Travel agent MLM?

[skyandocean]

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.

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)

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.

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.

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?

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.

the travel mlm is called Inteletravel - they claim its not an mlm as you dont have to sign up for 'networking' side of it

but its total bollocks

An old acquaintance tried to get me into this thing and i sat in on the initial meeting and thought very much an MLM. She now only contacts me to ask about holiday plans. Very tiresome and rude but completely an MLM.

@skyandocean Hmm it's not a person with a home account is it?

I follow one with a home account, her home is lovely but have had to block her stories as sick of the travel business 🐂 shit tbh.

@Gingercatlover
The two people I know of that I've been following for years and years, they are in great jobs themselves, have big houses, designer items. They have recently got into this travel thing and constantly are out to recruit new people on board, showing profits made by the new people they have recruited.

Yes I was thinking who deals with the whole drama of when a customer has issue with their holiday etc

I don't think it's the same account then, but yeah they could be doing it as a side hustle, but part of the training will be to make out that "their travel business" has paid for this that and the other to try and suck people in, it's about recruiting that's for sure.

I've also wondered about inteletravel. Even if you don't need to recruit others; does it actually make sense for doing your own travel bookings? They promise that you'll get great pricing on hotels and flights and because you're part of the 'travel industry' you'd likely get free upgrades and perks etc. anyone whos actually been there done that for any info to share?

They make very little commission on each sale. I only ever book Ikos and Sani holidays and they as a company offer zero offers to these travel MLMs. That tells you everything you need to know.

They earn a % of what their team earns, so say you’d get 10% commission on a holiday, 2% will go to your ‘manager’ and 8% will go to yourself. But often the deal is cheaper by maybe 5% than booking it yourself BUT you lose out on things like free transfers/free breakfast etc, so it works out exactly the same if not more expensive.

I enquired about joining as I book about 6 holidays a year and could easily book another 12 for family and friends every year but the commission is such peanuts it’s not worth my time.

So they way I've seen it, it's people who would be spending that money on holidays anyway and are now making a saving as a result of the rates and "commission" but for those people they're making savings as opposed to making money.

And then they're promoting the concept to others so that can make a commission on their bookings. They don't want to actually book anyone else's holiday's, and at that point it's a volumes game and it's passive earnings from everyone else. So for someone who's already spending 000's a year on holidays they'll make a savings (commission) and then if they've a large insta following and can recruit they'll make a passive income.

For the likes of us I doubt it's worth it. Unless you're spending a fortune on holidays already.

It’s an mlm so basically you’ll make nothing. I have someone in my Facebook trying to push it and doing videos everyday. Before that it was health stuff and she’s always doing some sort of rubbish like this.

I don’t know anyone who uses an actual travel agent now as it’s easier and more cost effective to go online a book yourself. Even the agent we last visited about 15 years ago tried to sell us a Jet2 deal. DH went online whilst in the shop and saw that on Jet2’s website we could arrange the exact same holiday ourselves for £300 less. When we queried that she got quite shirty. We also went to an ‘independent’ agent. We told her that the actual agent could do it cheaper and she said ‘no they can’t, I have access to the same system and they’d effectively be paying for your holiday!’ Well they must have paid for our holiday as we got it £100 cheaper. Will never use a 3rd party again.

Yeah a good friend of mine joined this. At first I was really pleased for her. But then the typical hard sell started and the pushing and the constant messages. She has managed to join up one mutual friend that I know of. Last two times we met for a drink at the pub (which we did about every month or so) just became a hard sell. Her telling me what my pitch would be and my 'niche' if I also became an agent. Just a sales pitch all the time.

The last straw was on my birthday and I got a facebook message saying 'Happy Birthday!' followed by an attempt to sell me an extra special birthday trip plus to add my name to her increasing list of 'independent travel agents'.

We have been friends for 25 years. It's like she has been zombified. No conversation, no text, no facebook message can be had without her trying to sell me something.

No I’ve never touched mlm’s as I know they are a scam. So your assumption is wrong. It is an MLM aka a scam. I have better thing to do than listen to a call about scams, I have an actual job that pays me correctly and provides all set up without me paying first.

The only people making money from mlms are the ones at the top. Hence pyramid. Avoid!

ellebeaublog.com/poonique/

I can smell the desperation 😂