In Reply to: What I hate is posted by gung_victa on Friday, 6. January 2006 at 15:07 Bali Time:
You can't trust anyone who works on commission.,,,,,,,
I completely agree with you on the point that if someone wants your business they should get the pricing right in the first place. Price matching annoys the hell out of me as the person who comes up with the best and honest pricing is often left high and dry.
As for the commission comment from you - Can't agree. I for one gave back my commissions in full to all who were affected by the AP collapse and forfeited commission on their new booking with Garuda to subsidise the loss.
This means I worked in some cases for months for nothing and I'm not sooking about it but won't listen to anyone say that you can't trust anyone who works on commission. Now way.
To give you an example of how things work as you seem not to know read on.... If I were to book you a trip for a family of 4 for say $5000 then my commission could be as much as $420 which I then give 35% of that to my agency and with the balance I pay the tax man. The balance of the money goes directly to the wholesaler so they can purchase the tickets and accom on your behalf. This means that the accounts of most travel agents are running pretty close to empty most of the time apart from a few deposits waiting to go accross.
The service you pay an Agent for could be better qualified as a handling and mangement fee of you booking. As is common place most clients rely on the agents for all information relevant to the trip far and beyond a ticket and a hotel. This all takes time and that has to be acknowledged. While agents handle the money up front, it is a given that other parties are involved. I don't think when someone pays me that they think I own the airline or the hotel that they will use. Most understand that the other parties are involved and that ultimatley in every transaction there can be uncontrollable unforseens.
As mentioned in the AFTA statement currently on the Air Paradise Website, the Australian government have nothing in place to protect the consumer and the Agents and this has been a problem for years. There should be holding pools for monies in some form of Trust account that protects us all until the holiday is in fact completed. Then we'd all be safe and there wouldn't be such a mess now.
I myself haven't had any charge backs as they Credit Card companies so far involved with my clients haven't seen cause to. This is not something I influence either but up to the Credit Card companies themselves. If they had in fact done this then we would be bankrupt as all the money for those AP tickets is with AP not us. We have refunded all other monies associated with the packages in full less a $25 handling fee for all the work and expense that went in over several months. The $25 fee was per group not person.
I hope this softens your attitiude a bit because some of the attitudes on this Forum of late have been very disappointing.
Thanks to those who bother to stick up for the Travel agents they have dealt with who only tried to do the best for them from woe to go. Ultimately Terrorism caused this not even poor old Air Paradise.
Nicno