Orbitz Will Never Love You The Way I Do
What’s an OTA? Online Travel Agency - think Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, etc.
What’s their main motive? Profit, of course. Most OTAs are publicly traded and have shareholders and boards to listen to.
But wait, Kate, isn’t profit your motive, too? Sure - to an extent. I mean, yes, I started a business because I want to make a profit. I want to continue to grow and build my business; bring other advisors onboard; expand what I’m able to offer you.
Profit isn’t my sole motive, though. I started this business to build relationships, to be of service, to engage fully and wholesomely with the world in ways I wasn’t able to in my prior career. To know wonder, and joy, and pride, and, love. To learn, and try, and fail, and try again.
This is a challenging time to be in the travel industry, to be sure, but it’s a blessing to be surrounded by generosity - on the part of suppliers, working so hard to keep clients from losing funds; on the part of other advisors, sharing knowledge and encouragement; on the part of clients, waiting so patiently for updates. Even the airlines and cruise lines are doing their part to be as flexible as possible, obviously with an eye on the bottom line but they’re also keeping customer service in mind.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but you know who’s not reacting to this crisis with generosity? All together now: The OTAs.
So, some broad thoughts on how the channel you book through matters:
This is the kind of situation where you see OTAs (Expedia, Orbitz, CostCo) being a bit of a "get what you pay for" situation. If you need to cancel something, you're not just subject to the actual supplier (airline, hotel, etc.)'s policy, you're also subject to the OTA's policy, which is usually much less forgiving.
If you're not going to book your airfare directly with me (always your prerogative), please ALWAYS book it directly with the airline. When you book through CheapFlights4Eva.com or whatnot, the fare conditions are generally *very* restrictive.
The same goes for booking Basic Economy fares. Most search engines have a way to toggle that off so those fares aren't coming up. The restrictions on the ticket are not worth the 5% discount...you can't select your seat in advance, which means you'll likely end up in the middle of a row near the back of the plane; you sometimes are not allowed a carry-on bag other than your personal item; and you cannot cancel the ticket and receive any fare value as credit.
Hotels are similar, too: hotels can see in their reservation systems what channel you booked through. They obviously like it best when you book directly with them, so they don't have to pay anyone commission, which is why you sometimes see perks like free breakfast added for booking directly. They don't mind it terribly if you book through me, because agents drive a lot of their business, and the commission they're paying me is rarely higher than 10%. *But* when you book through an OTA, they're sometimes paying up to 30% commission on those rooms, which means they're making hardly any profit on them, which means you're gonna get the worst room available and you'll be the first walked to a different hotel if the one you booked is oversold.
And, as so many people are finding out this week, there’s really no one who cares about you to help you in a time of crisis.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point…I love and care about each and every client. It’s crushing me to have to unwind months of planning - not because of the lost commission (although that certainly stings a bit), but because you’ve all been looking forward to your trips for so long, and I want you to experience all the amazing things we’ve cooked up for you :)
We’ll all get back on track at some point; I’ll keep sending some travel inspo out there. But, for reals, think twice before booking a big trip through someone who doesn’t know and care for you. 9 times out of 10, you might be fine. But that 10th time? Painful.