HOW OUR MODEL WORKS

We make you a travel agent so that you can book your own travel and save money
Book travel for friends and family and make an extra income on the side
Or

We may seem like a homeworking travel agency- but we are actually very different

Home workers promote their travel services to their friends, family and leverage their networks on social media. The profit they make is split between the home worker and the company they work for. Typically, the home worker will keep between 60-70% of the profit they make.

Homeworking based travel companies include:

  • Not Just Travel
  • Travel Counsellors
  • Travel PA
  • Independent Travel Experts
  • Freedom PTA
We are different- mainly because we are not trying to make you a full time travel agent where your exclusive source of income is from selling travel.

We provide you with the technology and the wholesale product and cover our costs from the membership fee. You can then either use this platform for just your own bookings, or to make some extra money on the side.

  • Once you sign up with us, you become a travel agent
  • You have access to all our wholesale net rates
  • You have access to industry staff discounts
  • You mark up at whatever level you want if you are selling to friends and family
  • You keep 100% of the profit

HOW THE INDUSTRY WORKS

To understand how you can make and save money, you must understand how the industry functions

Here we explain some of the terminology, which in turn
explain the basic working principals of the industry

Principal: The provider of the travel service

  • Principals include airlines, hotels, car hire companies, rail operators, cruise lines and tour companies.
  • Travel agents promote the product of the principal
  • Travel agents either earn a commission from the principal or get a net rate they are able to mark up.
  • Even with the internet, principals need multiple distribution strategies
  • Travel agents remain an important distribution centre

Best Price Guarantees: You see these on the principals’ websites

  • Many principals offer best price guarantees on their websites
  • This is not because you can book a cheaper deal with the principal than you can with an agent.
  • The principals offer best price guarantees because they impose minimum selling prices (MSP) on travel agents.
  • By having an MSP this, they can make a higher margin when the customer books directly with them
  • With the MSP, the principal also ensures that they are keeping their distribution network happy by not undercutting them.

IT Fares: Inclusive Tour Fares

  • Rates offered by airlines to travel agents that must be packaged up with a hotel, cruise, car rental or tour.
  • IT Fares allow an airline to fill up seats early on without exposing how low they are willing to go to the public.
  • IT Fares cannot be booked on any website and doing so would lead to an airline withdrawing fares from the agent selling them.
  • IT fares also help an airline protect its higher margin corporate travel business by selling business and first class tickets at up to 50% less

Fit Rates: Fully Independent Traveller

  • Rates are offered by hotels, car hire providers and cruise lines and must be packaged up with flights or together with other hotels and ground arrangements as part of a multi destination tour.
  • Like airlines, this allows principals to fill up rooms at a lower price without exposing the rate and therefore enabling them to make a higher margin on hotel only bookings.

Net Fares

  • Net fares are rates offered by principals that allow a travel agent to mark up on.
  • Net fares can be sold as a stand alone product, but must adhere to a minimum selling price

Negotiated Fares

  • These are fares that will be exclusive to specific agents that have negotiated an extra special rate because of a niche they have in the market
  • An airline may offer an exclusive rate to an agent that specialises in Ski in Canada for example because it has surplus capacity at that time and the niche operator is able to fill those seats

Minimum Stay

  • Many airlines impose minimum stay requirements on flight tickets
  • This is so that corporate travellers have to pay higher fares for shorter business trips

Margins

  • This describes either the commission or mark up on travel products
  • Typical margins for travel products are
    • Flights: £10-£50 per seat
    • Hotels: 10%-20%
    • Car Hire: 10%-15%
    • Ancillary products: Up to 50%
    • Cruise: 10%- 25%
    • Tours & Multi centre: Up to 35%

WHY JOIN

Save Money on Personal Travel

Benefit from the wholesale rates travel agents get.

If you spend more than £4,000 per year on travel and holidays, you will make more than your membership fee back

Earn an additional income

Sell to friends & family-they have to book somewhere

If you sold 1 family holiday a month@ £3,000 each, you would make about £4,000 a year and you would still be able to beat online pricing and other travel agents

Book travel that is not possible online

Some travel rates just can’t be booked online

Airlines, hotels and other suppliers restrict what pricing can be exposed. Book complex itineraries or get access to rates that just aren’t available online

THE IATA CARD

Probably one of the biggest incentives to join is the official recognition of being a travel agent and the perks that brings

The IATA ID CARD opens up staff rates on flights, car hire, activities and tens of thousands of hotels worldwide.

Savings can be as high as 75% off the standard price

PRICING

ANNUAL

£499 Save 20%
  • All benefits of monthly subscription members
  • IATA Card included on sign up
  • Amadeus or Galileo GDS Terminal
  • Priority on FAM Trip Invites
  • First refusal on freebies
  • First refusal on industry event invitations
  • Opportunity to join onsite training programmes

- 12 month minimum contract

MONTHLY

£60 FIRST MONTH and then £49 there after
  • Training and development when you start
  • Aftersales support and admin for your customers
  • All the technology needed to make bookings
  • IATA ID card after you have completed 3 bookings
  • GDS Emulator in our platform
  • E-Learning for online training

We will provide you with a booking system to manage all the bookings you make for yourself and anyone you sell travel services to. The booking system includes all the functionality to view pricing and availability, make bookings, generate travel documentation, collect payments and save client records.

For members that opt for the annual subscription, we will provide you with your own Galileo or Amadeus GDS terminal. You will be able to use all the functionality of a GDS including checking fares and rules, searching for availability, holding seats, creating PNRs and issuing tickets.

For members that opt for the monthly subscription, you will have access to the GDS emulator which has all the native functionality of the GDS terminal using commands but without some of the UI assistance features that are offered on Galileo Smart Point or Amadeus Web Terminal.

The GDS is the system used by all airlines to store and distribute their fares and availability as well as create live bookings directly into the airline system.

The GDS is especially useful for those that now how airlines manage their yield management. Lower fare booking classes are often released at odd times of the day, but do follow a pattern. Often, this is in the middle of the night. So if you check availability at the right time, you can often save a lot of money on your flight tickets.

Redemption Flights: If you know which class the airline uses for redemption tickets, you can check availability much faster using the GDS

Our platform provides automated ticketing functionality. Provided payment has been made, you will be able to issue tickets immediately. Our ticketing function allows you to issue tickets up to 2 hours before the departure of a flight and you can issue both IT and Net fare tickets using the functionality we provide.

If you are holding IT fares many months in advance of travel, the system will alert you as you come close to the date that tickets must be issued. You can set the system to auto issue the tickets (if you have available funds on your account) or issue the tickets manually.

We provide you with merchant facilities that allow you to take payments by credit card for any bookings you make for friends, family and acquaintances. Once you have made the bookings in the system, you can send the quotation or booking confirmation to your client. They will be able to review the information and then click on a link that takes them to the payment gateway. Once payment is made, the funds will show on the system under the booking record and you will be able to issue hotel or supplier vouchers and flight tickets.

Our payment processing system uses 3D secure to ensure that no fraudulent transactions pass through the system. We have negotiated amazing rates with our merchant gateway provider which is as low as 0.89% on personal Visa cards and Mastercard.

We run regular interactive webinars with airlines, hotels, cruise lines, car hire operators and other product suppliers to help you learn about the unique selling points of different products. These sessions will equip you with answers to the questions that customers are likely to ask about a product as well as give you the skills and techniques to effectively sell these products to customers.

A number of our product partners have also developed e-learning platforms where you can take courses followed by online assessments that provide a product expert qualification at the end.

Before you begin booking travel, we will provide you with comprehensive systems training. We will show you how to use the all the functionality of our booking and management system as well as teach you the dynamics of the GDS and the commands needed to check availability and rules, hold seats, create PNRs and issue tickets.

If you intend on selling travel products, we will provide you will comprehensive sales training. Areas we cover include


  • The sales cycle and how to leverage it
  • How to effectively present features benefits to prospective buyers
  • Understanding buyer behaviour and motivation
  • Using email not just to communicate but to influence the sale
  • How effective questions and listening leads to sales
  • Handling and overcoming objections even from the most difficult buyers
  • How to close the sale and ensure everyone says YES
  • Enhancing your self-confidence
  • Consultative selling techniques
  • Selling to multiple decision makers – e.g. wife on the phone but husband paying
  • Opening up the sale
  • Identifying the customer’s criteria for purchasing
  • Building customer needs
  • Dealing with difficult questions
  • Handling price objections
  • Reacting to buying signals
  • Gaining commitment
  • Adapting your tone and voice
  • NLP and leveraging the power of language

We have partnered with tourist boards and CVBs across the world to offer you over 100 destination training programmes. Each programme is run using highly effective e-learning software. You will develop advanced knowledge of each destination that will allow you to both answer questions about the destination but also make recommendations for the most suitable holiday based on your advanced knowledge. The courses will also give you the knowledge you need to effectively sell the destinations.

All of the courses have assessments at the end, and once completed, you will be certified by the tourist board as a destination expert. These qualifications can be used to enlace your CV

If your intention is to make money from travel, out marketing workshops will teach you how valuable your existing network is. We will help you develop your skills to enable you to leverage the power of your network and promote your personal brand. We will also give you the skills to use social media in a way that is guaranteed to bring in sales. Our focus is on helping you engage your network rather than just throw information at them which is the mistake the vast majority of people in the travel industry make.

PRICE COMPARISONS

This will give you an idea of the level of savings you could achieve. We searched our rates and then did the identical search on the leading travel platforms to see how our rates compared

Hotel Brands that Offer Travel Agent Discounts

ACCOR MARRIOTT RADISSON HOTEL GROUP IHG HILTON
Raffles Bulgari Hotels & Resorts Radisson Collection Avid Hotels Hilton Hotels & Resorts
Banyan Tree JW Marriott Hotels Radisson Blu Candlewood Suites Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts
Sofitel Legend The Luxury Collection Radisson Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts Curio—A Collection by Hilton
Fairmont The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Radisson RED Conrad Hotels & Resorts DoubleTree by Hilton
So St. Regis Hotels & Resorts Park Plaza Even Hotels LXR Resorts
Sofitel Park Inn by Radisson Holiday Inn[24] Canopy by Hilton Embassy Suites by Hilton
Onefinestay W Hotels Country Inn & Suites by Holiday Inn Express[25] Hilton Garden Inn
Rixos Marriott Marquis Radisson Hotel Indigo Hampton by Hilton
Mantis Design Hotels Regent Hotels & Resorts InterContinental Tru by Hilton
M Gallery Delta Hotels Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants Midscale
Pullman Marriott Hotels & Resorts Tapestry Collection by Hilton Homewood Suites by Hilton
Swissotel
Angsana Marriott Vacation Club Staybridge Suites Hilton Grand Vacations
25hours Marriott Executive voco LXR Resorts
Art Series Apartments Motto
movenpick Sheraton Hotels and
Grand Mercure Resorts
HUAZHU Hotels Group Autograph Collection
Ltd. Hotels
Peppers Gaylord Hotels
The Sebel Le Méridien
Adagio premium Renaissance Hotels
Mantra Tribute Portfolio
Novotel Westin Hotels & Resorts
Mercure AC Hotels by Marriott
Adagio Courtyard by Marriott
Mama Shelter Aloft Hotels
Breakfree Four Points by Sheraton
Ibis SpringHill Suites by
Ibis Styles Marriott
Ibis budget Fairfield Inn by Marriott
Adagio access Protea Hotels by
Jo&Joe Marriott
hotelF1 Moxy Hotels
Thalassa

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