Is anyone a travel agent on here?

[cransplash]

I swear- I'm not trying to spam!!

I have been giving it a lot of thought to become certified, but would love to hear about your experiences. If it'd be better, you can PM me

[sunshinedaydreams]

I'm not, but I remember a big post about this a bit ago on TN. If you're not one of the die hard anti-TN folks, you could probably search and find it. :-)

I remember it being pretty anti-TA, though. And I was a bit bummed because I'd thought a lot about becoming a TA a while ago.

[Deleted]

I'm not but I was under the impression that Travel Agents were pretty much a dying profession with websites like travelocity and hotwire these days.

[basilosaurus]

My mom was. She quit in 96 b/c it was a dying profession even then. She was basically miserable all the time, and she used to love her job. Even back then most of the perks were disappearing, and she was even in specialized travel.

The only perks she had left were the "free" trips she would escort. I say "free" b/c it was as hell of a lot of work for her, definitely not a vacation. She worked much harder on those trips than any day in the office.

[mudslide]

YGPM

[expatpumpkin]

Jul 11, 2012 4:14:15 GMT -5 @sfgal530 said:

I'm not a TA, but I'm currently on vacation now and used a TA to help plan parts of it (we're 4 weeks into a 5-week trip to Europe) and I must say - I'm impressed. I'm really good at planning trips and had always planned my own before this, but the TA I work with specializes in luxury travel, and I think she's got a booming business. Maybe the trick is to find a niche area? There are definitely areas of the world I wouldn't plan trips to on my own (Africa, for example), because I just don't know enough about the nuances of those regions. Also, my TA doesn't charge me anything (she gets kickbacks from the hotels), and she has gotten us amazing perks - we got room upgrades everywhere we stayed (we got an upgrade to a $2,000/night suite in Monte-Carlo!), we've gotten bottles of champagne, late check out, early check-in, free lunches, breakfast is *always* included, etc., etc. I will use her again for all my future trips, and I'm a person who previously swore my TripAdvisor and whatnot (I will still use that to do research, but she'll be the person who books my hotels). If you're interested, I'd consider trying to go into a niche area like luxury travel, corporate travel, etc.

Great info. Would you please send me her contact info via PM?

[cransplash]

Jul 11, 2012 0:17:03 GMT -5 mudslide said:

YGPM

ygpm back

[cransplash]

Jul 11, 2012 4:14:15 GMT -5 @sfgal530 said:

I'm not a TA, but I'm currently on vacation now and used a TA to help plan parts of it (we're 4 weeks into a 5-week trip to Europe) and I must say - I'm impressed. I'm really good at planning trips and had always planned my own before this, but the TA I work with specializes in luxury travel, and I think she's got a booming business. Maybe the trick is to find a niche area? There are definitely areas of the world I wouldn't plan trips to on my own (Africa, for example), because I just don't know enough about the nuances of those regions. Also, my TA doesn't charge me anything (she gets kickbacks from the hotels), and she has gotten us amazing perks - we got room upgrades everywhere we stayed (we got an upgrade to a $2,000/night suite in Monte-Carlo!), we've gotten bottles of champagne, late check out, early check-in, free lunches, breakfast is *always* included, etc., etc. I will use her again for all my future trips, and I'm a person who previously swore my TripAdvisor and whatnot (I will still use that to do research, but she'll be the person who books my hotels). If you're interested, I'd consider trying to go into a niche area like luxury travel, corporate travel, etc.

great info- could you PM me her info as well?