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Old Mar 7, 2017 | 7:50 am
  #150  
BESVISOR
formerly htang333
10 Years on Site
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Wi-Fi
Programs: Virtuoso 1%, Four Seasons (Top 25 Advisor), AMAN (Top 50), Rosewood Elite Top, Hyatt Prive Top, etc.
Posts: 1,468
Originally Posted by Kagehitokiri
agents often book safaris through another operator, i would imagine certain skiing can be done that way

have any agents here arranged custom tours for clients on a cruise, which client did instead of doing the options presented by cruise, at each port stop of cruise?



curious re others' thoughts on this
Not sure if this perfectly align with what you had in mind but I have a large family client on a Uniworld cruise in France and they simply wanted to avoid touring with other guests. I called my contact at Uniworld and they were happy to plan something private and different interest for the family. This is something the would offer to guests anyway at a charge so I didn't do anything special, per se. I simply made my clients aware of the offering and am arranging the details.

I'd agreet that I would just prefer to handle all my clients' booking from one night at an Aman to one night at a Hyatt House if that's where they need to be and I have done that...my commission on the Hyatt House was $15 for one night but I agree with the other TA's view that we take care of all travel needs for our clients so it saves them time and we add value to the partnership. Even when we make little or no commission.

Relating this back to the comments regarding booking flights...sometimes I get a commission, some times I don't. but Even when I don't, I'm still happy to book the tickets for my clients to save them the hassel and streamline the process...My host agency charges me $15 per ticket so: Commissionable flights, I'll just eat the $15 fee...non commissionable flights, I only charge my clients $15...not $200 - 300 as mentioned with some of the others.

I work in the Luxury Space so I wouldnt' have to nickle and dime cleints...no one likes that and it's hardly luxurious!

p.s. another feature that some clients who book flights direct and don't leverage a TA don't know is that if the flight is canceled, severely delayed or crew on strike it's going to be good to have a good TA or agency on your end working for you. Example: Nov of 2015, I had two clients booked in LH F from MUC - CLT...a strike was announced just hours after they had turned in for the night (but the strike details weren't disclosed yet and we had no idea if MUC would be impacted). So I worked with my agency to find them a contingency flight on UA in case they are impacted. When they woke up at 7am, my 1am on East Coast, I called to report the potential strike and ensured they will get home one way or another. Also, the tickets were booked as a codeshare via UA so they saved $300...a drop in the bucket for a $20k flight but point is that they would have paid the same/slight higher fare for less value. Most of the time, things like this doesn't happen, but when it does, you'll be happy to have more help.

Last edited by BESVISOR; Mar 7, 2017 at 8:03 am
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