The romance of travel is dead. It only lives on in the minds of those that are lucky enough to remember such a time, and in movies. “3 Guys Named Mike” is a great movie about the romantic side of air travel. I need to watch that one again.

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6. Agents who do not have knowledge of Visa.
7. Agents that do not have email address and cannot be reached when we I need advice when I am overseas.
8. Agents who will not admit that some low cost carrier tickets are cheaper, and make me pay a fee for the advice to explain them.
9. Agents that try to get me to sit with another agent, somehow trying to say that all agents are
the same.
10. Agents that give me the most expensive plane fare first, then when I ask admit there are cheaper.
11. Agents that sell me Published Fare tickets and then go to a consolidator and make the spread.

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will you, with your recently bestowed “independent voice for travel consumers” hat on, also tell us the five things you love, so agencies can understand more about what is expected of them?

it would be interesting to see if the things you hate about travel agenc ies chime with the regular things which travel weekly’s Mystery Shopper article highlights as negative aspects of retail outlets. I suspect they do.

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you gave yourself that hat on twitter!!

travel weekly has been running the mystery shopper series online for an extremely long time.

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‘travel blogger/writer’.

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Darren

As a travel agent reader, this is what we want… it is a lot harder being on the inside looking out. I have won both TTG and Travel weekly mystery shoppers more than once since I started in travel.

Out of date windows should be a thing of the past, and no agency can tell you when the holiday sold out. (You may be going by the date they where placed in the window). All agencies should check these daily.

Inspiring customers, look at how Lee and I handle your enquiries. As I said there is a difference between independents and big chains, like butchers and supermarkets all have there place. So you’re right not all agencies are the same.

Lack of destination knowledge, yes your right there is a lot of destinations, if you feel your agent does not know enough try another. We do a lot of bookings to New Zealand and none main destinations in the Americas due to our knowledge in these areas. To boost this staff in the office have become Caribbean/ Australia specialists. But ask us about Russia and we are stuck.

Customer service skills, there are always good and bad things about this, I will put my hand up about not ring people back, however we never say hour you ring us, we say we shall call you back as soon as possible but may be a couple of hours, always better to beat the target then other way round. All our staff does a short customer service skills course every couple years a refresher.

Dour shops, why would you want to go in?… good point and one I seen a few times.

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Andy

re. 8. Agents who will not admit that some low cost carrier tickets are cheaper, and make me pay a fee for the advice to explain them.

Answer. Why do they not admit..do not understand that… unless your in America (as in UK our search systems display them along side). Regarding fee for the service… I have this thing I do not work for free…. do you?

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I’ll stick my neck out. I had two shops. I sold them, because I could not get the staff. The best travel clerks were married ladies over 50 (anyone under 50 was far too young to come into travel) , married to wealthy husbands. Recruitment was a problem because you had to find someone who did not want a job in the first place.

That said, of all the jobs going, being a travel advisor was acceptable in social circles. Why these people? Because they were well travelled. They had money and were able to go to all sorts of places. If anyone came in for advice they got it, first hand. Where my ladies had not been to, was probably not worth visiting.

The mechanics of travel one can teach quickly, it’s not really rocket science but the knowledge of places you cannot teach; you have either been there or you haven’t. I used to cover the flight stuff. I must admit, I used to miss the low cost carriers purely because they were not on the GDS.

The Global Distrubution System (as I always say) is a wonderful piece of 1980′s technology that no-one has been able to improve on, in fact, it still uses old fashioned code input (they tried windowficating it (eh?) and no-one wanted it!).

Anyway, the Easyjets and RyanAirs’ of this world won’t go near a GDS (that said, Easyjet would love to but can’t get their head around having to pay for it) so one can quite innocently forget that cheapo-air flies from Bristol to Montazuma – remember than Jo Public expects an agent to know everything from all airline schedules (including Freetown to Windhoek), to Australians needing transit visas for Slovakia to your not being able to take bicycles on the 06:15 Manchester to Hull – all off the top of their heads – so Heh! Have a heart, people. And yes, we do charge a fee – see what Nick says unless we can get a reasonable screw on a CAT45 ticket.

We get paid naff all by airlines and even tour operators only throw a bone, these days. But you are right, Darren, in that if one is to pay a fee, one wants a bit more than an order taker, an agent should add value to the booking. They should not have doudy shops but given that a shop fitting costs pushing 30k that does not really surprise me. Nowadays, I really only do air travel for high net worth indivduals and those on complex itineraries which means I have to be with my mobile 24/7 – but I do charge fees and make no bones about it.

I am not too sure why, Andy, you only get offered published fares. Net fares (that is, CAT45 etc) give an agent a chance to make a few bob and are quite easy to access – on Amadeus it’s FXR/R,UP Sabre WPNC(cross)PVT can’t remember the GAL entry….

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This is Andy, I worded tha badly, an agent needs to offer the LCC flight, howver say to the clients.
“I need to charge you a 25 dollar consulting fee.” I believe in the near future, only the agents that truly behave as a consultant, and not ticket sales counter people will survive.

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(this is a really imformative web site lol, glad I found it:)) I hate how the act all snooty. (or is that just to me?) Had a break from uni classes and jumped into a few shops in the high street, just getting a few quotes and books, and one ‘lady’ looked down her nose at me and declaired with a hoity toitie tone, that “the trip will cost one thousand po-unds.”

Glad she got all flabbergasted when I replied “that all?”

ohh, I hate how there is like ten desks, but only two people on them!

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I work for a popular high street travel agents and I hate it!!! Don’t be fooled when they say we care about you, trust me they don’t!

The only thing travel agents are bothered about are clients saying that magical words ‘yes we want to book that’ and that is mainly because of the bitchy manager threatening you with the sack or disaplinary because ur not doing your job proberly.

I have worked in travel for the last 6 years and soooo much has changed in thoses, travel is not the same industry as it was, customers are not the same as they were, there are no cheap last minute deals anymorem

I hate the way I have to be seen as “miss perfect” with no problems. How u have to nbe happy 24/7. The biog travel companies don’t care about their agents!! They never have done.

I hate customers who come in and argue about how the holiday was a £ cheaper on the net, “well go book it on the net and stop wasting my time!!!!”

I hate all the back stabbing and bitchiness that goes on, how when ever some one is struggling with targets all the others take great delight in seeing the struggling. It pathetic!

I feel sorry for all the kids at college studing travel with the hopes of becomming a travel agent, there is not nope for the future agents as the internet prices spread and travel agents commission gets cut.

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I own a travel agency in the Philippines and here we almost always offer the low cost carriers if we see clients are after them. As prices are on a book and buy basis and net to the airlines we charge service fees ranging from $5 – $25. I agree that there are now a lot of travel agents with lack of destination or product knowledge but there are still those who belong to the old school where we make our staff join trainings and fam trips to add to their job know how, all at company expense. You just have to find a good agent, stick to them and you will not be cheated! If you do not like one agent, move to the next until you find your match.

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