In order to be able to issue tickets (paper or electronic - it doesn't matter in this case) you need to go through a very extensive application - about 20 pages long if I remember correctly, get bonding, have an extensive background check, etc. Probably not worth it unless you would be doing higher volume ticketing than even a few tickets a month for yourself. There is a cost to maintaining the bond and an annual fee you must pay, not to mention needing to report your ticket sales (or lack thereof) every week.

... so in this case (not being bonded) how do tickets get issued?

Nexion
 

I looked at the Nexion site. Looks interesting. (There is a $199 one-time setup fee, if I read it correctly, before you can pay $39/month for the system access.)

But, for those of you who really do a lot of travel (and who are very sophisticated with business) there is an option to pay $300 per month with full ticketing and you get 100% of the commissions. So if you spend at least $10,000 per month on travel, this might be worthwhile.

I issue tickets all the time and I've done nothing but sign up and pay the 40 bucks a month.

This may be true though if you are hoping to issue tickets for people other than yourself. Its not a requirement though for signing up for the service.

Sorry, I forgot about th $199 sign up fee, they seem to periodically run "no sign up fee" specials.

Since there's no commissions on air travel for the most part, I have no problem with them taking 10% of nothing. I just write off the $40 a month off as part of my flying hobby and don't worry about trying to make it back. I've never earned a single commission on anything I've booked (I just book myself and occaisionally my family)

To me the value is much more in having access to things like the routing rules and then being able to book very complicated routes without hassle.

The other place I looked at when I thinking about signing up was: Incentive Connection Travel They responded quickly to some questions I had and seemed like good people. They are only Sabre however.

I was looking at this before and am getting more interested now. Carlhaynes, how does pricing work? Is it calculated automatically? When is ticketing normally done? And finally, in case you have had any experience with international tickets, has that worked fine?
Thank you for the answers!

Thanks for the info.
Were you asked to go to training first before you sign up?
And also how will you know they have free sign up? By calling them?
Thanks

yuchung5

Do you have a ticket printer there in your house? My guess is that Nexion is the actual issuer of the tickets and has to get the bonding/etc. If you know something that I don't, please post it. Ticket stock is like cash and has very controlled access.

That is correct, all ticketing goes through Nexion. I misunderstood the meaning of issueing tickets, its probably better to say that I book tickets and nexion issues them.

Although with the prevalence of e-tickets nowadays (at least on US domestic itins), is ticket stock going the way of the dinosaur? I mean, if I were to sign up with Nexion and issue myself an e-ticket, there's no actual paper stock utilized anywhere, correct?

I think they post on their site when they have a no sign up special, I could of sworn I saw that a few months ago.

They didn't ask for much besides the $199 when I signed up. They do a credit check, but that's about it.

They don't offer any training at all, but will loan out the sabre taining disks. With access to to the esabre website, there is some online training available.

The biggest downside I've found with Nexion is that their customer service has been really awful, it often takes me 3 or 4 emails just to get a response to a simple question. I haven't needed to call their ticketing desk yet so I don't know how that is, but their software support is terrible.

yes pricing is done through automatically the GDS. Ticketing for etickets has always been nearly instantaneous for me, I think nexion processes them automatically unless a problem occurs. Internationally, I've booked one ticket to London with no problems.

Cool, seems like a good deal. Now all I need to do is wait for a no signup fee special :)

This is interesting. I never really thought about it. I am spending between $7,000 and $12,000 per month on travel.

Although this thread has been in the Mileage Run forum for quite some time, it's more of a TravelBuzz type thread than a MR thread - so please continue discussion there.

Thanks!

bhatnasx
Mileage Run Moderator