Travel Agents Say MoneySaving Is Immoral!

taxiphil

woohooman wrote: »

I believe that this site carries a lot of weight. Martin should be careful not to go too far down the path of anti-capitalism if I dare say that. He might actually sink a few companies due to what he says and its not going to be the people that provide a cheap and poor service that it affects but the ones who provide a decent service.

While I don't know enough about the travel industry debate to get too involved with it, I just wanted to pick up on this point. In my time on MSE I've only ever been aware of the greedy immoral thugs taking a good hiding - I'm thinking here about banks and their illegal charges, debt collection firms with their underhand illegal tactics, companies like e2save and LoveFilm who engage in sharp practice, and the likes of Tesco who paid a heavy price for their massive widespread overcharging when MSEers got together and put their price promise to the test. I do truly believe that by giving the fat cats and the crooks a good hiding, by the laws of economics this has only benefitted decent, honest (and usually smaller) firms. Consumers are beginning to understand that buying off big corporate brand names is often a false economy.

True, a handful of smaller rogue traders have also been exposed and avenged thanks to MSE. But generally speaking, decent companies giving a decent service have not been adversely affected by this new wave of people power.

If anything, I think MSE has taught people that it's not all about getting the cheapest prices; it's about fairness, legality and quality of service.

woohooman wrote: »

How about a list of moneysavingexpert.com approved traders such as plumbers, electricians, locksmiths, double glazers etc etc. Who sign up to the site and give transparent prices. I never hear of the holiday industry ripping people off to the tune of £1000's of pounds, yet those industries are rife with it and are never mentioned on here.

Trust me, anyone who rips people off to the tune of £1000s gets a good hiding on here! And that most definitely includes plumbers, electricians, locksmiths and double glazers! You should have a look at the Vent Bent & Heaven Sent section.

M4RKM

i'm 100% supporting this too... I once tried booking my first ever trip through a travel agent to New York City, once we decided where to go and when, we told them what hotel and the dates.. they came back to us, saying it was unavailable, and offered us an alternative hotel, at a more expensive price.

this is when i then decided to take things into my own hands, and go online to get my holiday. I booked directly with the hotel, booked flights online, and got my travel insurance, and overall saved around £250 (there were 3 of us going)

big savings are to be had, and why can't we, the consumer do what we want, and shop around...

immoral_angeluk

Judi wrote: »

We are not imoral, but they are.

Well I am....




Seriously though. If they can't take a little competition in the form of people going in armed to book their holiday, then more fool them.

ljarmstrong

Ok I totally agree with all that has been said so far in this thread. But in response to Ben 500 saying that Holiday reps are highly paid. You are so wrong.

I repped for a well known tour operator, working 70 hours a week if not more, and sometimes 7 days a week for £400 a month. I did get comission on excursions but these were seperate form the cost of the holiday...also apartments and hotels only get 12 Euros per night per room (not per person) as tour operators pay for the room not the amount of peopl...so they are making even more money from us, though they do pay nearly triple of the seat price in tax alone.....This is my first time at MSE, an excellent thread but Holiday Reps are so not well paid, mine was a 'better' paid, holiday reps for the likes of Thomas Cook, Thomson and PalmAir etc are even worse paid then that and have to work even more hours.

baby.boo_2

i work in a travel agent and i am not totally against a customer trying to knock down the price of a holiday but they need to remember to be realistic, yeah mayb it is 150 cheaper on the net but do you really know exactly what you are getting? are you getting a personal assistant to search through those hundreds of holidays for you, are you getting advice and reccomendations about your chosen destination??
also phoning/calling in the shop with another agents quote is all good but dont forget we know when you are lying!! all agents have a maximum dicount limit so if you come in saying that thomson are £500 cheaper we can search that thomson holiday for the thomson price and check how much cheaper it is with maximum discount. This is where your business will be turned down, just so you can go away to thomson and see how much cheaper its not.
and as shirlene mentioned earlier, we are reluctant to give you dicount, like many commission based workers, as that money comes out of our own pockets.

tealady

I think with travel agents it is a case of "you pays your money and you get your choice". I am sure that there are very good companies out there who will work to get a customer the best deal and be upfront about what comes with that deal. After all they don't have to sel to anyone that they dont want to. Personally I have never travelled for years because I feel as a "single" I have to fork out a disproportionate amount of money that if I was one half of a couple and I resent that.

BenL

I'm off to setup up a used car business over the road from the head quarters of Thomsons, the workers there always pay full price and never haggle!

Premier_2

... an invitation from Jane Peacock of the Co-operative Travel to go and work with her and her colleagues in Lincoln for a day...
However a spokesman for Lewis said the idea was "interesting" but he did not have time to do it as he was in his busiest period of the year and had too many filming and television commitments...

Hey, if they need some help in their office, get them to contact me and we can discuss rates.

They were going to pay you, weren't they Martin? :eek:

I can always make room in my busy diary for the right price (as long as it's legal, decent, honest & truthful).
I've a feeling they may not like the amount of discounts I might give away though, and I might be able to blag myself a [STRIKE]cheap[/STRIKE] free skiing holiday whilst I'm there! :rotfl:

Simon_c_2

I've a simple rule. Never trust anyone with the work "agent" in their job title or business name.

wozearly

To my mind, the complaints seem to underline a flaw in the travel agents' business model rather than inappropriate suggestions on Martin's part, and some of the arguments defending the travel agents' position don't make much logical sense.

Should travel agents stand by their quoted price and accept it if the customer walks away as a result then they'd join a large number of industries where that's...uhm...exactly what happens. That they don't is ultimately their choice, and that some are grumbling at Martin for pointing out customer-friendly loopholes is a poor defence for a bad approach.

Explaining where I'm coming from, I'd say that travel agents are providing two essential services - recommending a holiday based on a customer's needs and then selling that holiday to the customer.

The first they offer for free, making their money through the latter. The challenge for travel agents is, I believe, that the advice requires the majority of time and effort and booking the holiday is something that customers and competitors are able to do themselves relatively easily (accepting that there are differences at this point between what you can buy from where, e.g. ATOL guarantees).

So any customer taking the free advice and then looking to save money by throwing the booking open to competitive tender from online vendors and other travel agents is just...well...being a money saver.

If the travel agents are relying on the sale, they have to be able to offer the best proposition to the customer at the point where they hand over the cash - whether that's the ATOL guarantees, or the fact that the holiday can't be booked anywhere else, or whatever. Relying on customers to show loyalty to the travel agent who gave up their time for free to that point is verging on the naive - if there's a better offer elsewhere and they're happy to put in the time to find it themselves, you can't really blame them.

By extension, its a bit harsh to blame Martin for pointing out that this is an effective way to save money. As long as travel agents are prepared to cut their prices on request, its hypocritical to blame customers for haggling.

Ultimately, offering discounts to get the sale is just a symptom of the underlying problem - that the advice is underpriced and the sale overpriced. Or, alternatively, that the industry has got used to profit levels from historic levels of customer laziness / lack of information and is having the same unwelcome wake-up call that other industries have gone through in recent years (think car insurance and utilities since the rise of the online aggregators).

Sure, free advice gets people through the door, but relying on customer laziness / loyalty at point of purchase is a risk.

If travel agents feel the advice they give is valuable, then do what a number of other advisers (e.g. lawyers, some mortgage brokers) do. Put your money where your mouth is and charge a fee for it. Then the price that holidays sell for is lower (the overall price should be the same, its just being spread between advice fees and booking cost) and should be competitive against other holiday sellers that aren't giving advice.

That way the industry will segregate in the same way other advice industries have:

1) Free advice = expensive product at the end and/or the risk of the adviser's incentives not being linked to the best outcome for the customer

2) Paid for advice = recommended product at the end, possibly bought via the travel agent and possibly not.

3) No advice = act as a seller of a product only, which tends to promote unique products that other sellers can't match


Of course, if the advice isn't good enough to justify a specific fee and if travel agents don't feel they're able to offer the 'best' product at the end of the process...well, I'd say their energy would be better spent finding solutions to that issue rather than berating consumer journalists.