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Original poster

Travel agent MLM?

30 replies

skyandocean · 23/08/2024 09:40

So I've been seeing alot of people on Instagram trying to get people on board to become travel agents, they would get insider trades to book their own holidays making a saving, and then if they want to they can make it a business for themself and book for family friends and others to make more money as with every booking they would earn commission.
There's two very smart women that I've been following for years, they have recently got in to this travel agent thing and constantly advertise it on their story, bc of their large following already they have managed to get a lot of people on board, they do 1-1 sessions if you're interested, zoom calls etc. there is a joining fee and thereafter a monthly subscription as you are getting access to their system that gives the insider rates.

At the moment they are having this huge international convention where all of the travel agents are attending. It looks very mlm, the person I follow mentioned she's getting paid whilst being on that convention/holiday.

Does anyone on here know more about this, whether you can really make a business out of it? I just don't see how that's possible when you're constantly recruiting travel agents, so essentially business is taken away from you. Why would you have a travel business when in the same area there's another 30 travel agents.

OP posts:
invisiblecat · 23/08/2024 15:21

I used to work for a (bona fide) small tour operator/travel agent, doing their accounts.

You have no idea what it's like to be involved in running something like that. You get telephone calls 24/7 from people on holiday overseas with all their problems and complaints, you get sued if they don't like the holiday, tour operators' VAT is a nightmare, so is insurance and you have to register with ABTA or the equivalent, you have to take deposits, balances, pay for accommodation in advance, there's the exchange rate difference to think about, and that is just scratching the surface.

In short - you would have to be stark raving mad to do this.

KrisAkabusi · 23/08/2024 14:37

Of course it's MLM. Anything where you have to pay a monthly fee to get a secret benefit is a scam. The ease of doing things yourself, is the reason that travel agents have disappeared from the high street, why would anyone think it's a sustainable business on the internet?

zingally · 23/08/2024 11:23

A FB "friend" belongs to some random Italian(??) cosmetics/skincare MLM. Genuinely a brand no one has ever heard of.
She used to pimp out Body Shop, until they closed down their MLM, and she went from singing their praises like it was heavens nectar, to never mentioning them again! And immediately hopped on the bandwagon of this new one.
MLMs are just such bollocks.

Spondoolies · 23/08/2024 10:22

Yeah it doesn’t stack up, also with travel you are opening yourself up to all sorts of issues if anything goes wrong with the holiday and you’ll get the blame if the customers aren’t happy.

Catza · 23/08/2024 09:48

Any MLM scheme is not worth it, regardless of the product. The maths is simply not mathing for every MLM person to make the profits the company claims.

Here is a good breakdown
The Mathematics of MLMs - Lee Devlin's Website (k0lee.com)