Sheryl Baker, CTC
To fee or not to fee, that is the question! If you poll five hundred agents, you will get mixed answers based on what Host Agency they work with, experience levels and personal experiences. This question can and does divide agents when you ask, “should travel agents charge fees?” You will get the diehards who say no, never! And you get the agents who have been burned one too many times, who say “ALWAYS charge a fee”! Why is this such a controversial topic among agents? Should agents charge a fee and how much should they charge? Let me lay out the pros and cons and they you can decide for yourself.
According to an article in Travel Weekly, (Biesiada, Travel Weekly, 2023) the number of travel agents charging fees is on the upswing. A recent survey of 500 agents showed that 71% were now charging some type of fee and of those charging fees, 45% started charging after the Pandemic. Fees vary but include ticketing fee, service fee, one-time fee, and an annual retainer are some of the types of fees being charged by agencies today.
Most new agents don’t or won’t charge fees because they feel that they don’t have the experience yet and to charge people doesn’t seem fair. I know when I started eight years ago, I didn’t charge any fees. I thought that I needed to learn my craft first and I felt that I would earn my commission and that was enough. But commission levels for newbies are usually set at 50%-60% in the beginning so they are already making less as they learn. A flat fee would help to boost the money they are making and to help them to survive financially their first year. So, when does a new agent become experienced enough to charge fees? This is a hard question because it’s a scary proposition to move from no fees to fees. Do you start charging past clients, do you start with the new year, do you start with new clients only? Sometimes it’s best to just jump in and start with a small fee. Then there is the logistics of collecting fees. Do you use a third party such as Square, do you charge it through you host agency, or do you collect it by check? Do you charge by trip, by person, or by transaction? All this needs to be decided before hand so you are prepared when you start charging. Plus, you need to know if you can even charge a fee. Some host agencies won’t let you, sometimes the state you live in has laws about fees and then sometimes your agency has rules to collecting fees. You need to know what you can and can’t do before you can even decide how to move forward with fees.
A Host Agency Reviews article (Stien, 2023) sets forth the opinion that Doctors charge fees because they are professionals and so should travel agents. Many agents invest hours on trainings, conferences, familiarization trips and research which helps them become more professional. These are all things that should be considered when deciding to charge fees. Commissions percentages can range from 5-25% which can make for a low per trip payday if all the components are low ticket items. But an agent can spend the same or even more time putting the lower total cost trip together as a big-ticket trip. So, to be able to make money, they would benefit from charging a fee. The article also investigated why agents DON’T charge a fee. The main reasons stem from agents being worried about both attracting new clients and keeping old clients. My thoughts are if a client doesn’t want to pay my fee, then they aren’t the right client for me. I don’t want to attract tire kickers and by having a fee in place, I can weed them out at the beginning. I want my clients to know up front what that I am a professional and I will give them exceptional service from the beginning of their trip until they return from their trip. I have a form letter that I send to potential clients as soon as they reach out to me with an inquiry. This states how much my starting fee is and what the fee will cover. So, there are no surprises when we have our first call. I also send out a travel questionnaire at the same time as the information letter. The people who do not want to pay a fee usually don’t fill out the questionnaire I send. This saves me time and frustration of them wasting my time researching trip options for them. I do not start working on the trip until my fee has been paid by the client. This way if the clients end up not booking, I have already been paid for my time. I charge the same fees for all clients, and I pride myself for giving all my clients the same amazing service. I left my first agency because the owner wanted us to add money to flights, hotels, and tours if the client was well off because she said they wouldn’t “miss” the money and wouldn’t know they were paying more. I couldn’t do that, so I left the agency. That is how I went from just wanting to be an agent to becoming an agency owner. Best decision of my life!
Another reason travel agents give for not charging fees is that they are afraid they might lose clients. (One way to broach the subject of charging fees to existing clients is by saying, “I will start charging a Research & Design Fee starting on January 1, 2024. Because you are one of my valued clients already, I will be waiving this fee for your next trip and will start charging you my design fee after that trip.” This way you are adding value to your existing clients while also getting them ready for the change. If your clients feel you have added value to their past trips, they should be happy to move forward with paying a fee for your services. Again, if your potential clients don’t want to pay your fee then you are better off knowing that before you do all the work.
A third reason for not charging a fee (Stein 2023) is that travel agents who have never charged fees or who are new the travel business don’t know what type of fees to charge. I personally will not do air only reservations but many travel agents will charge a hefty fee per airline ticket that include different fees for domestic and international flights. There are research & design fees, consultation fees, plan to go fees, and many ways to charge in between. I don’t like plan to go fees which means that you charge a fee to plan the trip but if they book the trip, you deduct the fee off the cost of the trip. I feel that you did the work so you shouldn’t give back the money to the clients. But some agents feel more comfortable doing this as way to justify the fee they are charging. Flat fees are popular too and these fees are based on the project. This is good for FIT bookings where you must piece the trip together which usually takes much longer than doing an All-Inclusive resort for clients. Flat fees are also good for group bookings like weddings and family reunions too. You charge one fee instead of charging each individual booking. I charge a $250 group booking fee.
I didn’t always charge a fee but now I do consistently. I started with charging $25 per trip. The key is to be consistent and to practice saying, “I would love to help, and my fee is $25 per trip.” The first couple of times, you choke on the words but after a week or two, the phrase starts rolling off you tongue. I slowly built up to $35 per trip and then to where I am now which is broken into different levels. For a domestic trip I charge $50, for a single city in Europe I charge $100, for multiple locations in Europe I charge $150. Then if I am doing groups, I charge $250 and $500 for weddings. Although I don’t do airlines only bookings, I do I charge $25 per domestic air ticket and $50 for international air tickets in addition to the ticket price. I have become very adept at communicating my fees to my clients and I won’t start working on a trip until I have been paid.
When and why to charge fees is up to each agent but the consensus of agents who charge fees is that charging fees makes us look more professional. Professionalism in the travel sector is not regulated. Anyone can become an agent by paying a monthly fee and no training is necessary. But people who have decided to make travel a career tend to study, learn, and participate in multiple types of trainings and events. There are travel programs through the Travel Institute, ASTA, CLIA, and other certified travel programs. Most of the certified travel certificates have a fee that is charged to the Agents. Agents who spend their time learning have taken the next step to becoming a professional travel agent. Time spent meeting with BDM’s, attending industry conferences and participating in FAMS are all ways to build knowledge but to increase your worth to your clients. I love the phrase, “learn more to earn more” and I think it is very appropriate here.
Because many people still are surprised to learn that there are travel agents, agents must educate the public to the benefits of working with a travel agent. COVID also instrumental is showing the importance of using an agent because so many people who used an online travel agency like Priceline or Expedia, lost their money because they did not know how to request a refund or even if they were intitled to a refund. These people had to fight their own battles while people who had used a travel agent, had someone to fight their battles and usually received some kind of refund or compensation. The Pandemic brought to the forefront the importance of having a professional travel advisor in their corner. Millions of travel dollars were lost by individuals during 2020 & 2021. Even now in 2023, clients who aren’t using a travel agent are still losing money with canceled flights and lost luggage. Airports have more lost luggage in their possession than any other time in history. Airlines don’t have enough flying staff because so many of their employees were laid off during COVID 19. Routes were cut and have not been added back into the rotation yet. Every week articles are appearing online and on the television telling consumers what to do when their flights are canceled ( Forrest Brown, CNN 2023). Staffing is not the only reason for late or canceled flights. The biggest culprit is the weather followed closely by computer glitches, and holiday crunches. These will all contribute to unhappy fliers and overcrowded airports and flights.
There has been an influx of people wanting to become travel agents after COVID 19 because they thought they would make a killing and become instantly rich when people started traveling again. But these new agents didn’t realize the amount of work and time it takes to study and become proficient in their new field. The expect others to tell them what they need to do instead of trying to figure it out for themselves first and then asking for help after they have put in the work. Everyone must start somewhere but do the work yourself and don’t expect others to do it for you. New agents are hesitant to charge fees because they don’t feel they have the experience to warrant charging a fee. I personally feel that an agent should not charge fees their first year but should start charging after that if their skills and abilities have increased and they are good travel agents.
As the travel business continues to evolve, I think it is beneficial for all agents to be on the same page and that we should all charge fees. This makes us look more professional and unified. Will this happen? No, but as more people become full-time agents, I think we will see a higher percentage of agents charging fees. I think we will also see many of the agents who joined post pandemic, thinking they were going to make a killing in the travel business, drop out of the business. Then the travel business will stabilize by 2024 with the agents who are in for the long-haul. Until that time, travel agents will continue to be divided into two distinct groups: to fee or not to fee!
