pricesquire

I shall eat my crow, as I'd love to get affiliate links. Fortunately/unfortunately, being that I only get 50 hits a day, I won't be getting any anytime soon

Raffles

And not in any way promoting your services as a Virtuoso Travel Adviser?

Absolutely nothing wrong with doing that, but are really as altrustic as your post made out?

pricesquire

I see what you're saying, and that's a fair criticism, but I think the whole blog-for-money thing is a tad more nuanced. I think there are lines between affiliate links and banner ads verses having a site without said things. I'm not holier than thou - I'd take the money if offered - but I also didn't start my site with the intention of getting ads/credit card links thrown across my pages. I'm trying, genuinely trying, to make "booking service" secondary to my bigger goal - having cathartic space to write about my trips. Whether you take that as sincere or not, that's beyond my control.

What I see mostly, lately, is people starting blogs with little to no unique content and the whole point of the blog seems to be hocking cc's and leaving white space for ads.

Re: the Virtuoso TA thing, I realize that's not the best thing to do in the long run, and my "PM me for details" ever five posts was quite stupid, Outside my signature and underneath my name, I've quit using FT blank space for accruing business. That said, if someone is to email or PM me for a V rate, I'm not about to decline (and neither would ABG or DavidO).

Thanks for keeping me honest, Raffles.

Raffles

FT is a sensible way of accruing business. DavidO has easily made over $10,000 of commission from Virtuoso bookings just from myself and UK / Ireland-based people I know on FT who use him, which will only be a fraction of what FT has generated overall.

David has spent a number of years on FT and does contribute a lot of trip reports to the Luxury Hotels forum as well, based on his Virtuoso comps. More importantly, of course, he is astonishingly reactive when you do ask him to do something which in reality accounts for 90% of his success.

Kagehitokiri

wow. $100-150K. (although over a maximum of 11 years.) i believe he and other independent/hosted agents have said they get 7% commission, with 3% going to hosting agency. (that provides virtuoso/etc.)

cruisr

Each Virtuoso agency is free to cut whatever deals they want with an IC. I can only speak to cruise line commissions but these are usually 15% on the CO. Some agencies split that 50-50. Some keep any overrides, some split it with their ICs. Some Virtuoso agencies are very successful and only utilize ICs. Sorry if I have gone OT.

Kagehitokiri

i should have said: IIRC the hosted agents (independent from host agency) on FT have said they get 7% (and they are hosted to get virtuoso/etc benefits)

pricesquire

Depends, as always. Can depend on your contract, what kind of vendor you're working with, what you're selling, who the client is, etc.

In other words, 70% isn't the norm, and I'd be curious as to where that figure came from.

FWIW, a 70-30 split is pretty standard, but I'd be surprised if that's how most of the FT Virtuoso advisors worked.

There are some clients I get 100% of the commission, some I get 50. For a cruise paying out at 34% (latest AmaWaterway cruise I sold), obviously the percentages are going to change.

Kagehitokiri

i was only talking about cut hosting agency takes for independent agents
(hearing that the cut was roughly one third of total)

not being industry, maybe im not using any of the terms correctly

huh?

pricesquire

I realize how stupid that looks. It sounded better in my head

What I meant to say was:

70% isn't the norm --> there is nothing to suggest this is the go-to split

70/30 is standard --> this is something you may see in an independent contractor and hosting agency contract

Again, I realize this sounded better in my head.

tenmoc

I'd definitely say 70/30 is the standard split for an IC with a Virtuoso. At least as a starting point. But every host is different.