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travel agent commission


marbear5

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Welcome to Cruise Critic,

 

It varies some from travel agency to travel agency - but a rough estimate would be about 10%-12% of the cruise fare (excluding the non-commissionable portion of the fare such as taxes, port fees, other government fees etc.). Many large travel agencies (especially online ones that do a large volume of business) return a portion of their commission in the form of On-Board-Credit, pre-paid gratuities or other perks as an incentive to use them. Smaller travel agencies are less likely to do this, but often provide a higher level of personalized service. Cruise Critic rules forbid people to recommend specific travel agencies to others.

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Some agencies are large enough or belong to groups that allow them to blank out a large number of cabins and get "group" rates. Often a T/A will pass a portion of this back to the client in the form of a reduced fare (where allowed) or a nice OBC. So yes the practice of giving an OBC or some other perk is very common.

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On our last cruise our Ta gave us $100 OBC and when we got to the ship, there was another $100 OBC , a balcony breakfast and a bottle of wine. We were in a suite so we did spend a lot of money for the cruise.

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We have been advising CC folks for many years that it often pays to shop around for any cruise. We book lots of cruises (about 75 days a year) and always look at 4 - 6 favored TAs (we have our own short list of internet cruise agencies) and compare their price (and credits) to the cruise line web site. On an upcoming cruise we have a $1075 on board credit from a TA...that was not available from the cruise line or our other normal TAs. On other cruises a different agency might have the best deal. We see no reason to be loyal to one particular TA or site. In the end they are all selling the same product. We have no interest in the TA commission! The only thing that matters to us is our final price.

 

Hank

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With Carnival cutting commission to 5% in the UK, the beginning of the end of cruise lines paying any commission has started. Those OBC deals you see will be gone within 5 years and if you then want or need a TA to book your cruise, you will be paying for that service. Don't think the cruise lines will be giving you what they were paying the TA in the form of a lower fare. You certainly didn't see the airlines giving you TA commissions when they were for the most part done away with.

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With Carnival cutting commission to 5% in the UK, the beginning of the end of cruise lines paying any commission has started. Those OBC deals you see will be gone within 5 years and if you then want or need a TA to book your cruise, you will be paying for that service. Don't think the cruise lines will be giving you what they were paying the TA in the form of a lower fare. You certainly didn't see the airlines giving you TA commissions when they were for the most part done away with.

The demise of the TA has been discussed as a possibility for years. So far still more than 80% of cruises are booked through TA's. Yes I think that the mass market cruise lines would like to do away with TA's. I have seen the in house PCC or whatever each line calls them become more aggressive. Airlines are different. Cruises are less price sensitive because of the TA's. Each line has almost a distinctive character. The cruise lines find that the TA's are still their best way to sell and advertise. All the advertisement you see on TV is still just name recognition advertising. Disney sells well but is clearly the most expensive of the mass cruise lines.

In any case the demise of the TA is like the first report of Samuel Clemens death some what pre-mature..

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"Times are a changing!" And the cruise industry is slowly changing with the times. At one time most of the cruise lines encouraged everyone to use TAs (Renaissance Cruise Lines was the exception and it went bankrupt). But now, the cruise lines are all embracing the power and low cost of the internet. We have watched the airlines gradually move away from TAs and sell most of their tickets on line either directly or through large on-line companies such as Expedia. We think the cruise industry will follow a similar pattern since direct internet booking is very low cost and efficient. We ourselves now book nearly all our cruises directly on the internet (we cruise about 75 days a year) and seldom even talk to human. We still use online TAs if they have a better offer then the cruise lines, but even this is somewhat of a sham since most of these online TAs are now directly connected to the cruise line computers. Hence, when you book online with many major online TAs the booking goes directly into the cruise line computers and the only difference (from booking on a cruise line web site) is the price and/or OBCs.

 

Hank

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"Times are a changing!" And the cruise industry is slowly changing with the times. At one time most of the cruise lines encouraged everyone to use TAs (Renaissance Cruise Lines was the exception and it went bankrupt). But now, the cruise lines are all embracing the power and low cost of the internet. We have watched the airlines gradually move away from TAs and sell most of their tickets on line either directly or through large on-line companies such as Expedia. We think the cruise industry will follow a similar pattern since direct internet booking is very low cost and efficient. We ourselves now book nearly all our cruises directly on the internet (we cruise about 75 days a year) and seldom even talk to human. We still use online TAs if they have a better offer then the cruise lines, but even this is somewhat of a sham since most of these online TAs are now directly connected to the cruise line computers. Hence, when you book online with many major online TAs the booking goes directly into the cruise line computers and the only difference (from booking on a cruise line web site) is the price and/or OBCs.

 

Hank

 

Good points. I want to mention that Renaissance was using TAs at the time that they went bankrupt, but they did not initially. IMO it was 9/11 that lead to their bankrupty.

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Good points. I want to mention that Renaissance was using TAs at the time that they went bankrupt, but they did not initially. IMO it was 9/11 that lead to their bankrupty.

 

We agree! Unfortunately they did not have enough resources to get through those tough times. That was one of our favorite cruise lines (no smoking and no children and no teens) and we really loved their ships (R1 - R8). We still try to get on those ships whenever possible (Azamara, Oceania, and Princess). Ironically it may turn out that Ren was years ahead of their time. In the next few years we suspect that many cruise lines will have no smoking and no longer use TAs (why pay a commission when you can take bookings online). As to children...well that is another story.

 

Hank

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