Q: Melissa, how long have you been a co-owner of My Journey Begins Travel?
A: Ron and I decided to open My Journey Begins Travel in 2019, based on his prior experiences as a business owner and his extensive knowledge of the travel industry, both as a consumer and as a planner of trips on a voluntary basis. I had significant experience planning and selling packages primarily for Disney properties and cruises and eased right back into that role for My Journey Begins Travel.
Some people use the expression “just like riding a bike.” I’d say that my return to the travel industry was even smoother than that!
Q: How did you navigate travel through the COVID-19 pandemic?
A: It was difficult. As a new business, we were making investments and building our brand and beginning to serve clients. Covid put a stop to all that – and just like many of our readers I’m sure can relate, it was difficult to put in the time and energy in 2020 and part of 2021, knowing that our industry was basically shut down for a significant period of time.
Q: What does it look like now?
A: As far as Covid goes, it is much more manageable, and there are far fewer restrictions, if any, on travel.
As far as our business goes, we made ourselves available as trusted experts providing advisory services in an area that was the subject of great upheaval.
We made lemonade out of lemons – it has been and continues to be an opportunity to build new relationships and work with clients who may never have worked with a travel agent before, but want that extra peace of mind that comes with working with us.
Q: What are some of the most popular destinations coming out of Covid?
A: Multiple destinations in Europe have been and continue to be extremely popular. International travel in particular was highly restricted during Covid, so we have quite a few clients who have either taken a Mediterranean cruise or a European river cruise or simply chosen a country to focus on.
Italy, Portugal and Ireland have proven to be quite popular – but we can’t forget about many other fascinating and enjoyable locations throughout the continent. The Greek Isles are always very popular, and visits to Iceland and Scandinavia to chase the Northern Lights are also booking rapidly. Sometimes simply media coverage gives a destination a major boost. I expect a surge in popularity for France coming off of hosting the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
Q: How about for those of us with smaller budgets – where can we go within the United States and still enjoy a great vacation at a great value?
A: First, I’ll continue on Europe – I don’t want our clients and potential clients to quit on Europe as being cost-prohibitive. While airfares are higher than they used to be – travel in general costs more just like everything else – the dollar goes pretty far compared to the Euro and has been this way for a number of years. It takes about one dollar ten to purchase a Euro; a couple of years ago, the dollar in euro were briefly on a par for the first time.
In terms of locations, outside of the United States, Caribbean cruises continue to be incredibly popular. Within the United States, some people choose luxury resorts, while others choose mountain retreats, and others choose touring and sightseeing, and the glamour of big cities, such as New York and Las Vegas.
We can help with each and every one of those types of trips.
Q: How come you don’t show pricing on the website?
We would love to be able to show pricing – but pricing changes every day, sometimes even multiple times per day. We simply can’t anticipate every possible trip on every possible date and maintain an up-to-the-moment database on MyJourneyBeginsTravel.com.
What we can do is find out where and when you want to go, and come up with itineraries that make sense for YOU, keeping cost savings in mind – along with other factors that may be important to you.
Q: How does a small agency like you keep up with the demand while still offering personalized service?
A: That’s the beauty and strength of My Journey Begins Travel. We are small and responsive, but we are affiliated with large travel consortia, such as the Expedia program mentioned in a different article and also with Travel Planners International which provides particularly good group pricing on a significant number of cruise sailings. While we can’t achieve it on every trip, we are often able to get extra onboard credit or a better group rate, even for an individual cruise cabin booking due to pooling our bookings with other members of this consortium.
Q: You mentioned commissions earlier – how does that work?
A: It’s really quite simple. Most travel vendors offer travel agents a commission that they do not offer the traveler as a discount. The commission on average is approximately 10% – sometimes it’s a little higher for certain types of travel or certain vendors and sometimes it’s a bit lower.
We would prefer that our clients utilize our services and support travel agents in general rather than just adding more money to the bottom line of cruise lines, hotel chains, and so forth.
We also provide a valuable service in terms of making recommendations for where to stay and what to do and so forth.
When we book something like a long weekend or a cruise or a tour package, the commission alone is what we receive as compensation.
Airline tickets are no longer commissionable in nearly every case, so we simply have the clients book the tickets or we strongly advise we do it with the clients payment information since we are adept at choosing schedules and seats that are generally desirable.
Our service fee for airline tickets is $25 per round-trip booking for the first passenger on an itinerary and $10 per person on the same itinerary.
That’s less than most airlines charge for baggage fees!
We think it’s a good investment to work with us, and we hope you agree.
Sometimes, what we are asked to do is above and beyond what a commission payment would cover in terms of compensation for our services.
In the cases of customized travel, our customers pay $300 in advance for us to prepare a custom itinerary/package proposal, which covers two hours of consultative fees. Most custom trips can be planned for this amount of fees above the commissions.
However, if we’re also booking museum tickets, sporting event tickets, guided tours, such as hot air balloon rides, and other similar activities – we may exceed the two hours, and we will keep you informed as to additional charges, which are generally either time-based or based on an override (upcharge) of 10% above the price of the non-commissionable item we booked for you.
We work with the clients to provide the level of service they desire a cost that makes sense both for them and for us.
Q: What if the client already booked a trip that they haven’t yet taken? Is there still an opportunity to work with you for that trip or for future trips?
A: Clients are always free to book future trips with us. In terms of trips that are already booked, most vendors offer a short window to transfer the credit for a booking to My Journey Begins Travel. Usually that’s a 30 day window and a form needs to be filled out possibly online or possibly a paper form requiring a client signature.
While it’s less than ideal than booking through us in the first place, we’re happy to assist in the event you desire to shift the booking credit and the booking contact to us.
Q: Thank you Melissa, that was highly informative!
A: Glad to help – we try to keep the process simple so you can focus on enjoying the trip!
