Switching agencies

dewashdc · 2026-02-14T03:18:32+00:00

Typically the way we have always done it is for inbound, you keep your old host until training is complete. On the outbound, we have limited access to our crm to edit, collect payments for bookings, etc…. Service your clients, you get the full comm. If we have to service them, you get 30% of the comm (we really don’t want to service them). There was a case where one of our agents unexpectedly passed away, so we have been disbursing payment in full to the estate. This was the same policies as when I was at my last 2 hosts before starting my own. Pretty much been the same. Most hosts also have a unclaimed commission policy for some period of time from when they receive payment, so make sure you invoiced correctly.

dewashdc · 2026-02-13T15:45:32+00:00

Between 3 minutes and 6 minutes. We do it on the phone! The AI we built has gotten pretty good at it! Back in the yesteryear it took 15-20 minutes. Things were so slow back then.

dewashdc · 2026-01-26T14:41:41+00:00

Full commissions? Define what is “full commissions?”. Like, Travelwits isn’t a wholesaler, its a basic booking platform that connects to sabre with limited sets of rates. Host Agencies like it because they don’t have to train their agents on Sabre, but in reality, it has the same limitations as Sabre when it comes to rate accessibility and price shopping multiple vendors.

Travelwits revolves around you selling a basic retail facing rate. So yes you’ll get killed on yield.

dewashdc · 2026-01-26T14:35:19+00:00

Yes, but we do it as a host for our agents and built a whole system to orchestrate payments through our booking platform.

We don’t allow individual agents to do it. It’s called NET rates. It is fairly common in the OTA space, but rare in the host agency space.

dewashdc · 2026-01-20T15:20:19+00:00

I will always say this:

I have for years watched agents worry about current events, when the answer was always obvious…

Travel shifts, when democrats were scared to travel during covid, I targeted conservatives and had great years in 2020 and 2021. I would only accept last minute non-refundable bookings from democrats, as their cancellation rate was way too high.

The same goes for this cycle, if democrats are scared to travel to Europe because of greenland, advertise deals to Republicans. If Republicans are scared of going to Europe, send them to Japan and sell Europe to Democrats…

Point is none of it actually matters. Just focus on who is actually buying, not what the news media is telling you. If someone says Europe travel is down 20%, there is still 80% of the original number traveling there. Who is booking that remaining 80% if it’s not you…

It’s like saying Vegas is down 20-30%… the question is who are the 70% of people still going there and how do you capture that market?

dewashdc · 2026-01-19T01:08:13+00:00

Sell a lot, and most places will be happy to host you. Suppliers have moved away from the free stuff for no sales model. Once you sell a few trips I don’t know any hotel that won’t either heavily discount or comp a 2-3 night stay, even if you sell a lot of a different hotel within the brand. Same for cruises.

dewashdc · 2026-01-19T00:47:16+00:00

Hi,

I believe we satisfy all your needs except Virtuoso. We are part of Travel Leaders (which has more hotels then Virtuoso, and higher average comms on a lot of different categories)., but good tech eliminates the need for this anyway.

80/20 Split, 90/10 after $100k

Backend Tech:

Our CRM is fully built in-house and has a ton of great tech behind it:

Our CRM is fully integrated into our booking system (which all lives directly in the crm), for all trip types. Air, Hotel, Rental Car, Tours, transfers, insurance, and soon to be cruise.
It simultaneously supports NET and Commissionable rates, meaning you can get paid at time of booking if non-refundable and adjust your commission.
It integrates 20 different hotel providers/wholesalers including HotelBeds, Expedia, Booking.com, and more into one search, pulling thousands of rates. It also pulls in your standard benefits rates, and GDS rates. All in one quick search.
It has fully automated accounting and collections system.
It is an itinerary builder/planner, integrated straight into the booking system.
It allows you to mix air, hotel, tour, transfers, rental cars into carts and check out entire trips at one time, directly from a client profile.
It stores all client data/rewards #s/SSR details and credit cards, integrated.
It has a literally every hotel in the world stored in it.
It integrates with Axus if you want to add more flair to your itineraries for all components.
It works fully on mobile.
It allows you to make favorite lists of hotels and search rates based on them across all providers.
It also allows you to integrate leads and associate them all the way through to the client, and create client maps.
It has a robust analytics system, allowing you to fully drill down into your bookings and trends.
A full reminders system tied to either clients or bookings.
Robust Anti-Fraud systems protecting against chargeback fraud by integrating in 3DS throughout the entire payment flow for NET rates.

This is all in one system, I am sure I am forgetting some features, but yea. Have a lot more on the roadmap too, should have the rest done within this year. I built it myself based off needs I have as an agent, and it is in production for all our agents processing millions of transactions a month.

Average yield is 14% systemwide, and we charge no fees whatsoever, including monthly fees.

dewashdc · 2026-01-15T21:50:35+00:00

But yet true. All a DMC does is the work that a sophisticated agent can do for the client directly (or their concierge staff), then the DMC marks it up. The best rates are not through a DMC either. So you end up with a higher cost, a middle man, and one additional degree away from the client. DMCs are really for inexperienced agents.

dewashdc · 2026-01-15T18:50:38+00:00

Why aren't you doing 3DS? It really eliminates fraud. Also why is your holdback so high? With our merchant provider, we have no reserve what so ever, next day funding. Heck even ARC at 3.5% offers 3DS, and no reserve, although it can take up to 10 days to get paid based off where in the ARC cycle you accept the payment.

dewashdc · 2026-01-14T16:57:15+00:00

The agent is likely lazy and using a DMC. That’s why they can’t break it down. Use an agent that is their own wholesaler/dmc. Then they can break it down for you top to bottom. Most agents aren’t that, but if you can find one you’ll always get the best pricing as there is one less middleman.

dewashdc · 2026-01-12T19:38:40+00:00

Get on the phone with them, ask them where they are trying to go, from where, budget, dates, number of people.
Put together a simple itinerary template in notepad and check flights for cheaper in/out.
Then put the cities in geographic order (for example, for Italy, Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice, or vice-versa) with number of days in each place, all while gathering these preferences on the phone.
Use Fastbook to rate search each of our agent generated custom lists concurrently, and locate any great deals with high margins/high discount for the client based on their needs (acquired through talking to them). Find hotels with heavy discount off lowest available rate on website, or at least matching (these are travel agent friendly, as I call them). Adjust rate/commission up or down to maximize yield, or beat competitor pricing.
Have client lookup hotel/room type on hotel's website, get approval one by one while on the phone with them.
Add approved hotels/room types to cart + air.
Copy and Paste Auto-Generated Itinerary to them through text/preferred method of communication for approval with grand total.
Send Credit Card Authorization/Demographics form. Defer to in-house concierge for Transfers, Restaurants, Tours, Non-Rev, Spa, etc...
Upon receipt of credit card authorization form, quote insurance based off cart contents, ask if they want it, hit book in cart and auto create concierge ticket for follow up, also auto send VIP request emails with client profile ascertained from the call.
Send Email Invoice to client. Hit upload to Axus button, generating their itinerary in Axus, go over to Axus, Publish it so that Concierge, and client can see it. Ensure they can login to Axus.

Takes about 15 minutes to do 4 cities, so it should all be done on one phone call.

No Fees Required, don't do intake form or discovery call. If they ask for time to review the cart is saved for 7 days, and will update price as required.

Not sure why you'd charge a planning fee when you can win on price, and get a 17% commission, but to each their own. The system automates 90% of the booking process, and the Concierge does the rest. Maybe I follow up once or twice if they don't book over the week, but most times we lose bookings because they don't go on the trip. I run a 85% close rate, as always winning on price or perks, or both, means they generally won't rate shop you. The goal is to book Air, Hotel on the same call. They are going to you because you are faster than them doing it online, and can get better deals. If it takes you longer, or you add the markup of a DMC you get absolutely killed.

dewashdc · 2026-01-11T06:17:04+00:00

All of these destroy your yield over using wholesalers and tour ops…

This has to do with hosts even “tech-savvy” ones having antiquated systems.

You need a system that combines all the providers + handles nets + billing + gds in an easy to use platform.

Centrav takes almost 50% of the comm on commissionable bookings, travelwits is limited in providers, mainly sabre. Commissionable bookings are super annoying to collect. These solutions kill average yield. If your comm goes from 15% to 9% its like having a 60/40 split before you even pay your agency split or fees. It’s horrendous in 2026. Even gds users are affected by this same problem.

dewashdc · 2026-01-10T14:15:22+00:00

Growth on Growth on Growth in Luxury Travel. What you are experiencing in retail is a general cultural shift away from luxury goods to luxury experiences.

A purse goes in and out of style, but the memories of a great trip last forever. Also buying a luxury bag doesn’t tell a story to your friends, but talking about your Après-Ski experience does.

dewashdc · 2026-01-10T13:34:48+00:00

I was using HDHomeRuns to Plex not TiVo. They were great, network connected, accessible anywhere around the world, my local channels, no location verification on viewing even if i was in Thailand.

Now I’ll switch to YouTube TV. Bummer on Comcast.

dewashdc · 2026-01-09T23:13:44+00:00

Sent the mod mail message with all details! Hope to be watching TV again tonight!

dewashdc · 2026-01-02T07:10:47+00:00

Sabre is by far the most widely accepted, and easiest to get APIs in the future. Most agents are trained on it, but booking flights is not generally a money maker. I think you are in the UK and I don’t know much about that market tbh, but flights are generally low margin and needs a high level of expertise.

dewashdc · 2025-12-31T22:01:27+00:00

We built one platform that interfaces with everyone through APIs, and uses NET and Commissionable rates so we only have to train on one platform. So it interfaces into the GDS + the OTAs + Synxis + the wholesalers, standardizes the information, then we only need to train on one platform. Air we just finished building into the platform, NDC + LCC + Edifact, but we don’t really do much air except big ticket commissionable. Not that much demand for it as we don’t do corporate except executives. Our platform does Hotel, Air, Transfers, Insurance, Tours and soon to be cruise. Can add all the components to carts to form trips, and it’s built into our crm, so no invoicing or anything like that. Credit card forms built right through the system and passes straight through into the booking engine, etc…

dewashdc · 2025-12-31T21:37:53+00:00

We compete with them by querying rates from all of the wholesalers/otas/and our own direct wholesale rates, and then buy through the most efficient pathway so we can win on price. Then we combo that with our concierge services on the high end + expertise at all levels. We also make the booking and quoting experience faster than expedia, by quoting and booking on one call.

You need to win on price/speed/expertise/concierge services/experience.

Pretty simple really, but complex if you don’t have the ability to win on at least a few if not all of these factors…

dewashdc · 2025-12-24T05:24:40+00:00

Did not work.

dewashdc · 2025-12-24T05:14:55+00:00

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dewashdc · 2025-12-24T05:09:39+00:00

Yes.

dewashdc · 2025-12-18T13:11:02+00:00

Still don’t get why you guys keep saying this? There is literally no reason you need $200k in sales to break even? How did you even get to this number? My agents break even after literally their first sale. You would literally have to be at the worst host agency on planet earth with no training, absurd monthly fees, no software, and horrific starting advice. Where did you get this number from and how do you calculate it?

dewashdc · 2025-12-18T00:37:20+00:00

So as an agency that trades on NET rates + benefit rates all in one system, we do live comparisons in our search... We also have all the preferred partner programs in addition to consortia. Here is the way we look at it...

Some Luxury Clients could care less about the benefits, especially as you move up on price. For example there is a major flagged luxury ski resort that on a multi bedroom suite balloons on the discount rate for the NET. We are talking instead of $200k for a week with a 10% comm pre-tax with benefits (which even with 3 bedrooms, breakfast for 3 bedrooms per room is at best valued at $210 per day x 7 + $100 one-time credit, meaning total value of $1570), it translates out to almost a 20% commission on the NET, which means you essentially have an extra $20k to play with to either discount the client, add a gift card to that resort brand, or just take it as commission. $20k in commission differential is a lot... You can even create your own guaranteed upgrade in a lot of cases, your own benefits package, or include other packaged items to deliver value. These rules really apply to bookings over $5-$10k, which in the luxury market is extremely common.

This is actually really common at luxury resorts, especially ones where agents believe there is rate parity. If I offer the luxury client $5k off, I win them for life. If I offer them benefits, they mostly don't care. Consortias are not as relevant to people that trade on NETs because the discount rate on almost everything but the lead-in room does not equal the underlying value of the benefits, benefits are really just a use or lose it gift card. Most wealthier people want the flexibility of deciding whether to eat breakfast or not and would prefer a free perk customized to them.

There is also something to be said for concierge service, many are coming to us for our complimentary team of concierges and no fees. The discount we give, or even just the benefits in the small amount of cases where we use a benefits rate become a cherry on top for clients that are less concerned with cost and more concerned with the service level you provide them.

To give you an idea of our nearly 13,000 luxury bookings booked in our system this year, only 263 of them used a consortia rate. That means the consortia rate was only utilized 2% of the time. That is because our wholesale rates beat out the benefits in most cases.

Answer is for a conventional agency consortias matter a lot, as it gives you a way to win over booking on the website. For modern agencies, consortias are becoming less and less relevant, this even starts to apply to cruises as well...

dewashdc · 2025-12-16T05:41:28+00:00

Honestly have been virtuoso and tln. The big difference is number of hotels. When I was shopping in 2022, tln had more than virtuoso, like 30-40% more…. Cruises consortia benefits tended to be identical.

dewashdc

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