Singapore Airlines and Flight Centre falling out ?

[harvyk]

For simply booking flights, a TA adds very little. It's when you need to start making itineraries which are a little more than there and back that the value starts to show through. Furthermore they really start to shine when it come time to package everything together, because if you’ve got a good one, they will have some knowledge of the place they are sending you to so that you don’t get ripped off by locals and you know some of the customs of the place your staying. I’ve also had good ones in the past actually turn around and tell me. “look I could book ___ for you but you’d probably find it cheaper to arrange when you arrived”.

As for the thing with FC. Basically if they go under, it'll because the market has decided they are no longer needed. Until that moment I don't see why they should simply close up shop just because a few people here think they should.

Also I usually use FC's price beat, however of late I haven't worried about it as their price was usually cheaper than QF, without the credit card charges.

 

[Travel Guru]

As for the thing with FC. Basically if they go under, it'll because the market has decided they are no longer needed. Until that moment I don't see why they should simply close up shop just because a few people here think they should.

Also I usually use FC's price beat, however of late I haven't worried about it as their price was usually cheaper than QF, without the credit card charges.

Love them or hate them, it's wise to remember that its bucket shops like FC who have played a large part in why we can fly internationally as cheaply as we can today.

I don't think the market would be better off without FC personally, I think competition would suffer somewhat, so for now they have a part to play for SOME people...as you say though, like any industry and any business, the market will eventually decide if they're needed.

TG

 

[FL360]

But why don't the TA industry do something to identify those
Gold TAs ?

I am sure the travel public would love to have their travel arranged by
one of those who are able and have good customer service.

All they have to do is say have an exam every year for knowledge
and the top 10-20% of candidates awarded "Gold" as for skill set.

and if they have more than 10 genuine customers compliment letters they
get "Gold" in CS as well...

Not that hard... to let the public identify the best and avoid the rookie...

 

[Travel Guru]

But why don't the TA industry do something to identify those
Gold TAs ?

I am sure the travel public would love to have their travel arranged by
one of those who are able and have good customer service.

All they have to do is say have an exam every year for knowledge
and the top 10-20% of candidates awarded "Gold" as for skill set.

and if they have more than 10 genuine customers compliment letters they
get "Gold" in CS as well...

Not that hard... to let the public identify the best and avoid the rookie...

It's an interesting idea, the problem is that it's not as 2 dimensional as that...being a good TA isn't about cramming the most knowledge into your brain, it's alot more than that, and i've seen TA's who knew it all, but had zero personality and weren't there when their clients needed them the most, and conversely i've seen agents who only had what you or I would call an average knowledge base yet they were brilliant TA's because they had that 'it' factor.

The best way to find a good TA in my mind is referral, find people you trust who have similar expectations to yourself and ask for a referral.

I am glad to see you're starting to build a bridge though... :mrgreen::mrgreen:

TG

 

[Alanslegal]

You could always try & play SQ's game and undercut their own internet fares For eg. last year booking an Air India codeshare (operating on SQ metal) from SIN-SYD-SIN for almost 25% cheaper than the best price on SQ.com Can't seem to find them anymore though

 

[Dave Noble]

Love them or hate them, it's wise to remember that its bucket shops like FC who have played a large part in why we can fly internationally as cheaply as we can today.

Consolidators that actually have cheap discount fares that are significantly cheaper than what is available directly from an airline have had a benefit; from what I see, many agents are just reselling airlines own fares and that has , imo, zero benefit and infact just makes life more difficult when travelling

Having to call back to the TA whenever needing to make a change is a pain rather than just being able to use the local number for the airline

I cannot find many instances where a TA is of benefit to me

Dave

 

[NM]

Having to call back to the TA whenever needing to make a change is a pain rather than just being able to use the local number for the airline

But if the change is such as moving a day or more earlier or later, there may be rental cars to be changed at both origin and destination, accommodation changes at both origin and destination etc. Making one call to a good and trusted TA to say "change me to a day later" and knowing they will properly update all aspects of the itinerary including rental cars, accommodation etc and email you through an updated itinerary with all the updated details in one place, is IMO where a good TA is very valuable.

If its just booking or changing a flight, the agree is generally easier to deal directly with the airline.

 

[drron]

For the earlier poster to suggest that 70% of TA's haven't got a clue clearly shows either a lack of real world experience, or that they didn't get their Low Fat Kosher meal on one flight 8 years ago and has decided their revenge shall be to forever bad mouth and hate TA's....build a bridge.....

Hell, if I stopped using a profession every time I had a bad experience with them, i'd be doing my own tax, writing my own legal documents, fixing my own blocked toilet, making my own coffee in the morning and flying my own plane from Brisbane to Sydney! :mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

Remember, what you focus on expands....

TG

Hey you forgot to say that you would be removing your own appendix or doing the cardiac tests on your family-hey its all on the internet as I have been told many times!

 

[Travel Guru]

Hey you forgot to say that you would be removing your own appendix or doing the cardiac tests on your family-hey its all on the internet as I have been told many times!

Great point, I knew i'd find a use for all of those power tools I never get around to using! :mrgreen::mrgreen:

TG

 

[SIA1A]

My take on this discussion:

• I work for a very large company and fly on business frequently, both domestic and international. We have had a love-hate relationship with TAs in the past but now, with the relentless rise of online booking systems and excellent sites that are operated by the airlines, we do most itineraries ourselves.
• A few years ago we had a reasonably satisfactory relationship with a corporate travel agent (one of the large ones). The head contract was based on the agent supplying fares at cost, then adding an agreed "handling fee." There were incentives for the agent if discounts with suppliers (ie the airlines) were delivered to us (but this became very complex). The rise of client-friendly online booking systems eventually made this agency arrangement unappealing.
• Our purchasing department now deals direct with the major airlines, car rental companies and hotel groups, with discounts offered off the web "rack" price based on the volume of business that we generate with the supplier. Our purchasing department regularly issues a "preferred supplier" listing but if we shop around and find a better non-preferred deal, we are encouraged to take it.
• Flight Centre is quite uncompetitive in this space. It is unable to feed through the discounts that we are able to negotiate ourselves with suppliers. Same story with other major agents.
• We find that dealing direct means that travellers can generally go on-line to make changes themselves. Agent-based bookings require third-party involvement if changes need to be made - this can complicate matters and lead to delays and/or errors.
• I should add that most of our company travellers are very experienced. Typically, their itineraries are straight-forward and hence online self-booking is simple. A TA simply can't add value in this situation.
• I concede that for business travel to "off the beaten path" places, a travel agent might add value but generally we find that the people in our company, or their business contacts, are far mor capable of supplying timely, pertinent recommendations than TAs. There was a time when TAs revelled in addressing tricky itineraries that required dealing with airlines and hotels that are not on the major world booking systems. Nowadays, TAs who do this effectively are rare indeed. The web and personal contacts are now much more effective in these circumstances.
• Finally, our company has an excellent relationship with SQ and it is a preferred supplier. As a generality, SQ's network, time-tabling and punctuality are very hard to beat. We would never deal with a TA that does not have a solid relationship with one of the world's major and arguably best airlines.

Note that my perspective is that of a frequent business traveller who works for a major world employer. A travel agent could well add value in the case of inexperienced leisure travellers with complicated itineraries who are very price sensitive. I'm not in that category - and when I do travel for leisure, I like to uncomplicate my life as much as possible!

 

[cbourl]

Well I purchased a Swiss RTW fare recently, in business classfrom Flight Centre - had a good TA and fare was reasonably competetive - only problem was when I then asked to purchase a Star Alliance Airpass , the TA told me due to this thing with SQ,she was unable to seell me a star alliance ticket -when she had just ticketed the LX (a star alliance memeber no?) ticket - so she said i could buy it somewhere else - I might just do that but a shame becasue eotherwise a great TA which returned my calls and emails promptly and got the seating I requested

 

[Travel Guru]

• Finally, our company has an excellent relationship with SQ and it is a preferred supplier. As a generality, SQ's network, time-tabling and punctuality are very hard to beat. We would never deal with a TA that does not have a solid relationship with one of the world's major and arguably best airlines.

Sounds more like an advertisement for SQ...are you sure you don't work for them?? Given the large contract they've lost in the past week I wouldn't put it past them to post messages like this :mrgreen::mrgreen:



In all seriousness though, it's not really a fair comparison to make between a multi national who is doing their travel in house with that of most other business travellers simply because you're able to achieve economies of scale that most businesses can't, and for them to organise their travel in house simply isn't economical once you take into account staff wages and lost productivity etc.

To generalise and say that TA's can't add value to business travellers is not only wrong (and i'm talking from years of experience in the travel industry, not from personal opinion) but to suggest TA's have no buying power when it comes to securing discounts is also incorrect.

I find business travellers gain immense value from using my agency, especially those in the 80k-1 million spend p.a. (which is far less than your company would be spending given you have your own SQ deal.), and have no lack of new corporate business coming through the door because we add value both to their bottom line and by making their lives easier.

TG

 

[harvyk]

I personally believe the thing with TA's are there are loads of cough ones out there, and there are some good ones out there. I happen to have a good one which makes things very easy (one call and it's sorted), but I have had some bad ones as well eg charging me nearly double the cost of rooms, unable to book my preferred flights (no commission in them) etc...

Just because you've had a bad experience with one (or many) doesn't mean all TA's are in the same boat. (One was able to change just about every aspect of my US trip around last week, inc cars, flights, hotels with one phone call from me, which gave me the time to rearrange meetings) now I'm sure that I could have rearranged my travel easily, but giving I'm in a small company without the massive resources available to the big guy, it would have been interesting to try to also get in contact with all the companies in the US I was planning to meet at the same time.

 

[tadlam]

I must admit I'm surprised Flight Centre has lasted this long. I stopped using them about 10 years ago when I realised I knew more about which flights went where and at what price than they did. I've found the Australian travel agents universally unhelpful and very expensive. Booking direct has been the cheapest way for some time now.

 

[Dougo]

I must admit I'm surprised Flight Centre has lasted this long.

Me too Tadlam - I stopped using FC over 5 years ago when they stuffed up a booking for me ($25K) which of course I didn't find out about until I arrived at my destination. They didn't want to know about it at all, preferring to blame the provider. I took them to Fair Trading and won - check out NSW Fair Trading and you'll probably see more claims against them than anyone else.

Why? It's because of each store operates. It's OK to have the MacDonalds of travel agents, but the thing with Maccas is they turn out a consistent product - FC doesn't IMO.

I've heard "horror" stories from suppliers where the FC agent has been on the phone asking about availability, the supplier has said "no, nothing available at all", and the FC agent has told their customer "yes, we can book that for you" while the supplier has been at the other end saying "no, I told you no we can't do it" but the agent ignored it as he/she must have needed the sale at all costs!! So what happened? Customer goes O/S, travel plans in disarray, gets back very angry, contacts FC who blames the supplier. Customer rings the supplier, abuses them but the supplier who apparently is gagged because of supplier/FC confidentiality!!!

Another recent story I heard about the "price beat guarantee" was a person who had a very cheap written quote, took it to FC, they said "yes we can beat that", proceeded to ticket the trip and what do you know? The overall price was higher because the taxes and fees FC charged were higher. I thought taxes were set by someone other than FC ?

I think there's a reason why one of the founders of FC has a nickname of "screw".

Doesn't suprise me about SIA pulling the rug, and in fact I think others may have done so too but you just don't get to hear about them.

 

[Travel Guru]

I've heard "horror" stories from suppliers where the FC agent has been on the phone asking about availability, the supplier has said "no, nothing available at all", and the FC agent has told their customer "yes, we can book that for you" while the supplier has been at the other end saying "no, I told you no we can't do it" but the agent ignored it as he/she must have needed the sale at all costs!! So what happened? Customer goes O/S, travel plans in disarray, gets back very angry, contacts FC who blames the supplier. Customer rings the supplier, abuses them but the supplier who apparently is gagged because of supplier/FC confidentiality!!!

Not saying it didn't happen, but in the years I spent at FC, of all the stories i've heard i've never heard of anyone going that far..think it might be a slight exaggeration or a case of chinese whispers happening.

In my experience, you get what you pay for, and those who shop on price alone usually do.
Thankfully there are plenty of people out there who don't shop on price alone but shop on value and are happy to pay for service, especially when it means not devaluing their time to the point where they're doing their own travel bookings.

If you can do it yourself and the savings your seeing are adequate reimbursement for your time then go for it I say, but otherwise, a good agent is invaluable.


Re the SQ and FC thing, I wouldn't believe every bit of BS that SQ puts out into the media, there's alot more to it than what's been made public by their PR department.

TG

 

[aussiejohn]

Like other members here, I gave up using travel agents a long time ago. I used to travel quite a bit with a friend when he took business trips. His company used an excellent TA in Sydney to organise all their travel (pre internet days). I would then go directly to the Qantas office to book the same itinerary. We usually had problems as QF used a different Res system to the TA.

On one occasion I went to QF to book a trip. It was first class and a very complex intinerary on a mileage ticket, difficult at the best of times with arcane fare rules etc. I demanded to deal with the most experienced consultant in the office and was prepared to wait to see that person. She still managed to stuff it up but I didn't find out till I got to London, about three quarters of the way thru the trip. Fortunately QF in London recognised it was their fault and I suffered no penalty in the end.

I travelled a lot in those days so I learnt more about fares, rules, res systems etc etc than most other travellers. So I could walk into a TA or an airline office and tell them how to drive their systems.

Now I book all my own travel via the internet. I have preferred airlines etc and I do shop on price to some extent but at the end of the day, I pay what I need to pay to get an fare at the time and on the day convenient to me and also with rules that I can accommodate. None of my itineraries are overly complex. So far I have managed to organise trips with no complications and have had no problems changing anything if circumstances alter along the way. I have become quite adept at putting together a trip with flights, accommodation etc from a variety of suppliers.

As for Flight Center, well I only went to them once, their quote was way out of the ball park, compared to other agents, so they never got my business. They might be better now, but I have a one strike and you're out policy in most of my business dealings. It hasn't failed me yet!!

John in Oz

 

[Keith009]

I attended FC's careers Open Day the other day, wondering if i should ditch a graduate program with a large bank in favour of something in the travel industry. I have to say I came away very impressed with FC from an employment perspective. Having seen how rigourous their vetting of prospective candidates is, I'm quite surprised that we still hear so many FC horror stories.

Part of the reason could be due to their policy of taking in entry level consultants, which they then have to train from scratch. I noticed that they do not require qualifications in travel, whereas most other agencies (except maybe STA Travel) do. All FC requires is a degree or high school ENTER of 75+, and "extensive travel experience."

I will make a decision as to whether I want to start post-uni life as a TA later in the year - but do watch this space. If I do end up at FC I'll endeavour to reverse the trend of "FC Horror Stories" and maybe people here will have a more positive FC experience.

 

[Dougo]

Not saying it didn't happen, but in the years I spent at FC, of all the stories i've heard i've never heard of anyone going that far..think it might be a slight exaggeration or a case of chinese whispers happening.TG

I can understand your sceptiscm, but the example I gave from the supplier I talked to, pretty much happened to us. In our case, we sat at the desk at FC, going through availabilty of all the things that were important to us, and the FC consultant was on the phone to the supplier. She "appeared" to confirm everything as we wanted, but it was not until we went to Fair Trading where the supplier gave us copies of all correspondence to FC concerning our booking. It was then we discovered that it was there in black and white on several documents over a period of months, that all of the things we wanted weren't available, but FC had told us they were and even put it all it on our itinerary!!

I agree that there are good and "bad" consultants and retailers across all industries, but when you're spending so much money and your away from home, stranded and your travel plans are unravelling, doing business with the same agency again is the furtherest thing from your mind.

Good on you QF009 for considering FC as a career and possibly reversing the "bad experiences" of travellers. But as an HR person, let me tell you that lots of places give great spiels about their company, making it sound really attractive. I'm sure the Tax Office has a similar approach - but I wouldn't want to work there either - lol !!

 

[NM]

'm sure the Tax Office has a similar approach - but I wouldn't want to work there either - lol !!

And few of us want to be their customer either .