Travel agents want regulated minimum commissions.

[ExtraSlow]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...ions-1.7050919



Apparently travel agents don't make much money when there are alternatives. Weird.

[benyl]

The writing has been on the wall for a while. Many airlines are removing the ability for Travel Agencies to sell their flights.

https://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-...C-acceleration

"By the end of the year, 100% of what we sell, customers will be able to service online through our app/or our dotcom," Raja said. "We'll roll out those features also over time for new distribution technology. But as this happens, we'll make increasingly less and less of our fare content available through traditional technology."

[bjstare]

lol, travel agents.

[shakalaka]

I honestly have no idea how travel agencies are still in business. I've thought about this over the past decade a few times. I have traveled extensively and never felt the need to go through a travel agency when things like Expedia exist.

[gmc72]

You guys still have travel agents?

[ercchry]

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I honestly have no idea how travel agencies are still in business. I've thought about this over the past decade a few times. I have traveled extensively and never felt the need to go through a travel agency when things like Expedia exist.

Think it’s almost exclusively corporate accounts. Makes more sense to farm out those logistics vs having in house staff do it. Having worked at both types of companies, the ones that use the agency are a smoother experience… especially when shit goes south. Like a canceled flight, just send them an email and you’re on the next plane out of there instead of stuck with the same airline 5 hours later

[Cagare]

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Think it’s almost exclusively corporate accounts. Makes more sense to farm out those logistics vs having in house staff do it. Having worked at both types of companies, the ones that use the agency are a smoother experience… especially when shit goes south. Like a canceled flight, just send them an email and you’re on the next plane out of there instead of stuck with the same airline 5 hours later

Precisely, reduces aministrative burden internally by having a corporate agent. Just like you said you can shop based on customer experience too, something goes wrong, it's their fault, fix it.

[roopi]

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I honestly have no idea how travel agencies are still in business. I've thought about this over the past decade a few times. I have traveled extensively and never felt the need to go through a travel agency when things like Expedia exist.

Expedia is a travel agency.

[shakalaka]

Corporate use makes sense, I guess.

And yes I know that Expedia is a travel agency, I meant the physical travel agents that have shops in strip malls. Haha.

[suntan]

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Expedia is a travel agency.

And Expedia owns every travel website on the web.

[roopi]

Travel agents deserve a 7/3 commission on the full value of the trip.

[gwill]

I met a travel agent while at our resort in Jamaica. They aren't supposed to tell you they are there for work purposes. She travels to a massive number of resorts every year.

There's a lot of first hand experiences you can rely upon instead of the all the fake reviews we have to sort through when deciding where to book.

That is of course if your discussing things with a good travel agent.

[vengie]

I use a travel agent and she is fantastic.
She has booked 4x vacations for us now.

I literally tell her my budget, where (ish) I want to go and what dates.
She takes care of everything down to the smallest detail.
I think about nothing, and its wonderful.

[dirtsniffer]

ok but real estate agents next

[Darell_n]

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ok but real estate agents next

I was going to say, real estate agents are just travel agents for houses.

[gwill]

The airlines should just come out and say they won't pay commissions to travel agents and be done with it. Hiding the price of the ticket in surcharges to avoid paying commissions is ridiculous.

[benyl]

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Corporate use makes sense, I guess.

And yes I know that Expedia is a travel agency, I meant the physical travel agents that have shops in strip malls. Haha.

umm.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ex...bj60?entry=ttu

[shakalaka]

Shows how much I know/use these 'in-person' travel agents. I am all about go online and do a few clicks and voila. Though I suppose I have dealt with Costco for travel in the past on the phone and that is their 'travel agent' department too.

[schurchill39]

We use a travel agent through my work and every time I've gone through them they fuck it up. I can lay out what flight I want, what hotel on what day. and vehicle pick up and drop off time and guarenteed something is wrong. 99% of the time I catch it and we do a couple back and forths to fix it but when I don't catch it there is next to no support besides to call the same help lines I do. I purposefully make my trips last minute now so I can just expense it instead.

Also, I've noticed the rates they get are much worse than rates I would get. Especially for car rentals. So my company is losing money using them (at least domestically).

[msommers]

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I was going to say, real estate agents are just travel agents for houses.

There's more value in travel agents. Don't be a jerk.