These are companies that spend a minimum of 300 million dollars per year on travel. If our services

Er, the customer? I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If you book a flight through an agent, you pay the agent, and the agent (presumably) pays a smaller amount to the airline, because they get special agent's rates, and keeps the difference as their fee. Or do you mean a hotel booking, where you pay the hotel when you check out? In that case, I imagine the hotel pays the agent commission.
Edit: I see you're talking about getting the agent to prepare the itinerary and then booking it yourself. Well in that case, obviously the agent is SOL. But often agents have access to deals and packages that you wouldn't be able to get on your own - e.g. a flight and a hotel for the same price as you 'd pay for the flight alone. rental cars at miami airport So if you book it yourself, you will end up paying more.
The previous thread mentioned that you (the buyer) are the employer of the travel agent (that is from Ducati who has extensive experience in the industry). And as such they will bust their gut to get you the lowest fares etc.
The first is the more traditional where the airline gives an agent discount and that is what they get paid but more often now they're moving to a service fee model. So you agree up front that for booking your flights, your accomodation for x days and researching 3 excursions you will pay them $100 or you negotiate an hourly rate. In return you get all of your airfare and accomodations at the exact rate they are charged.
I prefer not to use an agent, for me the research and planning are almost as much fun as the vacation themselves but for people who don't put that kind of time into it the survey rental cars at miami airport results are pretty clearly in favour of using an agent. There is a luxury travel show that's either going on now or just ended and they've released some results of a satisfaction survey that says that self booked travel has a 42% satisfaction rating whereas for agent booked travel it's 72%. (please note that these numbers are from memory as I'm in the office today and was reading the article at home)
Clearly that is one specific market with a high demand customer base and it's probably slanted by the way the questions are asked but I still think that agents have a lot to add for those who are uninterested in the planning process. Based on what I've been able to save myself by investing time I would imagine they could also save the cost of their fees for many passengers as well.
If you called a travel rental cars at miami airport agent, you used our resources which are far cheaper. And we would bring you your ticket and documents for the trip to your home or office. It was worth 10% to the airlines and other entities to bring them business and do most of the legwork.
In virtually all settings - hotel, car, tours, airline rental cars at miami airport tickets, cruises, a 10% commission was standard for many years. Some cruise line or car rental company might have a month now and then where they would pay 13 or 15% or something like that, but by and large, we lived on 10%.
If you were a large volume agency, you could negotiate an over-ride rental cars at miami airport structure to get another 1-5% in addition to the standard 10%. A million wouldn't do. We had to sell about 12 million annually on Delta alone to achieve this. We did it on a couple rental cars at miami airport of others as well.
Eventually, Delta started deciding they needed to cut costs, and overnight, rental cars at miami airport they announced rental cars at miami airport that travel agent commissions would be capped at $50, no matter the cost of the ticket. rental cars at miami airport London for $1200? Not $120 anymore. $50. It's on the dresser, bitch.
Many agencies have survived by charging fees for consulting or whatnot. Most frequent customters rental cars at miami airport know what the deal is and support the agency by paying the little extra in exchange for simplicity. Yes, with the advent of the internet and technology, the average person rental cars at miami airport can access information, goods, rental cars at miami airport and services that only the travel agent could before. And since it's all computerized, there's often no need for the agent. As a result, many smaller agencies have closed since the mid-90's. Ticket jacket? Boarding pass? What are those?
While I love the internet rental cars at miami airport and all the information it brings, I despise what it's done to the travel industry. Yeah, if all you want is a ticket to Cancun and a cheap hotel, you can get that done pretty quickly yourself, and just as cheap as an agent these days.
However, when it comes to a honeymoon, vacation, or just traveling from A to B, it helps to have someone who's been there, done that, has the pictures, and more importantly, has the personal knowledge that you just might miss otherwise.
Maybe I'm being stupid, but doesn't that mean that the travel agent is getting a discounted rental cars at miami airport travel item, namely, the flight, which Joe Punter would have to pay $300 for, but Bob Agent can get for $270, thus keeping the $30? Is it just a matter of semantics?
The back office arrangement is thus: All airlines and travel agents belong to the ARC - a bank, if you will. Agent writes $4,000 worth of airline tickets on say, 3 airlines rental cars at miami airport for the week. Saturday, we do a report, determine the numbers, and deposit 90% of 4k into our ARC account. rental cars at miami airport ARC takes the money and distributes it accordingly to each airline. Agency keeps the 10%, or whatever it is these days.
These are companies that spend a minimum of 300 million dollars per year on travel. If our services and experience can save them, say 80 million, our company will negociate a fee arrangement. We even had a dedicated web address that they could book on which included all relevant discounts the company recieved.
Maybe I'm being stupid, but doesn't that mean that the travel agent is getting a discounted travel item, namely, the flight, which Joe Punter would have to pay $300 for, but Bob Agent can get for $270, thus keeping the $30? Is it just a matter of semantics?
One way to think about it is that some percentage of the cost of the ticket is dedicated to sales and support costs. If you buy the ticket directly from the airline, they have internal groups that get credited for that cost (because they maintain the website, answer the phones, etc.). If you buy from an agent, then the agent gets that money. The ticket is always $270, and the sales and support contract is always $30.