4 ms·

Small sample size, but I strongly disagree. I've managed missed flights, getting bumped, losing my passport and various planning failures, on my own. Everythin

Small sample size, but I strongly disagree. I've managed missed flights, getting bumped, losing my passport and various planning failures, on my own. Everything works out in the end. The one time I used a travel agent (Flight Centre) for a trip at the beginning of the pandemic, I got screwed. They delayed me from calling the airline during the period where they were giving out refunds, and kept telling me to just wait. Then they refused to do anything, and directed me to speak with the airline, but by then it was too late. Now I don't trust anyone to handle my travels but myself. They don't have your best interests at heart by a long shot.

FDSGSG 6y ago
>They don't have your best interests at heart by a long shot. Huge shops like flight centre certainly don't, you're nobody to them. Their business primarily consists of selling terrible package holidays to clueless people. This is not what GP meant with "a good travel agent". The incentives are completely different for smaller agencies offering a personalized service.
- metalliqaz 6y ago
  why would the incentives be different?
  - rusticpenn 6y ago
    The smaller and "good" agencies generally focus on customer service, while the bigger ones focus on customer acquisition through brand name and probably do not care about customer retention.
    - jdeibele 6y ago
      It used to be that airlines (and hotels and rental car agencies) paid enough in commissions that travel agencies made good money booking flights. Southwest Airlines, for example, has never paid commissions. As sites like Expedia grew, many (all?) other airlines and hotels have reduced and reduced their commissions. For some people, there's still value in saying "I want to take a trip to x" and let the travel agent work out the details. But the travel agencies now charge a fee to the customer because they get comparatively little from the businesses.
    - metalliqaz 6y ago
      I don't follow this. Customer service is useful for customer retention in small firms, but customer service is also useful for building a brand in large firms. The motivation for both is the same: selling as many vacation packages as possible.
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Brands have inertia. Once your brand is big enough, you can get away with a shitty customer service and generally screwing customers over. If you aren't a total disaster of a company, then the worst that happens is that some of your customers book with another big brand the next year... but then customers who got screwed by that other brand will try their luck with you. I'm really guessing with major travel agencies it works the same way as it seems to work with mobile operators in my country: you have three major networks to choose from, every one tries to screw you over as much as possible, but since everyone needs a smartphone, people just bounce around between the three in anger (or try to arbitrage deals). Viewed at scale, it's just an equilibrium.
      - rusticpenn 6y ago
        Good customer service is expensive, usually the first one to go when the firm is big enough to have middle managers.

FDSGSG 6y ago

>They don't have your best interests at heart by a long shot. Huge shops like flight centre certainly don't, you're nobody to them. Their business primarily consists of selling terrible package holidays to clueless people. This is not what GP meant with "a good travel agent". The incentives are completely different for smaller agencies offering a personalized service.

metalliqaz 6y ago
why would the incentives be different?
- rusticpenn 6y ago
  The smaller and "good" agencies generally focus on customer service, while the bigger ones focus on customer acquisition through brand name and probably do not care about customer retention.
  - jdeibele 6y ago
    It used to be that airlines (and hotels and rental car agencies) paid enough in commissions that travel agencies made good money booking flights. Southwest Airlines, for example, has never paid commissions. As sites like Expedia grew, many (all?) other airlines and hotels have reduced and reduced their commissions. For some people, there's still value in saying "I want to take a trip to x" and let the travel agent work out the details. But the travel agencies now charge a fee to the customer because they get comparatively little from the businesses.
  - metalliqaz 6y ago
    I don't follow this. Customer service is useful for customer retention in small firms, but customer service is also useful for building a brand in large firms. The motivation for both is the same: selling as many vacation packages as possible.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      Brands have inertia. Once your brand is big enough, you can get away with a shitty customer service and generally screwing customers over. If you aren't a total disaster of a company, then the worst that happens is that some of your customers book with another big brand the next year... but then customers who got screwed by that other brand will try their luck with you. I'm really guessing with major travel agencies it works the same way as it seems to work with mobile operators in my country: you have three major networks to choose from, every one tries to screw you over as much as possible, but since everyone needs a smartphone, people just bounce around between the three in anger (or try to arbitrage deals). Viewed at scale, it's just an equilibrium.
    - rusticpenn 6y ago
      Good customer service is expensive, usually the first one to go when the firm is big enough to have middle managers.