares on its website are comparable to what the agents charge but sometimes they are lower. So in fact CX has already passed the savings back to you if you buy the ticket over their website instead of going through an agent. And get 10K AAdvantage miles instead of giving 2000 miles to the agent. So who do you think has a better deal now?

Oh yeah, we must'nt forget the wonderful commission on a $750 ticket. $37.50.

Hi Guy,

Your apologia for travel agents is silly. Travel suppliers provide all manner of incentives to travel agents, including free trips, to influence the agent to direct business their way. If suppliers didn't feel that their efforts are rewarded, they wouldn't be providing incentives.

Consumers should know that their travel agent might be influenced by factors other than the consumers' interest.

Travel agencies have preferred providers that jack up commissions from say 10% to 20%. Of course, the agent is influenced when his preferred provider gives him twice that of another provider.

At the moment, agents are fuming at AA for having initiated the most recent commission cuts, and talking of boycotting AA. And on and on.

Obviously, the term spiff was not invented by the travel industry; it's endemic in sales. Anyone who listens too earnestly to any salesman is an idiot.


[This message has been edited by VicOsaki (edited 11-15-2001).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by VicOsaki:

Travel agencies have preferred providers that jack up commissions from say 10% to 20%.

At the moment, agents are fuming at AA for having initiated the most recent commission cuts, and talking of boycotting AA. And on and on.

[This message has been edited by VicOsaki (edited 11-15-2001).]</font>

Preferred suppliers for any additional commissions are not for airlines. Not anymore. There are caps now. Occasionally one goes towards a consolidator which may be able to offer slight discounts over published fares or websites, but there is a lot of work for minimal returns.

It's not the same in this industry when I first started 14 years ago.

I still like it though because it's challenging.

PS - I'm not steered toward selling aproduct just because it provides better commissions. I sell it because I believe in the product.


[This message has been edited by Guy Betsy (edited 11-15-2001).]