OK to have Travel Agent book tour requests??

[cruiseej]

We're booked on a Voyager cruise at the end of December with my parents, and were planning to submit our tour requests online, as we've done on previous Regent cruises. My father says his travel agent can book our tours and receive commission on them, so he's inclined to give her the business. She's a good agent and does good research/legwork for them, so I'd be happy to have her earn something extra on our tour booking, but it seemed a little odd since nothing is charged in advance and all the tour charges go on our on-ship account only after our tours are finalized and we get (and keep) our tickets. For that reason, I thought tour reservations needed to be done directly via Regent's web site so we can get our order in near the top of the list. I don't recall seeing other posts here about people having their travel agents book their tour reservations, so I wanted to ask if anyone has done that, if it's okay, if you get in the same priority queue as passengers booking online directly with Regent... Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

-- Eric

[Traveler Nina]

Whether you book your tours directly through the Regent website or have your TA do it will not affect your list placement. Having your TA do it is saving you time but she/he is going to call the same agents at Regent or place the order through their agent site. Let your TA do it, one less thing you have to take care of!

[klauer]

I know that this is because I am a control freak, but I would rather book excursions myself rather than have someone else do it. Then I have the confirmation right away, and can double-check it. Same with booking the cruise itself -- I would rather talk to Regent directly than have to wait for a travel agent to call and then get back to me. I love doing research and planning our family vacations, but I realize that everyone doesn't feel the same way!

[Wendy The Wanderer]

I also like booking my own excursions. My TA does the things that she needs to do, and does it very well. Are you sure they would get a commission for doing this? That doesn't ring true to me.

[DocDesdin]

I do not believe they get commissions on shore excursions which can be booked online; i do believe they get commissions on the special shore excursions that can be quite expensive that can only be booked by calling reservations specifically.

[DocDesdin]

I do not believe they get commissions on shore excursions which can be booked online; i do believe they get commissions on the special shore excursions that can be quite expensive that can only be booked by calling reservations specifically.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Ah, right. Yes, makes sense.

[cruiseej]

According to my father, the travel agent called Regent to check, and found she could earn commission on booking our tours. That seemed odd to me, but I figured it was fine if we could help an agent who's been helpful to us, so longs as she felt it was worth her time to do the booking. So then I was really surprised when she emailed me to say she needed my password to log into the Regent site. Now, this is a longtime travel agent who has booked a number of trips for my parents, so I am not worried that this is any type of scam. But I don't like giving my password to anyone (I'm guilty of using the same password on multiple web sites). I figured the agent would log into some travel agent section of the Regent site, not need my password to log in as me. I can't imagine why Regent would require TA's to get their customers' personal passwords to book them tours, and I still can't figure how they make the shipboard account commissionable to the agent -- after all, we could cancel everything we requested now and book totally different tours if we wanted. Well, it's done now, but I'm still puzzling over this.

 

-- Eric

[redcisco]

No offense, but I believe your TA is incorrect. Or maybe she just didn't relay the complete truth fully to you. Friends with TAs who book Regent, and they only get commissions on pre-bookables like the Concierge Choice things, pre- and post-cruise "adventures" and Circles of interests. Those type of things. Regular excursions they don't get commissions for - especially if they are going into your own mycruises section. They'd only get a commission later for the pre-bookables.

[Ngaire]

There is definitely no commisson on regular tour excursions with Regent that the passenger can book on line or book on board. I can say that with 100% confidence.

 

There is commission with pre-post or excursions that MUST be booked directly with Regent. These types of tours are bookable on Regents on line Travel Agent site or via the phone.

 

Regular excursions are not available on that Travel Agent site and must be booked on the Regent regular website via the passengers personal page on the "my cruises" area.

 

My guess is that this was simply a misunderstanding between the TA and the Regent representative. I am sure the Regent representative was referring to tours that MUST be pre-booked (Taj Mahal as an example) and the TA thought the representative was talking about all tours.

[Winner]

It's nice to see you "back" on these boards. Your expertise has been greatly missed. Welcome back!

[cruiseej]

Thanks so much for your post, Ngaire. What you say is what I had guessed, but it's nice to get clarification from someone "in the business"! I'm guessing that once the travel agent realized the situation, she thought it was better to ask for our logins and do it for us, rather than say "oops, there was a misunderstanding" and have us do it ourselves, which I would have preferred. Oh well, another lesson learned>

 

-- Eric