InteleTravel franchise/self employment

[everysilverliningandallthat]

Hi! I’ve been looking at travel franchises however the cost has been prohibitive, I came across InteleTravel but have read that it’s mostly an MLM which I’m absolutely not interested. Can anyone shed any insight into if you have (or know of someone) who has made money from this just on travel sales and not the MLM side
thanks!

It’s worth searching on MN @everysilverliningandallthat as it’s been discussed before and quite recently (you might have found those discussions already.

Essentially Inteletravel is the travel company front to a pyramid scheme called PlanNet Marketing. As with all these shifty companies the money is made from an endless cycle of recruitment not from selling a product or service. It’s the reason why Inteletravel did well during a global travel ban when many were furloughed or had lost their jobs and were ripe for recruitment. How can a travel company do well during a global travel ban? It’s possible to make money but not probable. Someone may pop up to tell you they know someone who says they’ve made a lot of money but 99.6% of sign ups to companies like IT lose money according to research, but that vast majority tend not to advertise their experience.

Absolutely stay away from Inteletravel. It’s a massive scam. You don’t get great support and if you ask any hard questions they kick you out of groups anyway. It’s more about luring people in than selling holidays anyway. Never been in a shadier environment. They actually kick you out of a group for any “negativity” so they keep lining their pockets with other people bringing in money. It’s a pyramid scheme in every way no matter what they say hide it.

@Mumtrynafigureitout have you been involved with them? Genuinely curious,

@JoelDommettsTux are you involved with PM/IT? It’s easier to see a scam if you’re not caught up in it. I think a lot of people have experience of watching friends get burned.

I don’t know about @Mumtrynafigureitout but I’ve been watching MLM pyramid schemes for years and understand how they operate; how they disguise the continuous cycle of recruitment behind sales of product/services to, mostly, people within the scheme. The losses for people are pretty catastrophic, it’s been demonstrated more than once (research by economists such as Jon Taylor and Dr Stacy Bosley) that once expenses are factored in 99.6% of sign ups to schemes like PlanNet Marketing/Inteletravel lose money. It’s a scandal that these businesses can continue to operate as they do.

Sorry, I know your question wasn’t directed at me!

I work as a supplier in the travel industry so know inteltravel well. I'm happy to answer any questions if you'd like to PM. I work with the vast majority of agency chains and franchises in the industry so see how they differ to others. I would say that the majority of intele agents I know that genuinely want to be travel agents end up moving to other companies fairly quickly. Being a travel agent simply isn't as easy as they like to suggest!

Hi
I have just been to an evening for recruitment to inteletravel. I haven't signed up yet but I am tempted.
It seems too good to be true but I actually can't find fault with it.
Even joining for reduced cost of holidays for myself it seems worth it, that's without engaging in the recruitment for a "team" of my own.
Do you have any experience to add? Xx

Except 99% of the "deals" you can already find cheaper yourself. Do you notice all the comparisons they show of how much they have saved people are against really expensive sites like hotels.com ?

They did them against booking.com which is what I would normally use myself.

@LucieJones don’t get involved. It’s a scam. If you want to be a travel agent go elsewhere, if you want good deals for holidays go elsewhere. About 3 years ago I was contributing to a big expose of IT which was lined up to appear in a Sunday paper (not a tabloid, this was a proper piece of investigative journalism). It got shelved due to a few world events that happened just before the Sunday it was due to appear. I hope interest can be reignited because what they uncovered about the way Inteletravel and PlanNet operate would send you running for the hills.

@LucieJones in 2023 they paid out 4.5 million in commission to their 'agents'. There are 17000 agents signed up, the maths tells you everything you need to know. Very few people are making anything out of inteletravel.
The travel industry works on low margins so unless you travel an awful lot the savings by booking your own holidays at nett won't outweigh the costs.
As your customers - why would someone choose to book with an intele agent who's done an online course over a travel counsellor with 20 years experience, or a Trailfinders or Kuoni shop for example.
All of the travel agent chains and homeworking companies have the same pool of potential suppliers so they have to sell themselves on their expertise or service.
I'm not sure how many suppliers intele work with now but I know it's far less than most, as the industry has been cautious about working with them due to their reputation. They're getting better but unless you are an outstanding sales person, ruthless or can give it a lot of time you'll struggle to make anything.

Thank you for this well rounded reply xx

Hi all, I am not here to try and tell you to ‘join my team’ but I would like to share my personal story. I joined Intele travel as an agent 2.5 years ago purely to save/earn on my own family’s travel. I am mum to 3 teenagers and travelling with them is expensive. I work full time so didn’t plan on booking a lot of travel. I certainly didn’t plan on referring the idea to anyone else.

A couple of points:

• The team you are in matters. It matters a lot. Agree that some teams just sign you up and leave you to fend for yourself. That is hard. My team is very supportive and helpful. A lot of travel is booked so the knowledge, training of systems and suppliers is incredible.
• For the travel that I have booked for family and friends I have managed to save them money. Not always but in most cases otherwise I would have told them to book elsewhere. I have also always been paid my commission on time and in full.
• I have saved/earned a lot on my own personal travel and one trip alone has paid for my subscription for many years. We don’t travel a huge lot via the programme and it still financially benefits me.
• Likewise commission from one trip I booked for a friend has paid for my subscription for many years.
• I personally know many people who have booked hundreds of thousands of pounds of travel in a few short years with no prior experience. The beauty of it is the low cost investment and that they can earn extra money from their home, around their current job and their kids. Not everyone has the ability to leave their kids in the evenings or extra days to try and bring in extra money. It’s not ‘easy’ money at all but I have personally seen it work and help people. A gym instructor joined my team and has booked almost £40k of travel since she got started in Jan. I’m sure she doesn’t think it’s a scam especially as she lost her other part time job in mid Jan.
• We have over almost 90 suppliers and what the lady above said is just not correct. When your revenue increases in the way that Intele has in a year up to £95million of travel in 2023, believe me suppliers want to be part of it.
• One of my team works full time in a marketing role but used to work as a travel agent when she was younger. She joined me almost a year ago now to book travel as a side hustle. She knows the industry. She is still here so again what the lady above said isn’t correct in my experience. She is earning from travel alone as has nothing to do with the mlm side of things nor have I ever asked her to as I know she has no interest.

It is a low cost way to earn extra money - not everyone is doing this to earn £50,000 or replace their full time working income from it even though I do see people earning really well. For some people having £200 or £500 extra a month is completely life changing in many ways. This is why it is working. The travel industry are not happy about it the same way that black cabs were not happy when Uber entered the taxi market.

The majority of agents in the UK are using this to book travel and earn from the travel industry. Only a very small percentage of those are ‘recruiting’ others. I personally was never asked to ‘recruit’ or ‘refer’ the business to others. I joined, tried the product, enjoyed it, told my friends and family naturally because I rated it but had no idea that what I was doing was ‘network marketing’ or ‘social selling’. A friend then asked me how they could do it to. End of the story.

I know that I will get negative replies to this but please remember that I’m 48 year old mum of 3 who is a genuine user of this and I’m speaking from my own personal experience so please don’t be rude to me. Likewise I’m not here to be in ‘recruiting’ mode either before someone levels that one at me!

The majority of agents in the UK are using this to book travel and earn from the travel industry. Only a very small percentage of those are ‘recruiting’ others. I personally was never asked to ‘recruit’ or ‘refer’ the business to others. I joined, tried the product, enjoyed it, told my friends and family naturally because I rated it but had no idea that what I was doing was ‘network marketing’ or ‘social selling’. A friend then asked me how they could do it to. End of the story

^definition of MLM recruitment right there. Do you earn from the activities of those that have joined your team?

I’m glad you said “in my experience” @vics1 because your few examples need to be set against what Inteletravel say is the destination for most of the people involved. Here is the income disclosure that Inteletravel publishes, so this is in their own words.

People who join to sell travel and are not aiming to recruit earn on average $41.64 a year before expenses - these are the earnings of over 92% of those recruited to sell travel by Inteletravel in 2023. That’s about 40c an hour if they work the average of 2 hours a week that Inteletravel claims. The problem is that the income disclosure uses averages which does not give an accurate picture of all the active travel agents losing money every month. Nor do these figures include those that sign up and pay money and drop out quickly. Early drop out with losses is high in all MLMs, but those people are not included. So the picture is actually worse than over 92% earning less than $50 a year.

I’m forming my negative opinion on Inteletravel based on their numbers (and some of the reports I’ve heard over the years). I am very glad you haven’t been stung but you can see that many are being misled and ending up worse off or at least not earning anything. It’s a shame these (flawed but useful) income disclosures are so carefully hidden from prospective reps.

Inteletravel does not seem a good bet for most people to earn even a small bit of extra income. Do you agree, based on what Inteletravel says?

@vics1 I'm glad it's worked for you but I'm very much not incorrect.

I'm a supplier, and know the business of intele and other agencies very well. Hays travel homeworkers for example have over 400 suppliers they can use, mid counties 300.

We do work with inteletravel so have no issue with the agents, they are largely great people like all the other chains - but the figures I quoted were actually shared on stage at the ITW last October and are freely available. You must realise from that that it just isn't a good financial choice for most people?

Apologies autocorrect - that should have said ITQ.

Your stats that you have provided are simply incorrect. Those are from the NWM side of the business and the money that has been paid out on that side. It has literally nothing to do with the commission being paid to travel agents from Inteletravel UK who as I said have often nothing to do with the NWM arm. They are two entirely separate companies so naturally report their financials independently.

Hi, thank you for your reply. I don't dispute that Hays may have 400 suppliers but in reality how many of those 400 do their agents use as I know that I don't use many of ours - a handful at most.

Also for the purpose of this conversation and the lady who initiated it I don't believe that she would consider taking a 'gamble' on doing something that may or may not generate her a good income when the cost of entry is £8,000. This is what Hays charge for their new agents. I believe their monthly running cost is £55 as well.

I would say that Hays isn't a good financial option for most regular people. Again, you have to remember the target market. Lots of people who join Inteletravel do so to supplement their income - to earn an extra £500/£1000/£2000 a month or more and for them that is life changing. Would they therefore join Hays for £8,000? I know that I wouldn't have. I enjoy the extra money that I have brought in to my HH thanks to this but would never have outlayed £8,000 for it. I would love to see the stats on how much their independent agents earn after their £8,000 start up cost has been taken into account.

Its horses for courses. Lots in our team have book hundreds of thousands of pounds of travel - I can say this because I KNOW them. My friend booked over £300,000 last year along side her 4 day a week corporate role and 2 young girls. Simultaneously there are lots who don't. It is an effort based business and I'm sure lots blame Intele for that when the 'fault' only lies in one place. Imagine if they had spend £8,000 for the same outcome.

Self employed travel agent here! Hi!
Inteletravel are MLM, there is no way to dress it up.
I can honestly say that unless you spend 10's of 1000's on your own holidays then you absolutely wont save 1000's on your own holidays. I can only wish!
Jet/TUI and I think Easyjet dont work with them (as far as I know, TUI used to, dont anymore). This speaks volumes to me.
Booking travel is generally easy, I wont deny that. But knowing the in's and out's of entry to countries, how to deal with emergencies, sorting out problems, being on hand 24/7 to your customers and putting together complex itineraries - it really isnt as easy as they make out. And you WILL NOT have a good back up from head office.
Reputable travel agents/tour op's charge fee's and upfront fees for real training (you cannot do this from a bloody you tube video), there is a reason for this. Look at what Hays/Travel Counsellors/Mid Counties earn in a year, what they make in a week is what Inteletravel make in a year.
Avoid

A couple of years ago, Inteletravel gave global figures showing $500M sales and 70,000 agents. Taking what they say are typical commission rates, this works out at around $750 per agent. Ignoring sign up fees, agents pay around $480 per year to Inteletravel, leaving a net profit of $270.

I'm sure there are some people making a decent living from Inteletravel as vics1 claims, but it is clear from Inteletravel's own figures that most don't.

Seems to me that it’s pretty obvious here , You make money if you put the effort in and you won’t if you don’t , Pretty simple really , Sell holidays make commission , Sit on your backside waiting for it to happen then it won’t

As this is an MLM scheme, you make money if you get in early and recruit other sellers. If you don't get in early, you won't make money no matter how much effort you put in. MLM schemes only make money for those at the top of the pyramid.

The above income report has nothing to do with Inteletravel, the income report which is shown is for PlanNet Marketing, and those are averages. That is an income disclosure that is disclosed in each and every presentation, event, on company site, as well as social media platforms, it is what is reported to the IRS.(govt. agency)

The figures in my post of 22/2 are for InteleTravel globally and were given by their chairman and founder. Yes, the income per agent is an average. However, as this is an MLM scheme, most will earn less than the average. A few who were in early will earn substantially more than the average.

MLMs use average numbers to mislead. Income disclosures, while better than nothing, are somewhat flawed as they don’t include early drop outs who have all lost money and they do not include expenses. This is why the FTC and other economists who have focused on MLM have found that in MLM like Inteletravel 99.6% of those joining the scheme lose money. If, rather than average numbers, we could see typical earnings and a visual representation of where they cluster, we’d have much more useful information. The only way to really make money in MLM is to recruit many others on a continuing cycle whenever you join, with joining early providing a better chance of more unaware victims/recruits.

In the U.K. MLM are not required to product an income disclosure but the appalling outcomes are the same here

This PlanNet marketing doesn't even have a product. Inteletravel sells the product and PlanNet is just a pure pyramid scheme. I have no clue how it hasn't been shut down.