Merry Xmas, here’s your fee.

There seems to be a few messages going around the travel industry at the moment and it’s all about making money, or at least charging the customer for something the customer has not had to pay for before.

Not great news I hear you say, not for you and in my opinion not for agents either.

Recently there was an International Travel Consortium annual meeting and one of the topics was charging for quotes. Well more to the point charging for a service.

The argument is that we are in the service industry so why not charge for the service, after all if the client is calling for a consultation then they should be charged for that time. If they are calling to make a transaction then great, everyone is happy.

This has been met with some reluctance in the UK but is widely accepted internationally.

And like most things, what happens abroad slowly finds its way to our own little island.

Another piece of news today is that Virgin Atlantic are now going to charge for pre-booking your seats out of the free 24 hours before departure time slot.

This can cost up to £50pp for a long-haul round trip, not good news for a family.

Virgins reason were so ridiculous, it is being done for their customers benefit apparently!!!

Yes, because of operational aircraft changes at the last minute Virgin are finding it hard to re-book everyone onto the new aircraft with its different layout, by charging means not so many people will pre-book, well yes that’s true but I don’t believe for a second this money making scheme was for the customers benefit, unless of course all the money charged from this is going to charity, then I would gladly give it the big thumbs up, but for now it’s a