Like flights, travel agents can book hotel rooms and not pay for them until 30 days before departure. This is how travel agents can offer holiday bookings with low deposits of £50 per person with the balance payable near departure.

We have over 750,000 hotels on our platform, coming in from bed banks and wholesale inbound operators across the world. We have both room rates and FIT hotel rates that cannot be sold directly to the public without including a flight.

With our system you can also book multiple hotels within the itinerary, add on cruises, excursions & tours.

So if you wanted to book a holiday which included a hotel stay in New York, Los Angeles and Hawaii; a cruise from Hawaii and then a driving tour across California- you can do that on our system. Because of the complexity of this type of an itinerary, online travel companies simply don’t have the technology to intuitively build the itinerary for the customer. If a consumer tried to book individual components themselves, they would end up paying a much higher price.

The complexity also means travel agents can mark up the price much higher than with other types of travel because they can get prices significantly lower than the customer. Even with a 35% margin, the agent would be more competitive than individual component prices the customer would have access to.

All online websites that allow you to book a multi leg flight do not offer the cheapest pricing. The reason for this is fare routing combinations. For example, a flight from London to Honolulu in Hawaii allows a routing through New York and Los Angeles. This ticket would cost under £1,000 including the stops in NY and LA. If someone wanted to travel through Washington and Las Vegas, an online website would give then the lowest published fare which indecently is over £3,000.

Using the GDS data (that we provide you access to) and viewing the permitted routing, you would be able to book flights on the permitted routing and then book 2 sector fares between New York and Washington and Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

The IATA Agent ID Card is the most widely recognised validation of a persons status as a travel agent. It allows airlines, hotels and other industry principals to check the IATA number to instantly validate an agents status within the IATA portal. The card is also a requirement at check in by airlines and hotels for those using an industry staff rate. The IATA agent portal currently has 13,414 offers on airlines, hotels, car rental, tours, transfers, excursions and ancillaries.

For an up-to-date list of offers, visit:

Familiarisation trips are run by airlines, hotels, tourist boards and tour operators to showcase the product they are promoting. These trips are FREE. They are designed to give agents an in-depth knowledge of the product or destination so they can sell more effectively.

As a certified travel agent, you will have access to hundreds of FAM trips every year. Some fam trip are designed to be small and intimate with group sizes of 4-10 people. Mega Fams can included as many as 50 people on the trip.

During a FAM trip you will be hosted from the time you arrive at the airport in the UK until the time you return. Many FAM trips will include access to the business class lounge even if you are travelling in economy. If there are spare seats available, you will often get upgraded to a premium cabin so that you can experience the product for yourself. During the trip, you will be hosted for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You will get to experience local attractions and go on popular excursions- all without paying a penny.

The downside is that you will have to travel with a random group of strangers. But we guarantee that at the end of the trip, most of you will become friends for life!

One of the great advantages of becoming a travel industry professional is the industry discounts. Airlines offer discounts of between 10% and 90% depending on the type of concession you are using. Many of the larger hotel chains also offer discounts of up to 50% on the standard rates. As a travel professional you can also contact individual hotels and ask for staff discounts and also complimentary room upgrades, executive lounge access or free breakfast. Staff travel rates are available from:

• Airlines
• Hotels
• Car Hire Operators
• Cruise Lines
• Excursion Providers
• Rail Operators
• Attraction Venues

Any travel you book will either be at the net rate which other travel companies mark up or will be a commissionable rate that you earn commission on. The difference between the net price and the gross price can be as high as 25%. In the vast majority of cases however, the differential will be 10%-15%.

What ever travel product you book, you will almost always save a substantial amount of money on the retail prices.

If you spend over £5,000 a year on travel you will earn back between £500 and £750 a year in commission or savings. If this applies to you, then you will more than cover your annual membership fees in savings and commission.

Travel agents are able to book a seat on the GDS- a system that is used by all airlines.

As soon as a seat is booked, it is a confirmed booking and the price you get at the time of holding the seat is guaranteed.

You don’t have to pay for the seat until you issue the ticket. This can be anything from 24-72 hours from the time the seat is held to 6 weeks before departure.

So you could hold a seat in January for travel in November and not have to pay for the ticket until October!

We will provide you with 250 business cards to get you on your way to promoting your travel business.

If you are intending on leveraging your personal networks to make an extra income out of travel on the side, we will provide you with a range of marketing materials to support you. Some of the things we include are:

• Promotional offer JPGs for social media
• Promotional videos for promotion on social media and YouTube
• Templates to create conversations and drive engagement about travel products on social media

The travel industry loves to put on a good show and most of all party!

You can look forward to attending launch parties, product promotion parties and various networking events and seminars throughout the year

As a Travel Group Partner, it is in our interest to help and support you to achieve your business goals. Whether you aim to sell 3 holidays a month or 30, we will have successful homeworkers ready to pass on their experience in all matters from marketing to selling to administration.

Our office based team will provide you with all the help and support you require when making bookings. We can help with questions relating to using the system, product, destinations and anything else that you may need support with. Our office based team are travel industry professionals who have decades of industry experience between them.

We have product from a range of wholesale suppliers to the travel trade within the system. You can book flights from leading UK flight consolidators, hotels from over 20 leading global bed banks as well as all the major international hotel chains. We also feature all the leading cruise lines, car hire companies, excursion providers and travel ancillary products. Featured suppliers include:

Every Professional member will get their own personalised website. We include the cost of your own domain name and logo design within the membership subscription price- you just have to choose the name. We will put up a live booking site on your domain branded with your logo colours. The site will allow your friends and family to book flights, hotels, car hire, cruise, holidays, excursions, tours, attraction tickets and ancillary products such as airport parking, transfers and travel insurance. The site will be fully automated and everything will earn you a minimum commission of 10%- so you could be earning money in your sleep!

The Travel Partner Group can be a great way of enhancing your personal CV. You will after all be working in the travel industry as a bona fide travel consultant.

If you ever decide to leave the group, we will be happy to provide you with a reference that you could use to progress you career both inside or outside the travel industry.