Scott Austin had been with his host agency for only six months when things started to go wrong. A former hospital CFO, he signed up with Pinnacle Travel in 2022, and immediately immersed himself in learning about the industry first-hand. He traveled extensively with Pinnacle owner Annaliza Proctor to places like Puerto Vallarta and Cancun, and quickly came to consider her a “very, very good friend.”

When his first commission check failed to appear, he let it be. The second time, though, he called the supplier—and was told they had sent the money to Pinnacle 45 days earlier Read the rest of this entry »

With almost $2 million in sales within the first year of his travel business, Rick Ables feels like he “has the Avoya system down”—and he’s ready to move on.

His career in travel started when he was sitting in the hospital with a child on chemo. During that time he talked with a nurse about travel, and then about selling travel, and then about how the nurse was selling travel on the side through Avoya Travel. He was hooked.

For the past year, the proud owner of Nimble Travel LLC in Lindon, Utah, has been building his business almost entirely through four key suppliers—AmaWaterways, Oceania, Collette, and Globus/Avalon—and mostly with Avoya leads, on which he earns the standard 30% Avoya commission Read the rest of this entry »

TourRadar, a company that aggregates 2,500 international adventure operators offering 50,000 tour products on a single booking platform, has made its network of operators commissionable to the retail travel community. The company is offering 12 percent commission till June 30 as part of its efforts to invite potential travel advisor partners to its network.

Susan Shure is tired of suppliers who keep clients’ payments but refuse to pay her commission. So she’s paying no attention to the many notices she has received from Carnival Cruise Lines asking her to return $200 commission paid her on a cruise that was subsequently canceled.

“It’s not very much,” concedes the owner of Susan Shure Travel, “but it’s the principle of the thing. I’m ignoring them.”

It’s not just Carnival, of course. “This has affected me personally more times than I care to count—and what makes it even more frustrating is that it has happened repeatedly during Covid, when we already aren’t making as much. It has to stop. If the suppliers are keeping money, then we should be getting some of that.”