I have worked for flight centre recently - (2010) - I also didn't like the nature of the business.
There are good agents and greedy agents and its hard to find a good one that will stay long enough to get lucky and score a good client to make the job worthwhile. They get a base wage of less than $20 an hour, booking Jetstar or Virgin gives no commission. Qantas pays commission but the people who book these flights are usually adamant virgin/jetstar are the cheapest and insist on that. Even if you can show Qantas is 1 cheaper and 2 better value as food and luggage is included.... they tend to decide that what they want is virgin so they will stick to that -- therefore for domestic travel travel agents by no means have any incentive to find you a better deal.
12 weeks for refund - that is a standard line. It will usually come through faster. The flight refund should go right back to the store (not accountants) as each store is operated individually (most also part owned by the store manager) and they have accountants that do monthly and 3 monthly audits to ensure no fraud is occurring,
International flights pay 6-10% commission depending on the airline so a lot of agents will mark up the fare so they get a decent amount of money. The agent is only paid about 10% of the commission earned on the travel they sell... they change the structure of the pay but the 10% always stays the same. There are higher levels but nothing over 40% (which is not on all of the commission only on the commission over a certain amount) ... so for a 2500 ticket the agent would be lucky to increase their pay buy $50.
The perks of an agent also aren't as good as you would expect. I won a load of free holidays/hotels/flights but I was never given the leave to take them. I got to take 1 hotel stay because it was in sydney. Flights and hotel in asia, cruise and hotel in fiji, flights and 3 day trip to fiji ... all things I won in the same month - got to take none
I was a good travel agent to most, others I would have been so so, but I am friends with a lot of my clients on facebook. why? because I was honest, I cared about their holiday, i put my effort into finding the best deals, and I charged exactly the rrp (exepct I discounted insurance to make sure everyone took the best level of cover)... being a travel agent was about making sure people had a good time... so I wasn't there long enough to make any kind of mark. But before I left I did tell my store they needed to get their heads out of their coughs and start giving a damn about people and not just money.
Now?? I work in International Travellers Emergency Assistance working 12 hour shifts... making sure sick/injured and unfortunately sometimes worse are able to get home, get well, be treated, be evacuated to a decent place for treatment or follow their family wishes in regards to the body ... I make a lot more, I work a lot less, and I enter peoples lives at their most devastating and hold their hand through it all ... much more rewarding than meeting them at the most exciting and devastating them through it - like this 12 week refund has done.